Tasers Unable to Stop John Kerry

I don’t know that you’re missing the point. It’s hard to tell what the kid was up to.

I will say, though, that Tasers really aren’t meant to be used for crowd control; properly used, Tasers are a non-lethal alternative in situations where lethal force is, or might be, justified. Used that way, Tasers can help cops avoid accidentally killing a suspect. God knows there are enough examples where cops have unloaded their weapons on unarmed individuals; and whether or not those instances were excusable, there’d be a lot fewer dead innocents if the cops involved had had the ability to Taser the suspect rather than shoot him.

Unfortunately, there seem to be too many instances lately where cops have used Tasers merely to subdue an “unruley” person, even if that person posed no threat of physical violence. It’s not clear to me whether a Taser should ever be used for that purpose. “Excessive force,” it seems to me, is force that is disproportionate to the threat the offender poses. Put differently, the “appropriate” level of force is not defined as, “whatever is necessary for the cop to get you to do what he wants you to do.”

Not a very legalistic analysis, but that’s where I’m coming from …

No, Adam, it’s not your haircut. Just quit using your wife’s shampoo, bud. You know how these “female” products work - one day you can’t get your dander up, the next day you can’t get your … well let’s not coarsen the conversation. I think you know what I mean.

Meester Felber, tell us more zbout zee ‘electro-parties’….

Let’s see what Biff and Sparky are up to this week.

http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/09/an_enduring_relationship.html

So true, Dave—this guy didn’t seem to offer any threat at all. His greatest offense was apparently failing to cooperate with police, which is not the same as resisting arrest. Rude? Yes. But just imagine that his target was Bush, not Kerry, and I think we’d all be “incensed”!

If your only tool is a hammer, it’s amazing how much everything looks like a nail, if your only weapon is a gun, it’s amazing how much everything looks like a target, if your only weapon is a Tazer it’s amazing how everything looks like a practice dummy.

You got it, Murray.

This occurred, of course, at my beloved alma mater. The campus police were really quite civil when I was a student there, but then we didn’t do dumbassed things like this ego-driven, celebrity-seeking journalism student did. If we were going to refuse to co-operate, it was going to be because we were being denied the right to demonstrate against racism, or else we were way too drunk, and/or we had just beaten FSU and were building a bonfire at University Avenue and 13th Street (U.S. 441).

Did I mention that we did not get a permit when we decided back in 1963 that the best way to get the attention of the owner of the most frequented cafeteria on University Avenue, which owner refused to serve blacks, including dark-skinned students, was to patronize the cafeteria en masse, letting him know in writing that our purpose was to indicate to him how many of us opposed his policy. Over a thousand of us lined up along University Avenue waiting to get in to be served. I’m sure the FBI has the count somewhere in some dusty archive.

Anyway, we got to the cash register in his head and he changed his policy. A boycott would not have given him any idea how many of us were going to stop patronizing the cafeteria if he didn’t change his policy. This action did. I bring it up because it was an actual action for some good purpose, and we were really quite orderly.

This jerk at UF was acting up and causing a flamboyant disturbance for purely personal reasons (check out Talking Points Memo), and in the process resisted the efforts of the campus police to restore civil order. I happen to support civil disobedience, and would participate if that action actually had reasonable expectations of achieving some constructive social/political goal. I would love it if everyone opposed to the war on Iraq could, simultaneously, refuse to do a goddamned thing, even move, including in their cars or on the street, for an hour, with it being clear that the point was that we’ve had it with that homicidal debacle.

But this schmuck was creating a public disturbance and disrupting a civic gathering for very selfish personal reasons. The police used bad judgment in tasering the asshole. The story warrants a brief mention, the campus police need better training in handling such situations, and the perp needs mostly to be ignored, the most effective punishment possible given his personal objective.

Wonder Warthog. Damn but I miss him. Talk about the greatest superhero of all time.

