Police Officers: Should they continue using Tazers?

DeletedUser

Artemis has a very valid point. Papers aren't going to publish that kind of thing because it doesn't sell papers. News Stations won't say anything about it because it won't raise their ratings.

No one wants to know when something good happens. Most only listen to or read the news to find out all the bad things that happen.

I'd love to turn on the news some night and hear that someone was saved because of the job the police do. Or hear about the Scout leader who has taken his boys to camp and brought them all back safely. I'd like to hear about the good things going on. But all most people care to hear about are the bad.
 

DeletedUser

That doesn't justify misuse of tazers...just because there happened to be tazers used on people that didn't kill them. They malfunction, are unpredictable, and kill people. Should they be used? No. They are not a safe alternative to guns. Let's not give the cops more deadly weapons to misuse and pull out at a moment's notice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv6jR-9Z4mw

This guy was panicked, tired and acting irrationally. Yes it could have been a dangerous situation, however he didn't throw things at the cops, he backed off, and they still kept speaking to him in English, and not at all trying to calm him down...did they need to use tazers? Definitely not. They could've used pepper spray, had things gotten out of hand, but 4 cops could've easily restrained him without any weapons.

Still want a tazer used on you? Cuz I sure don't...ever been electrocuted, even by something small? It's really not fun. I can't imagine that amount of voltage ripping through my body. No thanks.
 

DeletedUser

Your link wasn't involving police in the USA. And since I don't know the laws or what they are taught in Canada I can't comment on that incident.

If you aren't breaking the law then you have no reason to fear the law here.
 

DeletedUser

I know it wasn't in the USA. I'm helping show my point of view from stuff that's happened here...

Don't know the laws? Okay, but this has nothing to do with the laws. The cops came into a scene, and 29 seconds later tazered a guy who couldn't understand what they were saying. It was brutal and unnecessary force, and that doesn't require any discussion about law...if you think that's what Canadian cops are taught, then your country should be wayyyy more afraid of us.

Did that not shock you at all? (pardon the pun) Or is kneeling on someone's neck after they've been tazered and are lying on the floor stunned what you normally see in the USA?

I don't fear the law, I fear how easily cops are pulling out tazers when they aren't that safe. Those 4 cops could've easily restrained him without it...that's all I'm saying.
 

DeletedUser

Panache I'm not saying what they did was right. By no means was the force they used in the instance right at all.

Did it shock me? No, sorry to say but it didn't. I watch TruTV so very little shocks me anymore.

There are good and bad in all groups of people. The main point I'm trying to get across is 9 times out of 10 if you do what you're told by a policeman then you don't need to worry about being tased.

I can do a search and find 1500 cases about someone being hurt by a taser but not 1 about the people who are saved because of the policeman using the taser to subdue someone. And I know there are a lot of those things happening also. We can't say something is bad and shouldn't be used or done just because of what the news reports.
 

DeletedUser

I guess I'm saying they can kill, therefore if they are going to be used, they should be used with the same respect as a gun. And they're not. They are being misused, and that is most likely why people are dying.

If they're going to use them, it should very much be a last resort. They should have them tested on a regular basis to make sure they are not malfunctioning. There are things cops need to do first, before pulling out the tazer, that is more so the basis of my posts. Misuse. If they can get that under control, then they are at least not used when unnecessary, and the 1500 cases will be greatly reduced...hopefully.

In the video I posted, the man didn't understand English, how is he able to do what the cops told him? What should they do for situations like that?
 

DeletedUser

They should have asked if anyone spoke his language and if there wasn't they should have gotten someone there who did. They could have defused the whole situation by making everyone stay back and waited for a translator to arrive. Sadly though they didn't.
 

DeletedUser

Panache said:
In a dangerous situation, when a suspect is armed, nobody but the suspect really knows what is going to happen, so cops use guns to take them down to prevent innocent people from being hurt. But I think in some cases, like when a suspect is running away, cops aren't shooting to kill, they shoot to prevent the person from getting away so they can arrest them. They'll shoot them in the lower leg or something. Their role is to arrest the suspects and let the law deal with them. If the situation is very dangerous, they have no choice but to protect others, and sometimes the suspect is killed. Yes, they can accidentally hit major ateries when aiming for legs, and the person can bleed out, but that's not generally their goal.

