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

[Garrett Lundy]

*hand-to-hand combat: police/security not likely trained. larger/heavier agressor has benefit
*handguns: lethal, danger to crowd
*nightsticks/batons/billyclubs: Striking suspect results in 100% likelyhood of assault charges, lawsuits, and protests. (I question why these are even issued anymore.)
*dogs: 2 80lb german sheprards potentially lethal, danger to crowd
*teargas: danger to crowd
*firehose: danger to crowd
*Mace™/pepperspray: more likely to exacerbate the agressors flailings than subdue him
*rubberbullets: danger to crowd, potentially lethal at short range
*Taser™: no danger to crowd, less likely to be lethal than other means

EDIT: I'm not saying the security was in the right or not for Tasering the student, but I belive they chose the best means to do so for the safety of everyone involved including the Tased.

 

[Paul Padilla]

misfire...more to come.

 

[Paul Padilla]

There is nothing in the video that shows the officers were anything but professional. They never raised their voice, I heard no cursing. We can disagree about the Tasering itself, but Meyers was given multiple opportunities to leave quietly. He wasn't being censored, he was being disruptive, uncooperitive and finally violent. I agree that ''students do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door". But they certainly don't acquire immunity to behaving in a civil manner.

 

[Ken Chan]

You may have watched an edited version of what happened, which I just saw in one of the YouTube links posted here, with Meyers being forcibly removed, cut to a bunch of officers around him on the ground. What got cut out is that as they were about to exit the auditorium, Meyers broke free and -- if I recall correctly -- tried to run back in. That's when they grabbed him and forced him on the ground. So in fact, the officers were attempting to do exactly what you thought was right, take him outside.

Or are you suggesting that after breaking free, the officers should have tried to drag him out again, without trying to subdue him first? How many times should they have attempted it?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I love how people think the officers should allow a fair fight, as if the adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules when trying to subdue a subject. "Oooo, don't subdue him in front of his peers!!" WTF??? Who gives a shit where he is subdued? He was given ample opportunity to not embarrass himself, he decided he wanted to fight. Sorry, but once you escalate by thrashing violently, the fight is on and the sooner the officers get him subdued, the sooner the danger is over. Sure he might have been thrashing his hand about for attention, but he could have been reaching for a gun (and if anyone says guns are not allowed on campus, I'll shoot you myself ).

 

[Steve Ridges]

148 Taser deaths since 1999? Please. More people probably die from shaving. How many of those people had health issues? How many have died while being subdued via other means? This is a pointless statistic and absolutely no reason to stop using a method that works great 99.999% of the time.

 

[KurtEP]

That's all of the deaths that are currently known. The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a further study right now.

The relevance of that data is that it shows that a Taser is not necessarily a non lethal alternative to other types of force. As these things become more widespread, there will likely be even more deaths. Unfortunately, these things are put out in the market as a "safe" alternative to other weapons. While they are certainly useful, the data shows that they are not 100% safe. Putting them on the market as "safe" though will lead to people overusing them, since they're "safe." How would you like it if someone you know or love was one of the persons who died? And before you say that they are all law abiding citizens, what if it's an accident, or they catch some rogue officer/mall security type on a bad day?

As to your question about the health of the people tased contributing, I'm sure you know that it's not relevant. I can't swing by the nursing home on the way to work and kill a few residents and then argue that they were going to die soon anyway. Or, as the classic argument goes, if I look out the window of my office and see someone falling to their death, pull out my rifle and shoot them before they hit the ground, I'm still guilty of murder.

 

[Ed Moroughan]

Anyone see/hear/read O'Reilly's comments on this. I don't care about his opinion on justified or not but he called the dude a wimp and claimed he'd been tasered for a story once. Any truth to that? Isn't pain extrmemly personal and subjective?

 

[Steve Ridges]

There will never be a 100% perfect way to completely immobolize any random person regardless of health condition with out ever hurting them. There are simply too many variables. You use what works best. Right now, it's tasers. They pose very little threat to 99.9% of the public. People probably have a better chance of getting struck by lighting than being "accidentally" tased let alone dieing from it.

You seem to be saying that if any method to subdue someone has ever resulted in a death, either directly or indirectly, that it should no longer be used. Thats ridicules. What if some one skins their knee being brought down by a martial arts expert in some grapple and it gets infected and they die, what then? Do we stop using martial arts because they aren't necessarily non lethal?

 

[Garrett Lundy]

As I mentioned earlier they are stiff the safest non-lethal weapon available. Mayonaisse is not 100% safe but we sell enough of that over the counter.

 

[Nathan*W]

This was posted on another board I frequent, from a student actually in the auditorium during this incident:

 

[Marianne]

I am not addressing the situation with the student, but taser use in general.

