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 Sigvatr wrote:
I can only facepalm when I read all those "She's just 8 years old, just disarm her!" comments. I highly suggest watching less Hollywood movies.

Yes, the kid's 8 years old. Do you guys have a lot of experience with small children? Children can, despite their vastly inferior phyiscal power, still focus quite a considerable force when they are angry or disstressed. If a kid has a knife, you're talking seriously here. First of all, disarming a kid is more difficult than disarming an adult because you are not used to it - when, in any melee class, have you ever been taught at how to deal with someone that small? Your muscle memory is taught to work against people of roughly your size.

And as others already pointed out, the kid's in danger as well. The kid cannot handle a knife properly and might easily hurt itself.

Tazering the child allowed the conflict to end without any harm for any of the involved. It was a good call. Maybe not the best, but in the end, nobody has been severely injured and that's always nice to hear.

Well it would be easy to disarm an 8 year old, but the way its easy would get the same lawsuit.
Kicking them through a wall, would be the easiest but it would strangely be frowned upon and could lead to permanent damage...

Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

I don't see any reason to "argument" when a dangerous situation has been resolved with nobody being severely injured.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

Again PLEASE CITE ANOTHER OPTION.

Oh wait I have one. The police could say "sorry, its not a crime. You handle it." I'd go for that one.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

Right... you forgot your hollywood solutions like throwing a bat-smoke bomb and heat ray vision to stop her.

She lunged and swiped at officers with the knife as they got close... She is lucky she doesn't have charges filed against her.

And they were in the child's own home and when the babysitter was asked 'is there a gun in the home' the answer was 'I don't know.' So let's say they try to go all batman and disarm her, and they fail and she runs away in her own home and goes to where here negligent mother (who raised a bad child) left her gun... Bam, now it is a gun toting 8-year old.

All the arguments of 'she obviously wasn't going to do it' are bomb threat arguments. Why do they always take bomb threats and bomb disposals seriously even though it is always a hoax? because when it isn't a hoax it is bad news. So if she says she is gonna kill herself, you take it seriously, if she attacks officers, you take it seriously, if you fear for the unknown or escalating violence you take it seriously. You don't charge someone who is threatening to kill themselves as it may force them to do it. Getting 'close enough to sneak up' isn't as easy as you claim. Tazer ended the situation quickly and reasonably considering the situation.

Maybe this will result in the child getting medical help before she ends up in the for-profit prison system. If she would have actually harmed a cop with her knife, charges would have been filed and her life would have been pretty much over.

 Da Boss wrote:
Grand, and if it were an adult with a knife I'd have no problem if the person was tased- better than shooting him, and considering the much greater risk to the officer, it's sensible.

My issue comes from using the taser on a little kid, where the risk of negative side effects is much higher due to the lower body mass, and the other options are a lot less risky.

You're right, an eight year old is completely incapable of stabbing with a knife, swinging with a knife, or stabbing or cutting herself with a knife. The innocent children of the world have never been able to murder or harm, and if one has a sharp weapon that is the cause of thousands and thousands of deaths every year they are still completely safe and can be charged without harm coming to yourself.

Go back and read my posts in this thread, I've stated what I think they should have done. I'm tired of repeating myself.

Sigvatr: They're lucky they didn't have serious consequences. If I drive dangerously but don't crash, I'm still at fault even though I didn't cause an accident.

nkelsch, The hedge Knight: Your posts are making me lose a lot of respect for both of you. I've put forward an argument that it doesn't take batman or superman to disarm someone with a knife, are you going to address that? And The Hedge Knight, if there's an award for putting words in people's mouths, you might be a shoe in. Not impressed.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

Again PLEASE CITE ANOTHER OPTION.

Call DaBoss's dad

Well, I guess it's a matter of different cultures.

Here, in Belgium, we are more about talking with people rather than tazering them. Mostly because weapons are strongly restricted. I can understand that in America where children can wield guns, the police has to be much more careful while dealing with 8 years old - but still, it's hard for me to understand how can someone seriously thinks the only answer here was shooting the kid with electricity (or use violence, by any means).

Especially when the girl actually was throwed against the wall because of the taser. Sounds quite...harsh as a result. Sure, kid is alive and she will certainly never forget the lesson, but still...it is a bit questionable at best, to me.

