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Kilkrazy wrote:You mean in the USA a policeman can arrest you without any charge, then arrest you for resisting when you ask him what the charge is?

Oh I see the problem. No. They can arrest you for RA independent of any other action. The case would have to be proven but thats not the point nor the intent when they do that. Its purely to let you experience the joy of a holding cell until you bail out. Even if pushed its not exactly a major offense.

Mind you the police don't want to do that either. They still have to figure out all the paper work. So you have to be a butt to get one. You have to be a real butt if the charge isn't later dropped, but it will be the least concern as the other charges would have more gravitas and penalties involved.

That's kinda funny... and kinda sad.

On a side note, regardless of the outcome of the guy's trial, do you think the police will launch an internal investigation on the officer's handling of the situation?

Kilkrazy wrote:You mean in the USA a policeman can arrest you without any charge, then arrest you for resisting when you ask him what the charge is?

Asking what's the charge? No. Refusing to be handcuffed? Yes. And heaven help you if you swing at him.

It's not worth an internal investigation. The captain will chew his ass a bit and keep the hairy eyeball on him for a couple of months.

The alleged perp clearly was a bit of a PITA.

Gornall wrote:That's kinda funny... and kinda sad.

On a side note, regardless of the outcome of the guy's trial, do you think the police will launch an internal investigation on the officer's handling of the situation?

If the treat the tazer the same as a firearm, then they are required to. More than likely they will use this as a training tool.

Once the handcuffs come out just go with the flow, be polite and follow instructions, then sue the hell out of the department.

Ahtman wrote:Once the handcuffs come out just go with the flow, be polite and follow instructions, then sue the hell out of the department.

I like the way you think.

On a serious note, I think tasers should require an internal investigation, simply because busting one of those out is/should be a big deal. Completely ignoring the whole severe pain/possible death thing for a moment... those things aren't cheap to reload from what I understand.

Cops are often violent jackholes. The general population are often idiots. This frequently results in stupid, pointless taserings. In this instance the cop was a violent jackhole, the guy was an idiot and the result was an unecessary tasering.

It makes sense to me to have as few unecessary taserings as possible, but there's not much we can do about an idiotic population. We can identify policemen that are violent jackholes and stop them being violent jackholes through improved training, stricter guidelines or (worst case scenario) firing them from the police service.

Assuming the facts as given in the article, the cop needs to be sanctioned. The level of that sanction should depend on his record. If it's his third day on the job and he's already tasered half a dozen grannies and shot the police chief's dog, it's probably time to let him go. On the other hand, if he's got twenty years behind him and this is his first blemish it shouldn't consist of anything more than the complaints resolution panel saying 'the officer used unecessary force'.

You know, I will never get America.

sebster wrote:Cops are often violent jackholes. The general population are often idiots. This frequently results in stupid, pointless taserings. In this instance the cop was a violent jackhole, the guy was an idiot and the result was an unecessary tasering.

It makes sense to me to have as few unecessary taserings as possible, but there's not much we can do about an idiotic population. We can identify policemen that are violent jackholes and stop them being violent jackholes through improved training, stricter guidelines or (worst case scenario) firing them from the police service.

Assuming the facts as given in the article, the cop needs to be sanctioned. The level of that sanction should depend on his record. If it's his third day on the job and he's already tasered half a dozen grannies and shot the police chief's dog, it's probably time to let him go. On the other hand, if he's got twenty years behind him and this is his first blemish it shouldn't consist of anything more than the complaints resolution panel saying 'the officer used unecessary force'.

Tazer beats nightstick to the skull or the dread forgetting to put on the seatbelt and breaking because of traffic manuever.

I am sure there wil be a serious investigation held at the local bar. Frankly I am fine with that. Don't get uppity to a cop. But then again I'm a meany who thinks these sorts of things need to be videotaped for my amusement. I've survived multiple mass arrests by police with guns drawn and yelling at block parties in the bad boy areas that got out of hand. The police never messed with me because I never messed with them, and I stood with officers on more than one occasion watching at the humrous antics happening a dozen yards away as people who just didn't get hassled by The Man.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
(I have no idea why suddenly can't go to California though. It doesn't sound like he had a job offer or anything. Does he have to wait a whole week for a plane ticket or something?)

He was sentenced to community service and probation, and usually that has to be performed in the place that you committed the crime in. So he was probably stuck because of that.

Frazzled wrote:Tazer beats nightstick to the skull or the dread forgetting to put on the seatbelt and breaking because of traffic manuever.

Beat me to it. The non-tazer options are far worse. I'd rather see a cop coming at me with a tazer drawn than a nightstick or pistol. Honestly, give it a few seconds thought. Blunt trauma to the back of the skull or a disabling shock, which is safer for everyone involved?

