What on earth are police doing with Tasers??

[MooMoo!]

Bad as it is, better to be mistakenly shocked than shot.

[trevster2k]

Not too many people have been beaten to death by the RCMP in recent years. Some have been dropped off in the middle of winter on the outskirts of a major city but not beaten to death. Police brutality is a different issue altogether.

Please go to your nearest law enforcement detachment, ask to get tasered and let me know how it turns out.

I hope no one you know ever gets tasered for being perceived as a threat. It was supposedly non-lethal and safe despite claims to the contrary by concerned groups. The taser has gone from being introduced as an alternative to a gun to being a viable option in breaking up a fight between two teenage girls. It will get worse before it gets better, if it gets better at all.

I'm done.

[CTU2fan]

I'm with BVS & Habs. Poorly trained cops with tasers = bad. The taser alone is ony a tool.

[namkcuR]

But that position is essentially the same as Charleton Heston's famous 'There are no good guns, there are no bad guns. A gun in the hands of a bad person is a bad thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no threat to anyone except bad people' statement.

[CTU2fan]

But that's sort of true...at least at face value. The problem is, there's no way to keep guns out of the hands of bad people, unstable people, or little kids who fnd them on the top shelf of the closet.

Same reasons making tasers available to the general public is an extremely bad idea.

[phillyfan26]

Originally posted by CTU2fan
But that's sort of true...at least at face value. The problem is, there's no way to keep guns out of the hands of bad people, unstable people, or little kids who fnd them on the top shelf of the closet.

Same reasons making tasers available to the general public is an extremely bad idea.

QFT

You know, except, maybe, gee ... making them illegal?

[A_Wanderer]

Yeah, because when guns are illegal nobody is able to get hold of them, just like drugs and prostitutes.

[phillyfan26]

I didn't say no one would be able to get a hold of them, and I didn't compare them to drugs and prostitutes.

[silverdan]

I don think they should be using devices that kill people when they are only trying to calm them down...

[MrsSpringsteen]

abcnews.com

Pregnant Woman's Tasering Probed
FBI, Ohio Cops Investigate Nov. 18 Incident After Complaint Filed
By DAVID SCHOETZ

Nov. 29, 2007 —

The FBI and an Ohio police department are investigating an incident in which a pregnant woman was stunned with a Taser inside the lobby of a police station after refusing to answer an officer's question and ultimately resisting arrest.

The two investigations began after Richard Jones, president of the Ohio chapter of the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, called in a complaint to the Trotwood Police Department, Trotwood public safety director Michael Etter told ABC News.

Surveillance video of the incident, which took place on the morning of Nov. 18, shows a woman identified in a police incident report as Valreca Redden, 33, in the lobby of the suburban Dayton police station with her 1-year-old son.

Redden, according to Etter, had come to the police station to ask police to take custody of her child. When officer Michael Wilmer asked why, the woman reportedly would only say that "she's tired of playing games" with the baby's father.

"At this point, they had a little more discussion that went nowhere," Etter said, recounting the incident. "She says, 'I'm leaving.'"

Etter, who repeatedly emphasized to ABC News that Wilmer had no idea the Valreca was pregnant, said that the officer then explained that she could not leave without further explanation. He took hold of the child with one arm, Etter said, and pushed the woman down with the other.

When a second officer arrived, Wilmer handed over the 1-year-old and attempted to handcuff Valreca. She began to resist, Etter said, at which point he "employed what is called a 'drive stun'" on the back of her neck.

"If he were to take the baby and have her leave, we don't know who the baby is," Etter said. "There's certain information that he's responsible for. I think the officer made the right decision in detaining her." Wilmer remains on duty.

The Taser model used by the Trotwood police force, according to Etter, can either be fired like a gun or pressed against a target to deploy.

Valreca was charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest. It was not until the woman, wearing a heavy coat, was being checked out by jail staff that officers learned she was pregnant, Etter said. At that point, she was transported directly to the hospital.

