HeHateY

(Just be forwarned along the lines of what happened to KarenH-not that I haven't dissuaded all of you from spending your time and $$$ in the USA before)

There is a new rule at Saginaw City Council meetings. Men are required to take their hats off. Evidently, they are pretty serious about this new rule.

The man was wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers hat. Officer Doug Stacer of the Saginaw Police Department asked him to remove the hat. The man raised his voice and did not remove the hat.

As the officer tried to grab the hat and then tried to grab the man, the man with the hat tried to kick Saginaw Police Chief Gerald Cliff, who was coming to help out.

At that point, Stacer TASERed the man, which sends 50,000 volts into a person's body.

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?se...cal&id=4738161

-----

The teen isn't at student at the school, but showed up yesterday saying he wanted to register for classes.

Because he has prior weapons offenses, the school liaison officer was asked to search him. Police say he was uncooperative, so he was handcuffed.

Police spokesman Howard Payne says Jacquelyn Lightfoot arrived at the school and began swearing, screaming and demanding that her son be released.

Payne says when Lightfoot and her two daughters surrounded the officer and refused to back away, he used his Taser gun on the woman.

http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=5655357

----

Man Tasered while standing, talking

David J. Maske, 22, of Sheboygan, said he was just trying to be helpful when he was Tasered in August after not responding to an officer's commands to step out of the road.

Maske said he approached the officer to explain the domestic disturbance the officer was there to investigate — which didn't directly involve Maske — and didn't obey the commands because he thought they were directed at his brother, who the police report said was trying to pull Maske out of the road. The report says Maske told the officer he wasn't moving.

"I didn't even take a step towards (the officer). … I wasn't even getting angry or anything, I was just talking normal," said Maske, who estimated he was eight feet from the officer when the Taser was drawn. "I put my arms straight out to the side of me and was like, 'What are you going to do, shoot an unarmed man?' And my brother tried dragging me back and (the officer) shot me," Maske said.

http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/...610220499/1973

fs2k2isfun

If I were a cop, I would have tasered them also. if you can't follow simple instructions and you threaten or strike an officer, you deserve the consequences/

HeHateY

Cop instigated the grabbing in the Saginaw story.

Mother yelled at cop in the second but did not touch in the Madison story (what do they say about getting between a mother bear and her cub?)

No contact with or movement towards cop in the third story.

So the consequences of disobeying an orderin America is potential death??

tonerman

My instincts say shoot the mother,especially if the cub has prior weapons convictions

studentff

LEOs in Florida have also taken to tasering hurricane victims who want to go home to protect their property and protect it from looting:

http://www.local10.com/news/3659012/detail.html

The cops sure weren't going to defend the property from looting or put up tarps to prevent additional water damage; instead they focused their time on tasering a frustrated dad in front of his family to boost their ego and prove that they are in power.

I agree with the premise of the OP. IMO more and more tasering incidents are being reported that are clearly not about safety for the officer or the public but are clearly about the LEO proving that he is "in charge" and the most powerful person in the situation. This kind of behavior is inevitable out of some individuals when their training focuses on making sure they dominate/control every situation.

And just like the tendancy to completely empty your gun in a shooting situation (ever notice how people shot by police are often shot 10, 20, or even 30+ times), there seems to be a tendancy of police on adrenaline rushes to keep firing tasers against individuals that are clearly already incapacitated. (The repeated gunshots make sense in the context of ensuring you stop a true threat, but the repeated taserings do not as the aim is incapacitation, not death, and most of the victims are clearly already incapacitated at the time of the additional taserings.)

In this case (second article ) police tasered a 68-year-old woman who was waiting in a police station to give a statement, got tired of waiting, and got up to leave. Cops didn't like that, tasered her, ordered her to "get up" as she was writhing on the ground in agony, and continued to taser her for refusing to follow the order to get up. All in all she was tasered 5 times and had to be taken to a hospital.

Tasers do kill people. In this case police tasered a guy who was loitering, refused to show ID, supposedly did not "follow orders," and supposedly threw his elbows at the cops. The victim died four hours later. Tasering had the same effect as shooting him would have had (death); does anyone believe this situation was worth using lethal force?

IMO if a LEO discharging a taser were treated the same as discharging a firearm (automatic leave, automatic investigation), it would reduce these incidents a lot.

Police forces are a necessary evil in society, and by their very nature some LEOs will go on power trips and abuse the public. Use of tasers in pointless power plays does seem to be getting out of control. A free society can only exist if there are strong, severe checks against such abuse. There currently do not seem to be, as the vast majority of these cases seem to result in no sanction against the officer or department.