Best tazer story I've got.

In college I worked night security at an apartment complex. Work two nights a week, get a rent free apartment, sweet deal. So one Friday night we get a noise complaint. It happens and its usually not a big deal. So I go to the apartment with my partner and we knock on the door and ask them to quiet down. When they opened the door we saw a keg, everyone with a red plastic cup, and a lot of kids that we knew couldn't be college students, high school at best. We don't make a fuss about it, why? We're not total dicks and we're not cops. If they quiet down they can do as they please and we won't hassle them. They blow us off. Alright, fine. We go back to the clubhouse and half an hour later we get three complaints in the span of about five minutes. So we go back. This time one of the people in the apartment comes to the front door, we ask them to keep it to a dull roar. For our trouble we're told to "Go yourself you ing wanna be pigs and the mother er that called you."

Ok, fair enough. So we go back to the club house and call the tow company. Technically we are supposed to do this on any car without a parking tag but we don't because we're not total dicks and we don't want to have to deal with pissed off and slightly drunk underclassmen every night. But hey, all I asked was them to quiet down. I could have busted them the first time and mind you the penalty for having a keg is getting evicted. The penalty for underage drinking is getting expelled from the college. But again, we're not dicks, or we didn't used to be. We let the tow trucks play merry hell with the cars out in front of this particular building for about half an hour then we call in the off duty cops the complex hires to patrol. We tell them about the party and that it needs to be busted up. We follow them over there as the official reps of the complex.

They had to finally call in back up it got so bad. They arrested three of the four apartment residents (more on the fourth later) along with most of the party goers. I think maybe half a dozen of the people at the party could legally drink. Most of them weren't even out of high school yet so they got their parents called on them. And when they finally were let leave by the cops none of them still had their cars except for the few who parked off site.

Back to the forth apartment resident though. This was a second floor apartment and when the cops come in the guy bolts (like they don't know who he is) and jumps the balcony. While one cop guards the door the other runs out, down the stairs and chases the guy. The kid takes off across the grass courtyard barefoot and shirtless as fast as he can running for the parking lot. The cop chases him and starts to catch up. The cop draws his tazer, plants his feet and waits. When the kid's feet hit the pavement of the parking lot the cop fired and nailed him in the back with the barbs. Now you need to understand something about this parking lot. This was one of the old asphalt deals where most of the asphalt has worn away leaving nothing but the tall jagged and sometimes sharp undergravel exposed. Well when this kid got zapped by the tazer he dropped like a sack of bricks, at a full run, face first onto this old rocky asphalt without so much as an arm out to slow him down. The cop led him back to the clubhouse and he stood there with bits of gravel all in him, handcuffed, and bleeding from I don't know how many small scrapes and cuts for fifteen minutes with those tazer barbs in his back waiting for a squad car to get there.

I could not stop laughing. I finally had to leave the room.

Not to long after that the department refused to issue the guy more tazer cartridges he used it so much. So he just used his asp.

And yes, work is so boring right now I typed that all up.

While the tazer is arguably "safer" than the night stick... does that make it alright to use at the drop of a hat?

As for your story... while it definately is entertaining as someone looking in, the part about the tasering is exactly what I'm talking about. You said they already knew who the kid was and that he was fleeing the scene. Why taser him? It's not like he was going to hurt someone, which is what I thought tasers were for... not to allow a cop that probably could have caught the suspect on foot (with no risk to himself) to not have to run as far and get some enjoyment out of watching the suspect not only get tasered but get some road rash too. If you use a taser for anything short of preventing someone from getting hurt, I think you're doing it wrong.

Once again... definately funny as the guys were being PITAs, but I would say probably not right.

Gornall wrote:While the tazer is arguably "safer" than the night stick... does that make it alright to use at the drop of a hat?

As for your story... while it definately is entertaining as someone looking in, the part about the tasering is exactly what I'm talking about. You said they already knew who the kid was and that he was fleeing the scene. Why taser him? It's not like he was going to hurt someone, which is what I thought tasers were for... not to allow a cop that probably could have caught him a suspect on foot to not have to run as far and get some enjoyment out of watching the suspect not only get tasered but get some road rash too.

Once again... definately funny as the guys were being PITAs, but I would say probably not right.

Really? As opposed to letting a potentially drunken idiot jump into a car and speed away to endanger others? As opposed to the cop having to tackle the kid on the asphalt and potentially injure him even worse and risk injury to the cop? To let the kid resist arrest and get away with it? The only questionable part of it was waiting a handful of seconds to let the kid skid on the asphalt as opposed to the grass and good luck proving he wasn't just aiming.

