Police with Tasers has become a hot topic on the news in the last couple years. The media loves to jump all over a cop who “over-steps his bounds” by Tasing someone. Sometimes the media is correct and sometimes they are totally wrong. Here are two examples I heard in the last 24 hours:
1. Police Tased a man in southern Utah and he ended up dying shortly thereafter. The man’s wife, who is currently pregnant, called the police to help her with her husband. He has some emotional problems, but didn’t appear to be dangerous. They Tased him, he fell unconscious, and died.
2. A policeman in Texas Tased a 72-year-old great-grandmother. This one they showed on the Today Show, and the headline made it sound “scandilous.” However, when they showed the video, the woman totally had it coming. She was not cooperating at all. The office was calm and asked the woman to step away from the busy freeway. She was a brat and kept saying things like, “Why don’t make me?” He warned her about four times that he would “Tase” her if she didn’t comply, to which she responded, “Go ahead, Tase me. I dare you. I dare you to Tase me.” After giving her many chances to avoid it, the office finally Tased her.
It appears that some officers use the device for the right reasons, while others abuse the power. Police officers have a dirty job and come up against some of the foulest people in our society, so I don’t mind that they have tools like that to help them. (I would rather they Tase someone than shoot them.) However, I don’t want them to jump to Tasing so quickly that they don’t try to take the person down with force in a safer way.
What are your thoughts on Tasing?
Last 3 posts by Mark
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Having been tased myself several times (see: Dumb Things I Did in High School with Friends), I am all for it. Yea, it hurts, but billy clubs hurt worse (see: Other Dumb Things I Did in High School).
I know there are a few officers that abuse protocol and power, but the vast majority don’t…and I am all for giving them an effective tool for dealing with potentially violent and dangerous individuals.
It seems like the controversy stems from the tasing of non-violent, but uncooperative people like the guy who stood up and started yelling at a John Kerry speech (http://tinyurl.com/2z8n56). He was yelling that he wasn’t resisting arrest, and at the same time struggling to get free. Although you have a girl screaming, “Why are you hurting him?”, she doesn’t realize that the cops were actually either using a lower voltage than usual or holding it for a shorter time as it can be used to disable someone temporarily.
Great fun on the weekends!