This is a Cop. He controls black people.
 

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The advent of tasers and other less-than-lethal weaponry have given the police carte blanche to commit tremendous acts of thuggery on American citizens.

How can we deal with an increasingly brutal colonial police force?

How can you say it's carte blanche when there's a furor every time a taser is used?

Blue Wall of Silence

Sounds like you agree that the technology isn't the problem, then.

The technology is a part of the problem, because tasers don't leave distinguishing marks like bruising from a nightstick.

First, I'm not all that well versed on tasers, and I don't know how pregnant the woman was, but tasing a PREGNANT woman?

At any rate, if there is some truth to this, those officers are screwed. Unless they do some really cruddy scheme and somehow brain wash those children or whatnot, once those children start re-accounting what happened (and it looks like there we several of them), those officers are done. Not only will they lose their jobs, but given all the complications they invited through this, they are going to have a slew of other matters too.

I had a discussion on the advent of tasers with my sister's girlfriend who's trying to get into the police force. I argued that taser's ease of use was their downfall since I get the impression a lot of cops are using tasers instead of using traditional hand to hand techniques to get people down...I feel that a lot of times when someone is UNARMED there's no reason why a cop can't just tackle the guy or find some other way to take him down than tasering him. That's if they even need to get someone down. A lot of the cases that have been publicized (and obviously, probably not representative of the majority) are cases where the cops have had their tasers out before even needing to make an arrest, which is just outrageous.

It think the thought process I arrived to was that just because they are a non-lethal weapon, police forget they're still weapons, and drawing a weapon on someone shouldn't happen until arrests are being made or serious resistance is being put up.

Allegedly, and I'm not sure if this is just for the area I'm in (midwest) but from what I hear, officers around here need to complete two things before they are able to become law enforcement officers aside from the actual standard training and classes they need to take.

They need to get tasered themselves, and also pepper sprayed. I believe it had something to do with the fact that the cops can't have claims brought against them that they don't know what it's like to experience it. Though with that being said, there are still going to be cops out there that want to throw around how much 'power' they think they have over someone and tase them just for the hell of it, hoping that just because they were tased/pepper sprayed, that will save them from any repercussions.

So, in all actuality, cops know how dangerous their tools are, but some go around ENJOYING how dangerous it is and use it whenever the slightest opportunity could arise for it.

That's true here in Colorado as well, but I don't think that's working in declining their use.

To be fair, I think the law of diminishing returns probably applies in the use of tasers. Getting tased by one guy probably hurts less than getting tased by three guys, but you probably can't really tell the difference at the moment.

Maybe the police officers thought he was high on PCP while hosting his grandchildrens' baptism party. Who knows.

When we've had gun control debates here before, people have said that they want to own a gun to defend themselves from criminals. If your country is so dangerous that everyone needs to be tooled up to avoid becoming a crime statistic, if I was a cop I'd take no chances either and wouldn't even make eye contact with someone until they were safely restrained and the quickest way to do that is clearly for me and my cop buddies to electrocute the shit out them. The cops don't know who's packing heat so it makes sense to me for them to safely cripple people before attempting to engage them in conversation. It's essentially an arms race, more people get guns so the police become more scared of getting shot. Sure they could stick to beating people up with truncheons but you've got to get really close to someone to do that and in the time it takes to close the distance they could have whipped out their assault rifle and gunned down half the people in the street.

The police need adequate protection from what they're likely to be faced with, that's only fair both for their safety and to do their jobs. Over here they're faced with loud mouthed chavs with knives, so they wear stab vests and carry those flick out baton things and pepper spray. Over there everyone is armed to the teeth so using close combat simply isn't an option. They need to pre-emptively pacify the subject for their own safety and that of the public. The ideas of an armed populace and a peaceful police force simply aren't reconcilable.

I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. When police face a suspect they believe to be possibly dangerous they call on backup, and at least one officer is ready to draw and fire a weapon during a confrontation. I was picked up for a public intox and faced the same kind of procedure.

Best case scenario they'll be suspended with pay.

When cops get sprayed or tasered it resembles frat hazing much more so than any kind of sensitivity training. Getting zapped with two guys on hand to catch you and offer words of reassurance and hoops and hollers isn't the same as being tased by some fat cracker who electrocutes you at the first sign of trouble.

If I was getting arrested, I'd probably rather the first cop tazered me than the second cop shot me. Lesser of two evils and all that. Also, what's to stop me unleashing 50 rounds from my AK while you're waiting for your backup to turn up?

Well if you're a BART cop you could "accidentally" shoot a man on the ground when you meant to reach for your taser.

That assumes everyone who's arrested is packing heat. The issue comes into play when there is CLEARLY not a need for force like said party up in the first post. And with statistics in most towns (i.e. not New York, LA, big cities) being something like only 1% of police officers even drawing their guns while on duty, I think the picture you're painting is grossly exaggerated. Surely if cops don't even need to draw guns during most of their career, the need to draw any other weapon shouldn't be as high either.

To be fair though, I don't know what the percentage of coppers who pull out tazers is...so I could be off base here.

I think it's cute that foreigners assume Americans are all armed 24/7.