Tackling on the asphalt... I don't know about that. If you're gaining, run up and give him a nice push/trip and you have the same skid without the juice. To me that's less chance of injury.

As to getting away with it, as you said, they knew who he was and saw him fleeing from the scene. At worst he sobers up and they get him the next day when he tries to come back to his apartment and nail him with providing booze to underage kids.

I hadn't thought about the drinking and driving bit, so that's actually a pretty reasonable argument for lighting him up.

Gornall wrote:Tackling on the asphalt... I don't know about that. If you're gaining, run up and give him a nice push/trip and you have the same skid without the juice. To me that's less chance of injury.

The juice hasn't proven to a significant source of injury as far as I am aware, and getting close enough to him to do something like trip him, especially at a full run? Less chance of injury? Really?

As to getting away with it, as you said, they knew who he was and saw him fleeing from the scene. At worst he sobers up and they get him the next day when he tries to come back to his apartment and nail him with providing booze to underage kids.

I wasn't suggesting getting away with all of it, merely getting away with resisting arrest. You can't just let someone run like that and get away with it if its in your power to stop it. The cop had the power to stop him and enforce the arrest so he used it.

Tyyr wrote:

Gornall wrote:Tackling on the asphalt... I don't know about that. If you're gaining, run up and give him a nice push/trip and you have the same skid without the juice. To me that's less chance of injury.

The juice hasn't proven to a significant source of injury as far as I am aware, and getting close enough to him to do something like trip him, especially at a full run? Less chance of injury? Really?

As to getting away with it, as you said, they knew who he was and saw him fleeing from the scene. At worst he sobers up and they get him the next day when he tries to come back to his apartment and nail him with providing booze to underage kids.

I wasn't suggesting getting away with all of it, merely getting away with resisting arrest. You can't just let someone run like that and get away with it if its in your power to stop it. The cop had the power to stop him and enforce the arrest so he used it.

Actually their safety depends on who you talk to, so I can't argue one way or the other. However, I was under the impression that police use of tasers was supposed to be a subsitute for deadly force or to prevent harm to the officer, the suspect, or civilians... not for forcing an arrest.

Yet in this case it prevents harm to the officer by removing his need to tackle the suspect and engage him physically.

It depends on what is considered a reasonable risk of harm to the officer. Just as an uninformed observer, I would argue that whatever risk to the officer in tackling/tripping/grabbing/nightsticking the fleeing, barefoot, drunk college kid is outweighed by the risk of using a taser. Their original (possibly not anymore) intended use was to use them only as an alternative to lethal force. So in this case, would the officer have been justified in shooting the kid? No... and therefore, the use of the taser has to be examined in that light.

Basically, I think the officer had options even besides tackling him. Let the kid go and get him in the morning. However, if the officer honestly believed that the kid warranted enough of a threat that he absolutely had to be brought down right then, then who am I to question that. However, from your description of the event and the officer's history, that's not what drove him to pull the taser. He was pissed that this punk kid was running from him and making him chase him, so he zapped the kid and had a good laugh about it.

Tyyr wrote:

Gornall wrote:While the tazer is arguably "safer" than the night stick... does that make it alright to use at the drop of a hat?

As for your story... while it definately is entertaining as someone looking in, the part about the tasering is exactly what I'm talking about. You said they already knew who the kid was and that he was fleeing the scene. Why taser him? It's not like he was going to hurt someone, which is what I thought tasers were for... not to allow a cop that probably could have caught him a suspect on foot to not have to run as far and get some enjoyment out of watching the suspect not only get tasered but get some road rash too.

Once again... definately funny as the guys were being PITAs, but I would say probably not right.

Really? As opposed to letting a potentially drunken idiot jump into a car and speed away to endanger others? As opposed to the cop having to tackle the kid on the asphalt and potentially injure him even worse and risk injury to the cop? To let the kid resist arrest and get away with it? The only questionable part of it was waiting a handful of seconds to let the kid skid on the asphalt as opposed to the grass and good luck proving he wasn't just aiming.

Additionally Captain Shirtless could have had illicit drugs and guns. You wouldn't want Captain Shirtless getting into a car, killing a family of four and then getting out and playing AudieMurphy with the hadngun would you? Sound preposterous? happens.

Several people have been killed by Tasers. That's why it is a controversial "non-lethal" weapon.

Gornall wrote:He was pissed that this punk kid was running from him and making him chase him, so he zapped the kid and had a good laugh about it.

I would've done the same. Along with most of the people here.
But seriously, if he really was to play it like a pro, yes he would've waited until morning and pick him up during sleep. Now that would've made for a good laugh, see the punk's face waking up handcuffed and with the police all over him. But hey, it's much much much easier to go with the flow and tase his smart-butt. Feth the consequences, bring him down!
They should make this a penalty for law enforcement, failing to use their brain or sth.