Jones, from Sharpton's National Action Network, called to complain about the incident, claiming that police violated Ohio's "safe haven" law and that the woman should have been able to simply drop the 1-year-old without questions from police. Etter explained that the state statute applies only to children 72 hours old or younger.

Jones, who did not immediately return a phone call from ABC News, also informed Etter that he would be contacting the FBI, Etter said. Etter did the same, and the FBI has said it will investigate the incident.

For its part, he said, the department wants to see if its Taser policy is proper. "We're investigating a lot of different things," Etter said. "But No. 1 is force."

According to a copy of Trotwood Police Department General Orders, police officers are encouraged to "greatly evaluate each situation with discretion" before using a Taser on a child, elderly person or pregnant woman.

Tianesha Robinson, 33, was pregnant in 2006 when she was jolted by a stun gun in Kansas after she allegedly resisted arrest during a traffic stop. Robinson ultimately had a miscarriage, according to The Associated Press, but doctors could not conclusively link the Taser to the woman losing the baby.

Another woman, Cindy Grippi, delivered a stillborn girl in December 2001 after California police hit her with a Taser. A medical examiner never determined the cause of the child's death, which could have been traced to the woman's methamphetamine usage. Still, the city of Chula Vista settled a lawsuit with the woman for $675,000, according to the AP.

Authorities in Utah are probing a recent Taser incident in which motorist Jared Massey was struck by the device after allegedly disobeying an officer's requests. Massey, who filed a complaint with Utah authorities about the trooper's use of force, posted the dashboard camera video of the confrontation on YouTube last week. The incident sparked a new round debate.

Canadian officials continue to investigate the case of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who died after he was hit by a Taser at the Vancouver International Airport in October. The four police officers involved in that incident, which also was caught on surveillance tape, have since been reassigned to different posts. Eighteen people have died in Canada after being hit with a Taser in the last four years, according to the Canadian federal police.

The human rights organization Amnesty International, which urges more restraint by law enforcement when choosing to discharge the devices, cited 250 cases in the United States in the last six years in which a suspect died after being hit with a Taser. Those statistics, however, do not track whether the shock actually caused the deaths.

Taser International Inc., the company that manufactures Tasers, claims that the device can only be tied to 12 deaths but does recognize that pregnant women are at more risk of danger if hit by one of the devices.

[MrsSpringsteen]

al.com

Arrested in silence: Police use Taser, pepper spray on deaf and mentally disabled man

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
By ROBERT McCLENDON and MARK R. KENT
Staff Reporters

Mobile police used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf and mentally disabled man Friday after they were unable to get him to come out of a bathroom at a Dollar General store, authorities said.

After forcibly removing Antonio Love from the bathroom of the Azalea Road store, officers attempted to book the 37-year-old, on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and failure to obey a police officer, but the magistrate on duty at the jail refused to accept any of those charges.

Love's family members said they had no idea where he was during the time that police had him in custody.

Brodrick Love said the officers dropped his brother off in the parking lot of their apartment building without saying what happened or why his brother had been missing for six hours.

Love's family members have filed a formal complaint against the officers.

Christopher Levy, a Police Department spokesman, said the officers didn't find out that Love had a hearing impairment until after they got him out of the bathroom and found a card in his wallet indicating he was deaf.

The officers' decision to take Love to jail — even after they discovered his disability — as well as their conduct throughout the incident is still under investigation, Levy said.

Use of the Taser and the pepper spray appear to be justified according to the department's policy, he said.

Love, whose family said his mental abilities are about that of a 10-year-old, wrote them a narrative of the incident as he recalled it.

The hand-scrawled, six-page note and the official police account of the confrontation are strikingly similar in their recitation of the chain of events.

Police were called to the store at 12:22 p.m. after someone reported that a man had been in the bathroom for more than an hour behind a locked door, said Cpl. Charles Bagsby, another police spokesman.

When the officers arrived, they pounded on the door but got no answer, Bagsby said. They pounded again. No answer.

