College Police group get taser happy on annoying Florida student (1 Viewer)

[Paul McElligott]

And "non-lethal" is rarely used except by the media. LEO's and the makers of these weapons use the term "less lethal."

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

And the academic tasering continues. (Not.)

Report: Ahmadinejad Tasered at Columbia University

Regards,

Joe

 

[PhillJones]

I've waited quite a while before posting in this thread because I wanted to see how the discussion turned out but now I'm going to put my 2c in.

It seems to me that this, like many other controversial use of force incidents is not an example of police brutality but of police incompetence and poor training or police culture. This sense of escalating force, to me, is exactly the reason these things happen. Having looked at some videos of tasings on youtube of people claiming police brutality, with a similar discussion to this one ensuing, I see a common thread and this is what I see:

The police, are trying to deal with an uncooperative member of the public. Sometimes, they seem to be able to talk the person down and get them to behave reasonably, sometimes they don't even try to resolve the conflict without violence and sometimes they're just lack the skills to do so. Even in situations when they are winning and slowly establishing cooperation, they, for some reason feel the need to grab hold of the member of the public and start pulling on them, this causes the person to become resistive and escalates the situation resulting in violence. The police seem to do this time and time again and to me it seems to be the root cause of this and many other incidents I've seen.

Here's an example I saw on youtube. There's a woman in a car and she's involved in some domestic incident, the sort of situation that I'm sure all police just love to get involved with. She's being belligerent and won't get out of the car. The cop tells her, quite reasonably that if she doesn't co-operate, they're going to have to force her and so she agrees. At this point, they've got her co-operating, they're talking to her and she's getting calm. Then as she starts getting out of her own volition, the policeman grabs hold of her and starts to pull her out and of course, she resists, it gets ugly and she get's tased. Now it was all going well until one of the cops started touching the woman unnecessarily.

Similarly in this case, that loud-mouthed little twat could easily have been gotten to leave, it was their dogged and unreasoning need to have a grasp on the guys arm that caused the incident to escalate.

BTW, I used to be a 'recreational assistant' at a leisure center in a rough provincial town in Britain. My fellow Brits will know what I'm talking about here, I was lifeguard/badminton court setter upper/barman/bouncer and I've handled worse that that skinny idiot.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Police grasped the guy's arm to (a) Keep him from getting away and going all Travis Bickle on Kerry and (2) As a indication of control and request for compliance. Psychologically, they have to gain an edge and a hand on the arm is not that intrusive, yet it gives a measure of control and authority. Most people act with compliance and follow the authority figure once they realize they mean to escort them out. Unfortunately, it can cause a moron to react violently. When it does, the cop already has the edge because it's a hell of a lot easier to counteract violence when you already have his arm. It's a win-win for the cop and who really cares about the moron's feelings anyway? I mean, police use horses for crowd control becaue they weigh 2000 lbs and are extremely intimidating. Do we really give a shit if the guy throwing rocks and bottles or overturning cars is scared of a horse? Besides, we really do not know how much conversation took place between the police and the suspect in this case before the arm grab took place and given the outcome, do we expect this clown would have happily gone skip-to-the-loo out the door if they had just asked him nicely?

 

[KurtEP]

I'd hesitate to say that someone who reacts when their arm is grabbed is a moron. In fact, I wonder how much the fight or flight reflex plays into this scenario. I know it is a lot more developed in some people than in others (mine's fairly dull, for example). Grabbing someone who is already agitated may just escalate the situation in some cases.

Also, I'm not sure I agree that grabbing the arm is always a win situation. It certainly depends upon the circumstances, but most martial arts I've studied love it when someone ties up their arm by grabbing you. In fact, if the guy knows Judo or some sort of Aikijutsu or Aikido, he's probably either going to toss you over his head or break your arm. Of course, your odds of actually running into someone who is trained in these arts is fairly low.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

It is part of established police procedure to physically escort a person out of an area if he/she does not comply with requests. Whether or not the "fight or flight" response takes place, it has been established that physical contact renders most people compliant and allows a certain amount of physical control over those who are not. Remember, there was a US senator in the room and this guy was agitated, unruly and asking disruptive questions in a loud voice. What exactly would you do to ensure compliance after asking the gentleman to calm down and/or leave the area? What exactly is the alternative? Is there anything in this suspect actions that gives us a reason to believe that non-force would have defused the situation?

 

[KurtEP]

When looking at this case, keep mind that the kid was just asking stupid questions in a loud voice. Yes, he was being disruptive, but I didn't see anything that would lead me to believe that he was suddenly going to go crazy and start hurting people. I'm willing to bet that, had the officers simply let him talk and let Kerry respond, as he was clearly willing to do, that the situation would never have developed.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

They did let him talk. Kerry even asked that he be allowed to respond. They then ceased trying to detain him and let him have the mic. Then Meyer went on his ramble about impeaching Bush and Clinton, then obscenities, then into cuckoo territory with the Skull and Bones crap. It was only after all this did they try to escort him away.