Psychocadet

Get a clue. The poor grandma was trying to escape. She was "waiting to give a statement" in regards to her own domestic violence arrest. Tasers are ment to be used in lieu of physocal contact. They are safer than chokeholds, battons. Best of all, after you are tased the pain goes away.

htb

Get a clue. All it would have taken were two officers taking one arm each, bringing her back to her seat and shackle her there. No need to taser her and taser her again for being unable to move because she was tasered.

If a police officer is unable to tackle a 68 year old grandma without the help of a taser I am really feeling unsafe.

HTB.

Psychocadet

Tasering is still safer than grabing her by an arm. Why is her age relevant? Tasers allow officers to sublue suspects quickly and without hurting the suspect or themselves. And ive seen some 70 year old grannies who can put up a fight. After all, wasn't this grannt busted for domestic violence? Now who needs to get a clue? Anything to hate the police.... sigh

copwriter

Many departments are now encouraging TASER use in any situation where the officer would otherwise be grappling with a resistive person. This is because there is substantial potential for injury to the officer, the resistive person, or both in a close-quarters situation, and there is a very low potential for injury with a TASER, where the officer and the resistive person are typically several feet apart. The TASER cartridge (they're one-use items) costs about $25. If anyone has to go to the emergency room, even for minor road rash, you're looking at several hundred dollars, and much more serious injuries are common in close-quarters situations.

I suppose anything can be said to cause potential death, but the TASER has been proven to be about the safest means for taking down a resistive person. I received an e-mail from TASER International just today, noting their 26th consecutive defense verdict in cases where TASER has been sued on a wrongful death claim. These are verdicts, not settlements - TASER prefers to go to trial.

Television has taught people that cops know secret stuff whereby they can take down physicially superior bad guys instantly and without injury. In fact, injuries to both parties are commonplace anytime an officer has to go "hands on" to restrain a resistive person. And this also means that there is a potential for a low-energy confrontation to become high-energy, because there is always at least one gun involved in the equation - the officer's. From 2000-2004, about 6% (17) of the 287 law enforcement officers who were killed with firearms were shot with their own guns.

And I would also ask that you examine your own experience here. Most of us, most men, anyway, have been in a fight or two, although the last one might have been in grade school. Have you ever been in a fight for your life? A cop who loses a fight is probably going to lose his gun. If he loses his gun, there is an excellent chance he will be killed with it. Minor incidents like the ones you described can mushroom into major donnybrooks in much less time than it takes to explain the process. The TASER virtually eliminates the chance of that happening, and has the lowest injury rate of any less-lethal device to be brought onto the market.

Your question about disobeying an order infers to me that you are a person who challenges authority, and authority figures in particular, because you think it is the right thing to do in America. You are entitled to any belief you choose, and I will not even begin to claim that all orders given by police are lawful, rational, and necessary. I know too many cops who have acted otherwise. I also know that challenging the authority of a law enforcement officer in the field invites a battle that you will almost never win, and will result in you losing your freedom and possibly your health. In the field, whether that be at roadside, at school, in an airport, or even in your living room, Mr. Officer Is Always Right. The place to challenge his authority and actions is during your constitutionally-guaranteed court appearance, where an unbiased and disinterested arbiter can hear all sides and render a decision.

By the way, I capitalize the letters in TASER because it is actually an acronym: Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle. The inventor had a sense of humor. You can win a bar bet or two with that.

essxjay

I realize safety and security is germane discussion in this forum, but this particular thread is pretty far out of the domain of travel safety/security. Please continue the discussion in Newsstand.

----------
essxjay
Travel Safety/Security moderator

AC110

Oh my, this is terrible. I guess I'm going to have to stop kicking, threatening and provoking police officers.

Oh wait, I don't do that, so I guess I don't need to worry about it.

TierFlyer

Oh, please.

First, police operate (generally) on the force+1 method. Whatever force you use will be responded to with *at least* the equivalent+1. So figure that out in a shoving match.

Second, in my home town (150K people) there were 300+ hundred arrests last month for everything from hitting someone with a baby seat (!!) to murder. There were exactly two taser incidents, with only one deployment. There were four incidents of cops pulling guns, and one shooting (hit two peeps - good shot!).

So, here at least, you're much more likely to have a gun pulled on you than a taser, though they're more likely to use the taser. See force hierarchy above.