 Da Boss wrote:


Sigvatr: They're lucky they didn't have serious consequences. If I drive dangerously but don't crash, I'm still at fault even though I didn't cause an accident.

So you're comparing willingly putting yourself at risk in being forced to being in a dangerous situation?

I think this was unnecessary. The cops could have given her a five dollar bill for this incident and bribed her into possibly putting down the knife.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

Again PLEASE CITE ANOTHER OPTION.

Oh wait I have one. The police could say "sorry, its not a crime. You handle it." I'd go for that one.

What about tranq darts?

Works great in spy movies.

 Sigvatr wrote:

So you're comparing willingly putting yourself at risk in being forced to being in a dangerous situation?

Come on, you're an adult with other adults around you and you are dealing with one child. Even with the kid wielding a knife, your only answer is to shoot her with electricity with the high potential to kill her? Now, that is scary.

"Willingly putting yourself at risk" is part of the job of a police officer or a soldier. It's why they deserve respect and admiration.

It still seems like none of you are willing to address anything I've been saying. That's quite interesting. Ah well, continue to make bad jokes, it is difficult to admit when you're losing an argument, I understand

 Da Boss wrote:
Grand, and if it were an adult with a knife I'd have no problem if the person was tased- better than shooting him, and considering the much greater risk to the officer, it's sensible.

My issue comes from using the taser on a little kid, where the risk of negative side effects is much higher due to the lower body mass, and the other options are a lot less risky.

Just so we're clear, no one in this thread wants to start a petition to tazer more 8 year olds.

It's not a great thing that happened by any use of the word great.

Yeah, I'm sure nobody is happy that the kid went mental, threatened people and got tased. It's a crappy situation. I'm not implying that anyone is cheerleading tasing little kids here.

Well, if it wasn't unethical, I'd say let's put you in a room with an angry, mental 8 year old with a knife and see you resolve the situation.

Situation got resolved with little harm done, period.

Saying "period" after a sentence doesn't actually make a statement definitive.

The article is nebulous on the circumstances and/or the police are poorly trained.

Edged weapon counter tactics, anyone? On average, an eight year old female child is 57 lbs, 50 inches.

Poor form, boys.

Just because a job was finished and didn't result in harm doesn't mean that it was done right or that you couldn't do it better.

I wonder if "I'm done arguing with a fething 8 year old, taze her" was a factor at all.

 Da Boss wrote:
"Willingly putting yourself at risk" is part of the job of a police officer or a soldier. It's why they deserve respect and admiration.

It still seems like none of you are willing to address anything I've been saying. That's quite interesting. Ah well, continue to make bad jokes, it is difficult to admit when you're losing an argument, I understand

You still ignore the fact she had a knife to her own throat and any agressive action by police could have made her kill herself.

All your ninja suggestions are based upon two false assumptions:
1. She was never serious about killing herself.
2. The knife was being used to attack police only, and could be disarmed easily.

That is why you fail.

And I know 8 year olds who know martial arts who could destroy you and would never easily be disarmed. Of course success in the police world is making assumptions and risking harm right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AesSedai wrote:
The article is nebulous on the circumstances and/or the police are poorly trained.

No it isn't. We have all the facts. the entire impartial 3rd party report was posted in the article and in this thread. We have pretty much all the facts from all the points of view.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

Again PLEASE CITE ANOTHER OPTION.

Call DaBoss's dad

Dads can be badasses. Ghost Frazzled Sr. would have had her doing pushups in three seconds flat. of course Ghost Frazzled Sr. would have probably thrown the mother down stairs in a footlocker to better motivate her on how to be a good parent.

Such as the assumption that she would not spasm and cut herself when hit by the taser, fall over on the knife, hit her head, have her heart stopped by the voltage or any number of other complications?

My ninja suggestions. Cool. I don't remember recommending that anyone throw shuriken at her and then totally uppercut her through a window. I must have blacked out there.

Edit: Side issue, but I'm also annoyed by the auto-assumption that the mother must be a terrible mother (no mention of the father being a terrible father, which is also interesting). Maybe the kid is just mentally ill and there's nothing the mother could do about it? I mean, equally, maybe she's a terrible mother (and the dad is totally blameless), but how is it relevant in any way?

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, because the only options are doing nothing, shooting her full of electricity, baton to the head, or kicking her through a wall.

Great argument technique there.

Again PLEASE CITE ANOTHER OPTION.