Gornall wrote: At worst he sobers up and they get him the next day when he tries to come back to his apartment and nail him with providing booze to underage kids.

No, the idiocy of that statement is staggering. The worst is he gets in a car and highspeeds it out. In his drunken hottheadness he then sideswipes a car and kills everyone inside it. Come on wise up a little.

Frazzled wrote:

Gornall wrote: At worst he sobers up and they get him the next day when he tries to come back to his apartment and nail him with providing booze to underage kids.

No, the idiocy of that statement is staggering. The worst is he gets in a car and highspeeds it out. In his drunken hottheadness he then sideswipes a car and kills everyone inside it. Come on wise up a little.

Actually i side with gornall on this. College/high-school kid, no money, no house, no options. No matter how stupid he is, he knows he has to get back. But he'll definitely try to sneak in and not take the front door

Frazzled wrote:

Gornall wrote: At worst he sobers up and they get him the next day when he tries to come back to his apartment and nail him with providing booze to underage kids.

No, the idiocy of that statement is staggering. The worst is he gets in a car and highspeeds it out. In his drunken hottheadness he then sideswipes a car and kills everyone inside it. Come on wise up a little.

I admit that is a valid concern and something I hadn't thought about initially. However, considering he was half-dressed and barefoot, I doubt he had car keys, even if his car hadn't been towed. In any case, I doubt that is what the cop was thinking about when he squeezed off the taser shot. "Hehehehe... floop like a fish mother-!"

Gornall wrote:It depends on what is considered a reasonable risk of harm to the officer.

If your options are a method that harms only the perp or a method that harms the perp just as much if not worse and adds in the possibility of injuring the officer as well what person in their right mind advocates the second?

Just as an uninformed observer, I would argue that whatever risk to the officer in tackling/tripping/grabbing/nightsticking the fleeing, barefoot, drunk college kid is outweighed by the risk of using a taser.

Yet by your own admission you can't argue that using a tazer is any more unsafe than a nightstick to the back of the head. Using the tazer eliminates the risk to the officer. It doesn't give the suspect the chance to get close enough to physically assault the officer or worse give them a chance to make for the officer's weapons. The suspect is usually stopped and has no more ability to resist reducing the need to physically restrain them or use more drastic means to halt their attempts to flee.

As for tripping... I repeat, really? Have you ever tried to trip someone while walking yourself? Half the time you almost end up on your ass yourself. Now try it while running at full speed after an evading suspect. Good luck. Grabbing just gets you into a fist fight. A nightstick at a full run will be pretty much equivalent to the tazer, except for the additional blunt force trauma of the night stick, and tackling gets you into a physical altercation with the benefit of a nice fall to the pavement first. And these are safer options that a tazer?

Their original (possibly not anymore) intended use was to use them only as an alternative to lethal force. So in this case, would the officer have been justified in shooting the kid? No... and therefore, the use of the taser has to be examined in that light.

The tazer is intended to allow an officer to subdue a suspect without having to physically engage them. It takes the place of all physical force right up to the point where the officer needs to use deadly force.

Tyyr wrote:The tazer is intended to allow an officer to subdue a suspect without having to physically engage them. It takes the place of all physical force right up to the point where the officer needs to use deadly force.

Is that the policy? If so, then I'll be quiet as the cop was completely within his rights. I'm arguing under the assumption that tasers are meant as a replacement for deadly force. I think the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated that Tasers should only be used by police in situations where the person poses an obvious danger. If that is the new precedent, that means that tasing fleeing or uncombatitive suspects probably goes away.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/30/local/la-me-taser30-2009dec30

I tend to be of Fraz’ opinion on the new story. If the guy’s drunk enough to run from the cops, he’s potentially hazardous. Better to stop him. Dropping him in the gravel deliberately would be inappropriate, but not so brutal as to be totally indefensible.

As for the original story, based on the facts as reported in the newspaper article, including the quotes from the court record, the cop is a violent jackass and was out of line. The kid had the right to stay nearby, to wait for his ID to be returned. He certainly would be out of line to actually interfere with the police, but the facts as reported don’t show that he did. There may be more to the story, but based on what we have, it’s bad police work and abuse of authority. The kid did not curse, raise his voice, or escalate to violence. The officer did. The officer is an armed and trained public servant, who is supposed to be capable of de-escalating confrontations. Many good officers do it every day.

Tasers are psychic weapons? How is being zapped not being physically engaged?

Nurglitch wrote:Tasers are psychic weapons? How is being zapped not being physically engaged?

You are physically engaged, the Officer is not. If you see what I mean.