Checking statistics, I looked at:

Portland Force Report Pg 26.

San Jose Year End Report Pg 43

New York City Allegations Statistics Appendices Pg 3

Generally, it looks like correcting for crime rate in a city, taser use is on the rise, with percentages of use varying quite a bit. In Portland, for example, it was the only form of force to stay relatively level in numbers, while arrest calls overall declined (23% of force use). In New York, the trend was less pronounced (falls under non-lethal restraint devices), but it still rose at a faster pace than the overall crime rate, and showed statistically significant increase compared to all other forms of force use (1% of total force use). San Jose had such a small population, it was difficult to call their results significant, although taser use did rise faster once again (7% of total force use). These numbers are also schewed by what various departments consider "force", with some not counting handcuffs, or other forms of non-marking restraint.

From this thread on Officer.com, it sounds like there's about as much disagreement on the proper and reasonable application of taser use among cops as there is among non-cops. As well as some decent discussion of the pros/cons of requiring it among those who use it.

Well, there's some basis for that.

Brazen assault weapon shoot-out in Dorchester chills police - The Boston Globe

Arms race, AK-47s to the gangs and M16s to the cops.

Honestly I just hope it stays contained where it is and doesn't spread up to my neighborhood. =(

I'm pretty sure it's standard procedure for a policeman to call for backup if he so much as sees a cockroach crossing the street.

I think the problem is just the attitudes of the cops. Cops don't smile anymore. They don't greet you. They assume everybody is dog shit beneath their shoes. Even when you're the victim, they can't be bothered to have a little warmth or sympathy.

They do everything by the book because they're more concerned with their employment than they are with actually helping people. If that weren't the case, they probably could've use common sense to handle the situation instead of focusing solely on escalation of force.

This isn't a problem exclusive to cops, and its also a rather large generalization. I've lived in a number of large towns where the cops are relatively nice folks, as long as you're cooperative and remain calm. I've also lived in towns where there are a lot of douchebags. As with most things, there's quite a bit of variance.

There are some who view everyone as shit, but I'd bet the large majority just view everyone as dangerous. Particularly drunk people hanging out in groups, as they've got face to save and embaressment to throw back in the officers face. There's also mob worry. I question the news interpretation of the top article, as everyone's going to tell their story as if they were the eye of calm in the storm, even if they were belligerent and seeing two of every cop. Naturally, the cops were probably also jumpy and overreacted. Sounds a lot like the Gates arrest mess in Cambridge.

On the by the book mentality, of course they're going to value their job over going the extra mile to help. By the book helps avoid lawsuits, paperwork, reprimands, and bullshit reorientation seminars. In the case of calling for backup, it's also a good precaution for the officer. Sure, its kind of dumb when you've got two squad cars giving one dude in a Geo Metro a ticket, but there's also a mentality where they consider every one of those guys could be out of his gourd.

A number of professions have also succumbed to the problem of weighing their employment vs going the extra mile. Doctors are a prime example where many's lives have become a game of balancing malpractice, school debt, and employment vs helping the sick.

Look down the street.

Do you see a black?

Then it is already too late...

I am working purely off of the evidence presented in this very forum last time we discussed gun control. The predominant argument put about by people in favour of gun ownership (And there were a few) was that they needed to adequately defend themselves. I don't believe it is such a leap to assume that if God fearing, law abiding citizens think they need a hand gun in each room in the house and an assault rifle in the umbrella stand in order to stop criminals from raping their family and stealing their burgers, then the overwhelming majority of people in the US who are actually breaking the law will be armed.

I have also seen people here suggest that gun control is ineffective because look at the UK, all the criminals have guns there and they have gun control. If all our criminals have guns then all your definitely have guns and half the people in the street will be carrying guns because they're scared of all the criminals with guns.

The point I was trying to make was that if you put forward self defence as an argument for allowing gun ownership amongst the populace, then you must live with an aggressive and well armed police force. The police always need to stay ahead of the criminals in terms of fire power to remain an effective deterrent to crime but in response to a better armed police force, criminals will either buy even bigger guns or use the element of surprise to take out cops, i.e. shoot before they're shot at.

Now of course I don't think three cops using tasers on an old man is a good idea but I think the overall feeling of paranoia that seems so inherent in your culture, at least as far as crime and criminals goes means that the police will inevitably resort to excessive force for their own protection.

If there are members of the public who are so scared of becoming a victim of crime that they feel the need to buy a gun to defend themselves, one can perhaps understand how a policeman, thinking that he's faced with a real criminal and believing as so many of you do here that every criminal in the US is packing heat might well er on the side of caution and use what is widely described as non-lethal weaponry to take the guy to the ground.

Obviously in the cases you highlighted, these are just a few bully-boy cops and those exist all around the world. Imagine though how many times a day across the US a policeman is faced with a potential suspect. It must be thousands and it's surely better that their innate American fear of crims with guns is manifesting itself in a few sketchy taser decisions rather than a few sketchy gun decisions, no?

Also, I would have thought that standard procedure there was the same as here and cops always keep their taser holstered on their on-side and their gun on their off-side, so if they do pull a weapon without thinking about it, it's the taser that comes out.