That’s not me in the photo. I never got one of the tee shirts, and my haircut was Kingston Trio. I’m near the front of the line, dressed in a button-down short sleeve shirt, Levi’s, and Bass Weejuns (which I really couldn’t afford, but which I wore until they could no longer be re-heeled or re-soled). We all made it a point to be as presentable to the general public as possible. We were of the clean-cut 50s in appearance but the enlightenment-prone 60s in mindset.

Since I was not at the Kerry/disruptive-journalism-student debacle, I might wind up having to recant my take on what happened, especially given the likelihood that every source will present it from a particular predisposition. I see some of my favorite websites are assuming it was a case of suppression of free speech, but what I read on TPM suggests otherwise. What is clear is that the campus police haven’t a clue how to handle a simple public disturbance by a single student who was not a physical threat to anyone, and John Kerry apparently once again let his restraint get the better of quick thinking and a timely, appropriate response. Pity such a good mind is held hostage to Brahmin reservations. His Viet Nam era testimony to the Senate was the John Kerry we needed in 2004, dammit.

Most disturbing is that the campus police might also do the same thing when it really is a matter of free speech.

I’m gonna have to back David and It’s Pat! with my personal and underinformed opinion on this one. Free speech and civil disobedience this was not. He’d had his chance to talk, he’d overstayed his time at the mic, and when the police attempted to restore order (their job at this function) he actively resisted. Being carried away is one thing, but breaking away and trying to get back to the front is completely different. Tasers weren’t brought out until you could see at least four officers unable to subdue him.

Quoting a Jon Stewart segment: “You’re not helping.”

Yeah, Ann, that’s right, and I think there are two separate issues here. On the freedom of speech issue, the police may have been right to ask the guy to leave under the circumstances; but it’s hard to see how their use of the Taser was justified. While the guy’s first amendment rights may not have been violated, his right to be free from excessive force most likely was.

By the way, last night on our local news they showed a clip of the student’s lawyer … who said that the kid was already in handcuffs when they Tasered him. Kinda hard to justify the use of that kind of force when you’ve already got the kid in cuffs.

I tend to agree with Ann and Dave Van E. on this situation. (Full disclosure: I am also underinformed on laws pertaining to civil disobedience.) However, I would be interested to know what kind of recourse the university has when an unruly audience member refuses to leave when asked.

Part of the reason I would like to know, is because of the similarity to the Phelps clan’s protests of funerals of gay men and military members. That’s allowed. It’s reprehensible and disgusting, but still protected free speech.

When does either action become an act of civil disobedience, or becomes “illegal” to the point where the police should step in to keep the peace or restore order? And, if the police respond to an act of civil disobedience, I’ve always been under the impression that one should “go limp”, rather than doggedly try to return to the microphone. My guess is that this “answer seeking” audience member missed that day of Protests 101 class.

All that said, I do think the police over-reacted by tasing him. In fact, in one of the other recordings of this situation (as seen on CNN), one of the police officers appears amused by the screaming of the “perp.” That’s also problematic.

Just my 2 cents worth, for what it’s worth.

Maybe I am too new to the world, but all I saw was someone resisting arrest being dealt with in a fashion that most cops use these days.

The cop told him to roll over so they could cuff him, he refused and began the “Don’t taze me, bro!” thing. When he refused a second time, the cops made him compliant. Seems a lot better than a club to the head or a mouth full of mace to me. The guy seemed to think that by promising to be a good boy, the cops were going to magically decide to not arrest him.

I am confused as to what all the hullabaloo is about. :S

Even though the kid really had no idea what he was doing, I’m not gonna kill him on this one. Instead, I’ll put the blame on the police for going over the line. Enough of these, and this country will be on the way to becoming a police state.

“By the way, last night on our local news they showed a clip of the student’s lawyer … who said that the kid was already in handcuffs when they Tasered him.”

Dave, Dave, Dave…It was the kid’s lawyer and the lawyer’s lips were moving, so what was the lawyer doing on front of the TV cameras?….(keyword above is “lawyer”.)

I’m with you, Boomer.