Feel free to come to the US, we're quite nice. Don't show your *ss to a US copy any more than you would to a French Gendarme though.

GUWonder

I haven't heard anything about visiting foreigners having cops strike them with these things. At least not yet.

copwriter

Not that I'm going to convince you to consider another point of view, as it's clear to me that your mind is already made up about why cops do anything...

When cops are keeping people out of an evacuated or otherwise hazardous area, it means all the people. Everyone has a great reason as to why they should be allowed back in. The problem is that looters look just like everyone else (and otherwise law-abiding people can become looters if they know that no one is watching). There is also the issue that allowing people back into a closed area invites exactly the situation that the area was evacuated for - to prevent injuries and the loss of life resulting from whatever caused the evacuation order to be given. If you have that much difficulty with evacuation orders, complain to your lawmakers and see if there is support for removing the authority for government to use force to evacuate or secure an evacuated area.

Well, you know, you've got me there. Police are trained to make sure they control and dominate every situation, because that is what they are there for. They are authority figures, which you clearly resent. And, in most situations where there is a confrontation involving a police officer, the police are "in charge." That you do not like this does not mean that the police are wrong.

I know of two incidents like this, and my job requires that I follow these things pretty closely. It's difficult to track this precisely, but there are at least 1000 officer-involved shootings each year in this country. Can you supply any information that validates your claim that people are "often shot 10, 20 or 30+ times?" And have you ever had someone actively trying to kill you? I have (and I shot back - once), and the experience is nothing remotely like the movies or TV.


You are demonstrating that you know little or nothing about how TASERs work. A TASER can only fire twice before it must be reloaded. Officers do not usually carry spare cartridges in the field, and I don't know anyone that carries them on their person. Once the TASER is fired and has made contact, the current will flow as long as the officer pulls the trigger. Have officers been overzealous in doing this, shocking people more than was necessary? Sure. Cops get angry or amped-up, like everyone else, and they occasionally do things they shouldn't do. But I'm going to guess that there are at least 100 TASER uses every day, and very few of them make the papers.

Reading this a bit more carefully, she was shocked five times, or at least that is her claim. She is apparently none the worse for wear because of it. I also noted that she was in the police station "to be arrested for hitting her granddaughter." Are you of the opinion that the police should have allowed her to leave?

This incident happened almost a year ago. Have you done any research to find how this has played out, or is the sensationalized "cop tortures grandma" story enough for your agenda?

As I pointed out in another post, there has yet to be a verdict against TASER in a wrongful death case. In most the cases I have read, the deceased person has been under the influence of a substantial amount of illicit drugs at the time of his passing. Every judge and jury thus far has decided that the drugs had a lot more to do with the death than did the TASER. Therefore, your inference that the TASER amounts to "lethal force" and that "Tasers do kill people" is without merit.

I don't know of a police agency that doesn't require a use of force report in every case where a TASER is used. Supervisors review these reports and investigate further if there are suspicious circumstances. But putting every cop who fired a TASER on administrative leave would decimate police ranks even more than they are already. The cops might enjoy the extra time off, but that's all it would accomplish.

I have much the same sentiment about uninformed people that attack the public employees that protect them, without putting forth any effort to understand both sides of the story. Do you believe everything you see on the six o'clock news, or that you read on the internet?

Have you even considered that "the vast majority of these cases" are appropriate, reasoned uses of the least amount of force required to resolve the incident, and that is why officers were not sanctioned? Is it meaningless to you that, so far, TASER has been taken to trial 26 times on wrongful death claims, and has prevailed every time?

If you would like to examine some of this evidence yourself, TASER's press release list is here . That is only the 2006 press releases, and they were on defense verdict #12 in January. There are also a number of incidents detailed where the TASER was used in a situation that might have otherwise required deadly force.

It is unfortunate that people are so ill-behaved that it is necessary to deploy armed agents to maintain order and prevent injury to innocent citizens. But we have had these agents since at least the days of the Roman Empire, and they have always had plenty to do.

studentff

Please cite at least one case where grabbing a woman by the arm resulted in her death. Alternatively, please cite at least one case where an unarmed not-on-drugs senior citizen female in a police station surrounded by other police officers successfully attacked an officer resulting in danger to the officers or innocent persons, as that would justify this use of force against the woman.

I don't hate the police, but I do fear them. Even if 98+% percent of them are just trying to do their job well, there's still decent a chance of running into a dangerous power tripper in a dark alley, and like other's have posted, the LEO will win. Even in your own living room, and even if they are invading and searching the wrong house due to their own error.