However, with tazers, they can't control a thing. They don't know how a person's system will take the shock, therefore it can be more dangerous because of the unknown variables.

I think tazers are more dangerous for that reason. They know what damage a gun can do. They are told that tazers are safe by manufacturers, but cops don't always know what damage tazers will do.
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A cop will never "Aim for the legs" and never "Shoot them to make them stop running away"

At least, not if he wants to stay a cop, or out of prison
 

DeletedUser

Panache said:
I guess I'm saying they can kill, therefore if they are going to be used, they should be used with the same respect as a gun. And they're not. They are being misused, and that is most likely why people are dying.

If they're going to use them, it should very much be a last resort. They should have them tested on a regular basis to make sure they are not malfunctioning. There are things cops need to do first, before pulling out the tazer, that is more so the basis of my posts. Misuse. If they can get that under control, then they are at least not used when unnecessary, and the 1500 cases will be greatly reduced...hopefully.

In the video I posted, the man didn't understand English, how is he able to do what the cops told him? What should they do for situations like that?
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Did the cops know he didn't understand them, or that he spoke only a different language. They saw what appeared to be a deranged man, out of control, and apparently crazy.

Would you have preffered they try to tackle, then find out he was high on pcp, end up with 4 hurt cops, and STILL a rampaging maniac?

They deployed the tazer, put him on the ground, subdued him, and maintained physical control over him until he was restrained. They didn't know what chemicals he may have been on, or how long the tazer was going to be effective.



You indicate the tazer should only be used when you would use a gun, treat it with the same respect, ERR, then why not just use the gun.
 

DeletedUser

Morph96070 said:
A cop will never "Aim for the legs" and never "Shoot them to make them stop running away"

At least, not if he wants to stay a cop, or out of prison
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Before tazers were handed out, if the person is armed and running, did the cops let them go? Did they shoot to kill? I thought I'd read somewhere that they were to try and take them down, not kill. Maybe that was some politician's idea...my apologies.


Morph96070 said:
Did the cops know he didn't understand them, or that he spoke only a different language. They saw what appeared to be a deranged man, out of control, and apparently crazy.
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People attempted to talk to him, or to calm him down, but he would only speak what they thought was Russian. When the cops arrived, people told them that he didn't speak English, you can hear them say it in the video. (or maybe it was a different cut of the vid, I watched a couple.)


They deployed the tazer, put him on the ground, subdued him, and maintained physical control over him until he was restrained. They didn't know what chemicals he may have been on, or how long the tazer was going to be effective.
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The officer would not have needed to kneel on the guy's neck for that long. After they realized he was unconscious, they checked his vitals, but did not do anything to revive him. They waited for EMS. That was another mistake they made, in my opinion.

If the guy had been high on PCP, or acting erratic and such, wouldn't he have been arrested right off the plane? In the very least cops would've been waiting for him. Otherwise, he was in a secure part of the airport and wouldn't have had access to narcotics.

They barely attempted talking to him for 30 seconds before tazing him, and they didn't ask security many questions before charging in there. If they had, they might have found out that he had been there for quite a few hours and seemed confused and disoriented, and definitely unable to communicate.

You indicate the tazer should only be used when you would use a gun, treat it with the same respect, ERR, then why not just use the gun.
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The cops are probably not going to ditch them any time soon, right? So at the very least, yeah, 2nd to last resort for unarmed people maybe?
 

DeletedUser

Morph96070 .. yes the cops knew he didn't speak English, or at least they should have known it if they had listened to the people around them. Heck if they had listened to him they could have told he didn't speak English.

Before they even knew what was going on the one policeman asked if he could tase him .. that in itself makes that cop sound like he was wanting to do it long before they arrived. Did you even bother to listen or watch the vid?
 

DeletedUser

Panache said:
Before tazers were handed out, if the person is armed and running, did the cops let them go? Did they shoot to kill? I thought I'd read somewhere that they were to try and take them down, not kill. Maybe that was some politician's idea...my apologies.




People attempted to talk to him, or to calm him down, but he would only speak what they thought was Russian. When the cops arrived, people told them that he didn't speak English, you can hear them say it in the video. (or maybe it was a different cut of the vid, I watched a couple.)