Gary, I’ll let the lawyer joke go … except to paraphrase what former U.S. Appellate Court Judge William Bauer used to say about our (lawyers’) professional forbears compared to doctors’ professional forbears:

When our professional ancestors were drafting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, their professional ancestors were still letting blood to cure the common cold.

Jim (OJNTNJ) - as I think about it, you’re right on the free speech issue. This is a free speech issue, because if speech isn’t free to loudmouthed, annoying assholes (the Phelps clan is a perfect example), then unfortunately, it isn’t free to the rest of us either. Sigh.

Beth wanted more pain! It didn’t hurt enough when police wrestled him to the ground and administered an electric shock! It’s not really a fascist state if nobody’s bleeding.

Sorry, Beth, but I do find your skepticism appalling. They didn’t hurt him enough, so it can’t be real? The script isn’t compelling? If he’s a reporter, we shouldn’t care?

Tasers aren’t supposed to kill, you know. It’s just an occasional unpleasant side effect.

For Lobster’s sake, will we care only if crying infants get tasered? That’s a hell of a standard.

Ta será, será…

I am on a nodding acquintenceship with a couple of campus cops here at the University of California, San Diego. Both of them seem like good folks whom I’d like to have my back in a rough situation. One of the officers was trained with and carries a Taser — they’re optional equipment for UC PD, apparently — and I asked him about the recent UCLA Library Tasering incident, for which there are some parallels here.

Based on the news reports and inter-department communication, he felt that the UCLA cops probably overreacted. He said that once the guy had been removed from the library, he would have considered the incident more or less over, since that was the ostensible reason for the clash, and everyone could have gone about their business without further interruption.

He suggested that one of the reasons cops go for the Taser is that they’re insufficiently trained. Because their pay is often less than other police forces, many campus police forces are badly understaffed (this is certainly true for the University of California) and this leads to poor training, since the cops need to be on the beat and not in the classroom, learning how to be better cops.

I suspect that poor training, rather than thuggishness, is at work in the Florida incident, as well. While it’s dangerous to generalize on the basis of a couple of isolated data points, it seems to me most cops would rather deal with a situation peacefully, without injury to anyone. The cops I know take their oath to protect and serve quite seriously.

In a conversation with one of the officers here, it was allowed as how when the police are bored, that’s a good thing, since that means nobody’s done anything stupid.

Still, given the choice, I’d rather that a cop reached for the Taser and not the nightstick or, Lobster forfend, the 9 mm pistol. Which a Taser can be lethal, you’re more likely to be able to walk away from that than a clubbing or being shot.

Best yet, of course, would be to have properly trained police who could deal with a situation without resorting to any of the above measures.

This repeats a lot of what others have said, but because tasering used in any way other than as a brief alternative to bullets is torture, I think it’s worth saying again:

1. No one is disagreeing that the guy needed to be removed from the hall. He’d asked his questions, and Kerry said he’d answer them.

2. If four security guards can’t remove someone from a room without needing a taser, then they need to be retrained or fired.

3. Tasers are to be used in subduing persons who pose an immediate physical threat to others where the only alternative would be deadly force — bullets or batons.

Tasers inflict enough pain to render someone immobile. The deliberate infliction of extreme pain is torture. The use of tasers in situations where someone is merely disruptive, disrespectful, uncooperative, or obnoxious is torture.

The instances in which tasers would be used as originally justified are very rare. The equipping of vast numbers of security guards and police with them has, as predicted, simply increased the capacity of security forces to abuse people, and to gain their compliance through the threat of such abuse. It has had the effect of normalizing torture.

Tasers have killed at least 200 people since they were introduced (Amnesty International has the reports).

The spectacle of people sitting passively by while someone is tasered, no matter how obnoxious the victim is, is a scene fit for a dictatorship. The phenomenon of commenters — sharp, worldly, humane commenters — failing to see what’s wrong with that picture is … unsettling.

Speaking of police states:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174843/turse_the_mean_streets_of_the_h omeland_security_state_let