As an aside, I don't know about you, but when the Skull and Bones gets mentioned, that's when the stromtroopers need to silence the interloper immediately. No sense letting the secrets of the Illuminati and The Freemasons get out in the open, now is there?. We certainly wouldn't want to ruin the world domination of the modern Knights Templar and the Bilderbergs.

 

[KurtEP]

 

[Paul Padilla]

 

[PhillJones]

It's not about hurting somebody's feelings, it's about the best way to resolve conflict without it escalating and my experience tells me that the way American police behave, in this way, is precisely the wrong way to handle conflict unless you specifically want it to escalate.

As a martial artist, I know that grasping somebody's arm in the half arsed and non-controlling way in which they do, only serves to antagonize and make matters worse. It also increases the level of danger to all concerned. If they mean to restrain then they should do just that, if they do not mean to restrain then there is no need grab the person and pull on them in that antagonistic fashion.

As an aside, people actually have a reflex called the stretch reflex that means that if somebody pulls on a limb like an arm, you reflexively contract it. It's actually quite difficult to allow yourself to be controlled if you don't know exactly what somebody is trying to do because your muscles reflexively resist all by themselves. I remember getting my green card, they fingerprint you. Anybody who has been fingerprinted will tell you that it's hard to relax and let them manipulate your hand even when you're trying to co-operate. All this taken together means that trying to physically manipulate somebody without fully controlling them is a recipe for escalation.

Now, these cops aren't on their own in this regard. Having lived in the states for a few years now, everytime I see a policeman interacting with the public, it's clear that they are generally incapable of resolving conflict, they're a far cry from the thin blue line back home. As I said, I've handled worse than that guy without the added authority of wearing a police uniform. If they can't handle that guy without their being 6 of them and a taser then they really are incompetent.

BTW, horses are used in crowd control for visibility and mobility, not to be intimidating.

 

[Nathan*W]

Yes, you make your opinion on American law enforcement very clear, but this is not a debate on UK vs. US policing. Also, curious on how many conflict-resolution scenarios you've witnessed first-hand, and not through limited media or video coverage to make a basis of your statement on the "incompetance" of the police?

 

[PhillJones]

I'm sorry if I offended you, I was merely drawing on the experiences that I have.

I've seen or been involved in maybe a dozen or so incidents; I just happen to have lived in several places which had on-going social problems with anti-social behaviour. Like I said, I'm from a fairly rough provincial town with race problems and had a public facing job in a council run leisure facility. Later I lived in Oxford in England, which had and probably still has problems with binge drinking and fighting on Saturday nights. I used to stay out of the city center at night but every so often I'd be down there and stuff used to kick off regularly, Oxford is strange for that sort of thing. Now I live in Boston and used to ride a bike. I take the mbta these days as a survival tactic.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

 

[Paul Padilla]

I'm on the officers side here, but this was uncalled for. Short of quoting references or carrying a badge, we are all just stating opinions.

 

[PhillJones]

We're probably closer in opinion on this point than it seems. If what you posted in that quote is in line with what you meant, then we actually agree and are just talking at crossed purposes. I took the phrase 'extremely intimidating to mean something stronger than increased height and visibility. When I'm talking about mobility, I mean what you mean, a horse can move through a crowd when an officer on foot, in a car, or on a bike can't. If that's what you mean by intimidating then sure.

 

[Holadem]

Well, the Brits do rank ahead of Americans on the Badminton World Federation Ranking: http://www.internationalbadminton.or...ge=1&PageNo=GO

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H

 

[PhillJones]

Sure, the stretch reflex thing was just an aside, it's not really what happened here, I'm just saying that grasping at peoples arms seems to me to be a sure fire way of escalating a conflict, it's the physical equivalent of telling somebody to 'calm down'. As far as the incident in question is concerned I still think he could have been handled without any violence but we'll never know and maybe your right. I do agree with you that once things kicked off, they escalated too slowly, they didn't properly restrain him and just made him worse. You're right in that underestimating the level of force can lead to a worse outcome all round than over estimating, that's my main critcism, if it was necessary to use force then they should have just gotten on with it. The half-arsed tactics that they used just wound him up and made it worse in the end.

 

[Nathan*W]

Unfortunately, an over-estimation of force typically winds up as an excessive force lawsuit, with individual officers personally responsible for damages. Over the years, the courts have made it very plain what is acceptable vs. what is excessive and it is indeed a very fine line. Cops that start out with a heavy hand, may typically have to pay out of their own pocket.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Forgive me Phil, if after listening to a screed about how much more effective a bouncer at a badminton club is at defusing a potentially dangerous situation than a trained police officer such as my brother, along with the obligatory treatise on the superiority of Brits over Americans in anything that ever involves conflict resolution, that I possibly mistook your description of the valuable role of police horses as yet another potshot at my opinions on police tactics. I'm quite sorry. Besides, I thought I had said the reason for the intimidation factor was their size and not their sunny disposition. Silly me.

By the way, I spoke to my brother about this situation and he said that although the University Police were probably a little overeager due to the US Senator's presence in the room, he couldn't see where they did anything outside the bounds of normal police work. Not that his opinion means anything.