What sadistic worldview justifies the use of tasers for pain compliance, even when they can result in the sort of agonizing death that Robert Dziekanski suffered? Here is a few snippets of that worldview, from the Blue Line Forums (h/t):
“Why in God’s name should a copper get hurt just to avoid tasering or OCing a subject that it violent and out of control?”
“Today we have use of force tools that allow us to effect our purpose without getting a “bloody nose”. Getting hurt isn’t part of my job.”
“I don’t go to work to become a punching bag, and weapons and tools are available to me so I go home. These guys are cops who are no different. At the end of the day it’s ME who goes home, if some jerk-off who tried hurting me gets hurt or killed in the process, that’s just too damn bad.”
These sorts of statements make it difficult indeed to believe the police line that tasers save lives by giving cops the option of not using their guns. So too do stories that describe how RCMP officers shot a handcuffed woman twice with a taser in order to convince her to move into a cell; how a lawyer was shoved to the ground and shot with a taser because he wouldn’t hand over his camera; and how a seventeen-year-old was tased up to thirteen times because he wouldn’t (couldn’t?) roll over onto his back. Some of the recent commenters at this site might be a-ok with the idea that Canadian police officers are using potentially lethal weapons as a method of pain compliance. That’s fine, but be sure to keep your eyebrows un-arched next time you’re getting a speeding ticket.
Presumably, cops didn’t use their guns as a method of compliance prior to the advent of the taser. Presumably, those four cops would not in the absence of their tasers have shot Robert Dziekanski. Yet Dziekanski is dead. All the more reason to ban the vile things.
Stan wrote:
The worst thing about it is the lies that were told by the RCMP to cover it up. If it hadn’t been for the video, we’d never know what had happened.
How many other taser deaths were from ‘one’ shot? How many ‘had no effect’ so they were tasered again?
The first thing anyone should do when they see a cop in action is start using the video camera or cell phone camera.
Posted on 21-Nov-07 at 10:30 pm | Permalink
Real Conservative wrote:
God help us if our soldiers ever become like these wimps.
Posted on 22-Nov-07 at 12:01 am | Permalink
Abattoir wrote:
Hear hear, Aaron. Tasers are not being used ‘instead’ of lethal force, as often claimed. More and more people (cops, security officers, etc.) in North America are resorting to them simply to get compliance. Would they really have shot somebody holding a stapler in an airport? Obviously not.
Police work is sometimes rough, sometimes violent. If you don’t like that, you’re in the wrong career. Ask for a reassignment to a desk job.
Posted on 22-Nov-07 at 9:33 am | Permalink
The Phantom wrote:
Hi Aaron. What you’re seeing here is the inevitable backlash from too many police brutality complaints. You lay hands on a drunk teenager who won’t get in the car, maybe smack a guy beside his knee to take the fight out of him, you get a complaint. Get enough complaints and you’ve got a really big problem. Like, you go to jail.
Taser, pepper spray, no complaint! Gee, what are cops going to do? Taser the hell out of anybody that torques them off, obviously. Its the only thing they are allowed to do, and pepper spray sucks in an enclosed space.
The other factor is female constables. They are too small to rough house like the boys, so they zap people at the first sign of resistance. “Sir, put down that camera!” “Do I have to?” ZAP!
Liberal policing in action. Time for a change of focus, perhaps.
In defense of the Taser itself, when used -appropriately- it is an excellent weapon. I’d far rather get zapped a couple times than be shot by some trigger happy chick. I have it on good authority that getting shot sucks.
Posted on 22-Nov-07 at 9:39 am | Permalink
disgusted and hurt wrote:
Phantom, not discrediting your good authority that getting shot with a gun sucks, but getting tortured with electric shocks is just as potentially lethal. I have it on good authority that the pain from an M26 Taser is excruciating. While you are screaming from the first complete shock (no warning) in agony, and realizing your brain has disconnected from your nerves at that place where it hit you, you think of nothing except screaming for fear that it another shock will follow. So after two or three shocks like that you’re whole body feels paralyzed, but you can’t control the reflex jerking of your limbs, nor the adrenalin surging through your body, and if you are really lucky, you think clearly enough to speak in words to cry or pray for mercy, and hope you can just keep breathing enough to stay alive, and that your heart doesn’t break or stop or a blood vessel burst in your brain. So, with that on good authority, I think it might not be so bad to get a bullet in my leg or some other none-vital organ part of my body, because electric shocks do in fact affect the entire central nervous system, particularly when they are pressed near the spinal column.
That said, can you imagine what I think about whiney cops who think they are tough because they could take one Taser shock with advance warning and friends spotting them in some lame training session.
Posted on 12-Feb-08 at 12:13 am | Permalink