It seems to me, from seeing various incidents on TV, that some police officers are using the taser as a "punishment" rather than to subdue a person. In a lot of cases it appears that the person is already subdued and the taser is used "to teach them a lesson" because the officer is stressed and angry.

Also, as previously stated, many people have died as a result of being tased. The argument is made that if they have heart problems they should avoid being in a position that might cause them to be tased. I guess that makes sense, but many people are unaware that they have a heart condition. Many young people have undiagnosed heart conditions.

There have been some quite well-publicised cases of taser abuse. A five-year old child tased at school. A man tased at a hospital while holding his infant child.

There are many occasions where a taser is the appropriate response, but there are many others when it is not.

 

[Paul Padilla]

Dang...misfire again.

 

[Paul Padilla]

There are two problems with Taser death statistics in relation to this thread.

1. They don't specify how many are attributed specifically to law enforcement personnel.

2. They don't give the number in relation to total uses.

Ken's number of 148 Taser-related deaths recorded since 1999 (Link, please.) is actually even lower than Amnesty International's numbers, but still we don't see the total uses and who is using the device to get an accurate picture. 148 deaths out of 1000 police deployed uses is high. 100 deaths from police deployments and 48 from private citizen deployments out of 10,000 total uses paints an entirely different picture. Those are purely hypothetical numbers and the true number may be somewhere in between if that can ever be reliably established. Now, these are human lives to be sure and this is in no way meant to devalue that fact. However, there there is no such thing as a 100% safe solution, particularly in regards to physical altercations. Taser in no way purports their systems to be "safe" to the recipient. The only mention of the word "safe" on their entire website pertains to "safe distance" and "safety", etc. How their products are portrayed within the law enforcement community may be another issue and is out of their control.

"Non-lethal", in this context, is also being misused in the argument against stun type weapons. Regardless of what Hollywood would have us believe, firearms exist for no other reason than to employ lethal force. Every law enforcement employee is trained that if they are compelled to draw their fiream they must be prepared to use lethal force if the situation calls for it. People survive gunshots every day, but guns were created for a single purpose...to kill. Tasers by comparison are designed to be non-lethal, as are batons, mace/pepper spray as well as grappling techniques but the reality is that people have died from all of these items for a variety of reasons; misuse being among them. Suspects dying in custody has occurred since the beginning of time and a responsible society examines these things to minimize that outcome. Eliminating it entirely is simply not possible, just as eliminating the behavior that necessitates their existence is not possible.

It can certainly seem sadistic when observing from the outside, or worse, a Youtube or local newsbreak clip. Abuse certainly takes place, but surmising the officer's intent, stress or anger level is a problematic appraisal of the situation as a whole.

 

[Ken Chui]

The martial arts example is a poor analogy and impertinent to the discussion at hand; this is about the Taser and its unintended consequences. The Taser is marketed both improperly and irresponsibly by the manufacturer as safe and non-lethal; very few police departments have guidelines regarding deployment and usage. When something with the ability to incapacitate (and kills unexpectedly, in a few cases) is left to the discretion of the operator, it's susceptible to both misuse and overuse. Without the proper training, at what point does the operator release the trigger once the charge is initiated? When the body stops flailing? When the recipient starts convulsing? Keep the trigger depressed because it is, after all, non-lethal.

 

[Paul McElligott]

Just visited Taser's website and couldn't the word "non-lethal" used anywhere. They do claim that it as "safer use of force alternative."

 

[KurtEP]

I was only speaking from a fault standpoint; I could have been clearer. I don't even necessarily agree with that view, but it's established in the law, so it really can't be ignored.

 

[Ken Chui]

I don't have a documented source regarding the number of deployments in any given period, but all 148 deaths (statistics as of October 2005) are wholly attributed to police use.

 

[Ken Chui]

How the product is pitched to police departments and how it's represented in police training manuals may not be identical to what's advertised on their website.

Are there viable non-lethal alternatives to the Taser? They are being explored (link), but I think the Taser found greater favour with police departments because a) the offender can be subdued from a distance, and b) punishment can be dispensed on an individual with less visible scarring or prolonged health effects (unlike a baton or rubber bullet)

 

[Paul Padilla]

Thanks for the links Ken.

The ACLU's press release is already two years old, but it's what we've got. I have an issue with the way it's portrayed, though. Their own research indicating what they refer to as "largely unregulated use of Tasers" surveyed only 50 police departments across central and northern California. Yet the death statistics, which don't refer to any specific research, include the entire United States and Canada. That's very misleading. Phrases like, "Taser International continues to encourage liberal use of the weapon while grossly downplaying safety concerns." and "These misleading promotional tactics are reflected in the training materials" are not backed up by examples. (The link to the full report doesn't work.)

We're in the same book even if we're not on the same page.