Oh wait I have one. The police could say "sorry, its not a crime. You handle it." I'd go for that one.

What about tranq darts?

Works great in spy movies.

Well if they were NY cops they would have shot the babysitter, each other, seven bystanders, a nearby cat, and maybe if they were really lucky, the girl.

 Da Boss wrote:
Such as the assumption that she would not spasm and cut herself when hit by the taser

Ehm...

 Sarouan wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

So you're comparing willingly putting yourself at risk in being forced to being in a dangerous situation?

Come on, you're an adult with other adults around you and you are dealing with one child. Even with the kid wielding a knife, your only answer is to shoot her with electricity with the high potential to kill her? Now, that is scary.

Thats not the only answer, but its the only answer that doesn't lead to permanent injuries on anyone, police included.


Again, what exactly would you have done? I keep hearing "they're bad and they should feel bad" BUT WHAT SHOULD THEY HAVE DONE?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Grand, and if it were an adult with a knife I'd have no problem if the person was tased- better than shooting him, and considering the much greater risk to the officer, it's sensible.

My issue comes from using the taser on a little kid, where the risk of negative side effects is much higher due to the lower body mass, and the other options are a lot less risky.

Just so we're clear, no one but Frazzled in this thread wants to start a petition to tazer more 8 year olds.

It's not a great thing that happened by any use of the word great.

Corrected your typo.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I can only facepalm when I read all those "She's just 8 years old, just disarm her!" comments. I highly suggest watching less Hollywood movies.

Yes, the kid's 8 years old. Do you guys have a lot of experience with small children? Children can, despite their vastly inferior phyiscal power, still focus quite a considerable force when they are angry or disstressed. If a kid has a knife, you're talking seriously here. First of all, disarming a kid is more difficult than disarming an adult because you are not used to it - when, in any melee class, have you ever been taught at how to deal with someone that small? Your muscle memory is taught to work against people of roughly your size.

And as others already pointed out, the kid's in danger as well. The kid cannot handle a knife properly and might easily hurt itself.

Tazering the child allowed the conflict to end without any harm for any of the involved. It was a good call. Maybe not the best, but in the end, nobody has been severely injured and that's always nice to hear.

Actually, yes I have. I am in training to become a coach in Judo, and have been a Judoka for the past 11 years (since I was 6). I have plenty of experience both fighting against (in my younger years) demonstrating and intructing other children how to do it.
Its not hard. Its really not hard at all. You grab the hand or wrist and pull firmly but gently down and away from the wielder and bob's your uncle.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I'm pretty sure a kid who feels the need to act out whilst in possession of a knife isn't going to react rationally when confronted by Americas finest.

I do wonder what led to the babysitter calling the cops though. A kid acting out? something more?

I didn't know we sent a team of Green Berets or a SEALs in to take this girl down


I think that the article basically said that the babysitter called the cops because of this girl grabbing a knife and brandishing it/possibly threatening people, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:
Its not hard. Its really not hard at all. You grab the hand or wrist and pull firmly but gently down and away from the wielder and bob's your uncle.

I really don't think it's as easy as you're making out... small kids don't behave as adults. It's "easier" to disarm an adult with a knife because in a fight/scuffle the person with a knife will try to gain the upper hand with it. Small children don't necessarily do this. They see someone trying to take their *thing (whatever they're actually holding, whether its a knife or not) away from them, and will try to keep the object away from whoever is trying to take it. This makes their motion very erratic and unpredictable making that grab for the wrist not only more difficult, but because we're talking about a knife here, more dangerous.

 Da Boss wrote:

I've put forward an argument that it doesn't take batman or superman to disarm someone with a knife, are you going to address that?

While that's certainly true there aren't many ways to do so safely that don't involve violence of some type, generally a blunt object to the forearm if no other option is available; an action which would still have landed these officers in hot water. The argument put forward by the plaintiffs in this case, distract the girl and grab her arm, is ludicrous. This has every hallmark of a family and lawyer seeing dollar signs.

If other options were impossible to act on was it proceduraly(sp?) correct to use a tazer on the child?

I'm still hedging on yes. Distasteful as it maybe. Asking around in my circles has brought up that same sort of answer.

What if the officers had subdued the child themselves and injuries had resulted to the kid? broken wrist, falling, breaking a rib etc There is the possibility of a litigious parent/parents and a lawyer wanting a few bucks to make something more out the case anyway.