Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Yet Another Dubious Use of a Taser



I don't know which is more disturbing: the police tasering a non-violent lunatic sitting on his front porch, or the mindless giggling of the moron who took this video and posted it on Youtube.

Here are the facts of this case, according to this legal blogger:
The officers were called to the scene by a neighbor. The man who was tased apparently spent the entire morning on his front lawn screaming racially charged remarks at the top of his lungs. Among the things he yelled were: “White Power!” and “Heil Hitler!” The officer was not sure what ethnicity the man was, but he informed me that his name appeared to be of hispanic origin. He was not a black man, contrary to some reports.

The first officers arrived on the scene. These were a mixture of different races (black, white, and hispanic). The man on the porch screamed racial slurs at them. Furthermore, he screamed “Shoot me motherfuckers!”, “I bet if I had a gun you would shoot me, maybe I should go get my gun!”, and other variations on this theme.

The officers identified this as a mental health issue but also realized that he seemed imbalanced enough that he might be dangerous. They called a negotiator to the scene to try to subdue him. The negotiator tried to talk him into calming down for 15 minutes to no avail. The commanding officer on the scene then decided that it was in the interest of the public’s welfare and the man’s own welfare to take him into custody and get him medical attention.

The man on the porch was advised ahead of time that he would be tased. Finally, we got what we saw on the video. Immediately after the tasing, the man was transferred to the hospital where he was treated for minor injuries. The police then transferred him to a mental institution. The entire incident lasted 17 minutes.
I read a lot of stories like this. Its a sort of hobby of mine. They often contain a detail like the above, that the cops warned their victim that they would taser him if he didn't quiet down or obey some other order. The idea often (though not in this case, I think) is be that this justifies the subsequent act of violence on the part of the cops. I suppose if they had "warned" him that they would blow his brains out if he didn't quiet down, that would justify summarily killing him.

I say it is only okay to threaten to do X if you have an independent right to do X. A threat cannot give you a right to carry it out.

It is time to stop the police from using tasers as instruments of torture and summary punishment, or as labor-saving devices.

Tasers should only be used as substitutes for more violent measures (such as clubbing or shooting the suspect), and only in situations where these more violent measures would be justified, or when less violent alternatives would be excessively hazardous for the police officer involved. Isn't that obvious?
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If you can take it, there are more stories and links here.

6 comments:

Jeremy said...

"is it pious because it is loved by the gods, or it is loved by the gods because it is pious?"

"the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"

and like, the dude was totally asking for it!

Lester Hunt said...

Yes, we see that attitude a lot.

Max Kuenkel said...

The guy said something about getting his gun. That statement puts him in a high-risk category. Even if he complied with the police, he would be in a high-risk category. But if they ordered him to get on the ground, and he ignored them (which I suspect), then he is even more dangerous, as he might be concealing a small knife (or other weapon) that he could use to gash the first officer to get close. I'm sure that's happened before. I'm going to give the police the benefit of the doubt here. Would they use a taser, if they could have ordered him onto the ground and arrested him without the taser? I think it's more paperwork for the officers anytime a taser is used.

Lester Hunt said...

"The guy said something about getting his gun. That statement puts him in a high-risk category."

No. Talk about a gun is not a gun.

"... he might be concealing a small knife (or other weapon) that he could use to gash the first officer to get close."

This is true of everybody, so on this reasoning the cops could legitimately taze anyone at any time. Look, being a cop is a dangerous job, and this particular risk is clearly within the limits of the danger they have a duty to accept. If they have a right to taser people for a flimsy reason like this, that in principle multiplies this risk and shifts it from them to everybody else, including you.

"Would they use a taser, if they could have ordered him onto the ground and arrested him without the taser?"

Unfortunately, this happens all the time. Just go to Youtube and do a search for words like "traffic stop taser" or "grandmother taser" or "grandfather taser." You will get quite an eyefull, thank God we live in the age of dashboard cams and cellphone video. Cops do a dangerous and necessary job, but that does not make them saints.

Will S. said...

Tasers have killed people with weak hearts, like a Polish immigrant who couldn't speak English, tasered by the Mounties, here in Canada at the airport; he died soon after.

If tasers are ostenibly meant to be non-lethal forms of subduing dangerous people, they don't always work; there's certainly a fair chance the person tasered might not live. Thus, tasers are unacceptable; the police should not be permitted to use them. Period.

Lester Hunt said...

Will,

That's a good point, and very pertinent, but I don't think it means that tasers should never be used. After all, shooting someone with a pistol is far more violent and likely to be fatal than shooting with a taser. So at least the first half of the principle I laid down in the post survives. The principle was:

"Tasers should only be used as substitutes for more violent measures (such as clubbing or shooting the suspect), and only in situations where these more violent measures would be justified, or when less violent alternatives would be excessively hazardous for the police officer involved."

Come to think of it, your point would probably require me to take out the example of clubbing the suspect with a nightstick, as that is probably less dangerous than tasering.

As to how it affects the second half of my principle -- about excessive risk for the cop -- I am less sure. I guess your point would raise the bar somewhat as to what should count as "excessive" hazard.

Anyway, good point. Maybe I should post about this.