The officer would not have needed to kneel on the guy's neck for that long. After they realized he was unconscious, they checked his vitals, but did not do anything to revive him. They waited for EMS. That was another mistake they made, in my opinion.

If the guy had been high on PCP, or acting erratic and such, wouldn't he have been arrested right off the plane? In the very least cops would've been waiting for him. Otherwise, he was in a secure part of the airport and wouldn't have had access to narcotics.

They barely attempted talking to him for 30 seconds before tazing him, and they didn't ask security many questions before charging in there. If they had, they might have found out that he had been there for quite a few hours and seemed confused and disoriented, and definitely unable to communicate.



The cops are probably not going to ditch them any time soon, right? So at the very least, yeah, 2nd to last resort for unarmed people maybe?
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In case you didn't notice, he was throwing stools and computers. That's VIOLENT, erratic, confused, and disoriented. They attempted to communicate, and he turned away from them. The broken glass and thrown items would indicate he was unstable.

And, he wouldn't have been arrested straight off the plane, unless he was acting like that in the air. It would have been possible for a drug induced psychosis to take quite a long time to take effect, especially with something like PCP.

Yes, I know that PCP wasn't involved, but from experience, I could easily have attributed an unintelligible, erratic, violent outburst like the man exhibited to someone who was freaking out from PCP or LSD.

It's easy to look back in time and say "Oh, all they needed was an interpreter, he was just tired and frustrated" but the officers didn't KNOW what they had. They had people telling them the guy didn't speak english, and they had a violent, erratic person who was potentially a threat to anyone in the airport.
 

DeletedUser

SmittenKitten said:
Morph96070 .. yes the cops knew he didn't speak English, or at least they should have known it if they had listened to the people around them. Heck if they had listened to him they could have told he didn't speak English.

Before they even knew what was going on the one policeman asked if he could tase him .. that in itself makes that cop sound like he was wanting to do it long before they arrived. Did you even bother to listen or watch the vid?
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That cop was responding to the damage the person had already done to the facility with violent outbursts.
 

DeletedUser

Morph96070 said:
It's easy to look back in time and say "Oh, all they needed was an interpreter, he was just tired and frustrated" but the officers didn't KNOW what they had. They had people telling them the guy didn't speak english, and they had a violent, erratic person who was potentially a threat to anyone in the airport.
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I'm just saying they could've asked some questions to the security staff before heading in there if they didn't know what they had.
 

DeletedUser

We don't know what they spoke with the airport security, before they went anywhere near the subject, or the video camera. Or what the guy was doing in the time period the camera was off, between the chair/computer throwing, and when the police arrived. There was a pretty big cut there, either editting, or the guy just didn't film it.
 

DeletedUser

Morph96070 said:
We don't know what they spoke with the airport security, before they went anywhere near the subject, or the video camera. Or what the guy was doing in the time period the camera was off, between the chair/computer throwing, and when the police arrived. There was a pretty big cut there, either editting, or the guy just didn't film it.
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Yeah, the news station cut out the part where the cops hopped over the bar to enter the door.

Full video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CR_k-dTnDU
 

DeletedUser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QTd8vXOhZs

Here's one the news did release. And when you watch it maybe everyone will have a clearer idea as to why Panache is so upset about it.

There was no interpreter brought in and security can be heard telling the police that one was needed. When he threw his hands up they could have just as easily grabbed his arms and restrained him but they didn't. They tasered him twice. They did not help when even though they knew cpr.
 

DeletedUser

I think what you're not getting is that I question your assertion that the police never spoke with security.

I suspect it's quite likely that police spoke with security before they ever approached the area where the Civillian with the camera was.

I also question your assertion that the voices heard on the tape are security personell. The speakers may have been much closer to the person with the camera than to the officers, meaning that the camera could hear it over the general noise of the airport, but the officers may not have.


Regardless, Armchair quarterbacking an isolated incident does nothing for the Original topic.

Despite a relatively small number of isolated incidents, Tasers are a valid tool for Law Enforcement.

Tasers save lives.

There are always going to be cops who abuse a tool, or use it improperly. That can be corrected through discipline where it's appropriate, and training.
 

DeletedUser

I totally agree with you there. In every group there are going to be people who misuse the equipment and need training... policeman are no different.

Taser have and do save lives.
 
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