Yeah they seem like a good idea when presented as alternative to giving the police guns, but the problem is that to a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail. We know that when we give tasers to the police they don't just use them in these model scenarios of people running at them with a knife, or whatever; instead experience tells us officers resort to them in a proliferating number of scenarios (people being who are being rowdy or disobedient, people who they suspected could possibly have been armed, even people having a fit etc.). And they are used disproportionately against people who are marginalised in a way that makes officers feel like they won't be held responsible (black people, poor people etc.).
Yeah the American's weapon of choice! Feckers!
Cruel.
Exactly...100%! Cue the bent American police system. The sad thing is for every reported police incident in the media there's probably 10 that never see the light of day. He must have been up to no good to warrant the police attention but I guess we'll know in the fullness of time whether they went in a heavy handed approach or were acting appropriately.
The reason the US police got away with acting like they do for so long is because everyone assumed they were just trying to do their jobs. I'm not giving any police the automatic benefit of the doubt.
So you mean you'd blame police of brutality in this case right away?
Not at all, I'd just wait until the investigation is complete. Just not comfortable assuming they're probably in the right.
Really? Like when the police chased and shot Jean Charles de Menezes repeatedly in the head after mistaking him for a terrorist?
And then repeatedly lied about almost every individual element of the situation. Just like they did prior to the video footage of Ian Tomlinson making its way to the press. Give the police time to come up 3 or 4 different versions of events and you'll probably get one somewhere near to what actually happened.
Unless they had prior warning of him having a weapon, that sounds like a pretty flimsy reason to use a taser.
I don't think that has anything to do with being Americanised, most people I know don't like/trust the police and I live in northern Europe. More likely it has something to do with someone's background than being Americanised, especially since there's a lot of countries where the police is way worse than the one's in the US. But this is not the place for that discussion...
But they're not killing weapons though are they? One horrible accident doesn't change the hundreds of times they're safely used
Fair enough. For some reason I assumed you were seeing the police as the culprit in your post.
Are you a cop/ex-cop or just a tad naive? I know a couple of people who used to be in the police force. One of them told me about when they were arresting a person and in the scuffle the suspect spat blood at her. Some of it went in her mouth and that was the last straw for her....she quit shortly after that. But she said the other coppers there were going to put him in the back of the van and give him a going over. Even though the suspect had done that to her she had to stop her 'colleagues' from setting about him because she knew what was going to happen. Many times I've had straight, direct conversations with her and my other mate and I can assure you they are not squeaky clean.
That didn't last long.
It would be nice if we could have this level of faith in their actions but there is nothing to justify this blanket trust.
Of course they are if they kill people, which they have. They are also classed as a weapon of torture by the United Nations. I can understand using them as a last resort, like they were originally supposed to be, but lazy policing is using them for any sort of reason. Where in the past police would just apprehend someone, they now automatically go for these weapons. Remember that blind guy who was tasered because some lazy policeman thought his white stick was a sword.
Well everyone should wait for the evidence, even those who are skeptical of the behavior of law enforcement.
Im not saying 'Hey look the police did bad!', and won't pass judgement until we know a lot more, but we can still talk about it. This being an internet discussion board and all.
It's a long, long way from just being one horrible accident. Last year alone 49 people were killed by police tasers in the US. Can't blame you for not knowing that since they are often talked about as if they are relatively harmless, but the police ought to know how dangerous they are and their usage ought to reflect that.
Police have them used on them in training don't they?
Tbf the guy asked for it, if you spat on an officer be sure they will rough you up. Cops are just human. Now killing him / shooting him / planting evidence is a different animal, but let's not assume all cops are patrons of justice.
I remember that game like it was yesterday. We were going for the domestic treble and were expected to cruise to victory. Dalian Atkinson was a one man team that day and anihilated us on his own and for the rest of that summer I prayed that Fergie would buy him for us....Best player in the league on his day but he rarely turned up on a consistent basis....Fergie probably did his homework on him before opting against biying him
It amazes me that any football fan could argue this so soon after the Hillsbrough inquest verdict.