Bagsby declined to say how many officers were involved.

Love, speaking in sign language that was then translated by his family, said he was in the bathroom because he was sick to his stomach.

"I wait and sit toilet," Love's note read. "I think about someone try break door. I hold door hard."

At that point, Bagsby said, the officers saw movement from under the door, indicating that there was someone inside. They then shot pepper spray under the door.

"The police arrive General Dollar and throw poison through under the door," Love's note continued. "I can smell poison and I'm amazing and shock."

Love turned the water on to wash the irritating chemicals off his face.

"Then I'm think someone gone."

The officers, according to the Bagsby's account, went to get a tire iron to pry the door open.

"Then again someone knock knock," the note reads. "My head hold door, and my hand put hold lock the door. I spit poison with water. Someone hit hard hard."

The officers broke into the room.

"I'm almost fall and surprise the police here. The police get the tazz three strings in my stomach, chest and hand and hit my head. I'm falled."

The officers put him in the car. He waited.

"Police wait long. I'm patient," the note said.

The officers took him to Mobile County Metro Jail to book him, Bagsby said.

"I saw police laugh at me," Love wrote in the note. "I don't care them. I don't want escape. I just wait long." The magistrate refused to sign the arrest warrant, voiding the officers' legal right to hold Love.

The officers took him home.

According to the note, Love gave directions as best he could.

"Police told me that I'm crazy. I don't understand," the note says.

The police eventually found his house.

"When he walked in, his shirt was ripped, and he was just in a daze," his brother, Brodrick Love, said. "When I went outside, they (the police) took off. They stamped on that pedal."

In an interview Monday afternoon, Love told the Press-Register he had been a customer at the Dollar General numerous times in the past, and he estimated it was about half an hour from the time he entered the bathroom until the pepper spray started coming in.

Love said he did not open the door because he thought "the devil was trying to come in."

Michelle Jones, director of the Mobile division of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind, said miscommunication between police and the deaf is all too common, though her office works to minimize it by conducting training sessions with police departments in the area.

Federal disabilities law requires law enforcement to seek a translator in situations like Love's, she said.

Levy said an interpreter was called for but later cancelled when the officers learned that one of the responding ambulance workers knew sign language.

No credentialed interpreter was ever made available.

Late Monday, Love said, he was never told through an interpreter or shown on paper his Miranda rights — the right not to disclose information and the right to an attorney — required to be told to arrested persons.

Since the incident, Love's family said, he hasn't been himself. He's been scared of anyone in a police uniform, they said.

His mother, Phyllis Love, said she's thinking of contacting a lawyer.

"If they had done it in the right way," Brodrick Love said, "we wouldn't be going this route."

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

Flashing sign in front of an outlet store I pass almost every day:

BEAT THIS!
12 pack double roll toilet paper $4.99!
1 lb. beef jerky $3.99!
stun gun $19.99!

This is scary. I am certainly not a gun control person but this bothers me more because while very few people will pull the trigger on a real gun, way too many idiots, drunken rednecks, assholes and abusive people will think nothing of using a taser. They will use it because they think it's cool and they can get away with it. They'll do it for a cheap thrill, to feel power over someone or because they want to hurt someone but haven't got the balls to use a real gun, just like those cops who overuse them. I am afraid they're being used to torture animals, and the potential for child abuse and domestic abuse is huge with so many of these things out there and this easy to get. I bet it happens all the time and is rarely reported because people don't want to get the asshole in trouble because it will only cost his family more money and cause those in his life more grief. Yes the cops use them too much but too many people can get their sick kicks this way and it's disturbing.

[bigjohn2441]

Originally Posted by AnnRKeyintheUSA

Flashing sign in front of an outlet store I pass almost every day:

BEAT THIS!
12 pack double roll toilet paper $4.99!
1 lb. beef jerky $3.99!
stun gun $19.99!

This is scary. I am certainly not a gun control person but this bothers me more because while very few people will pull the trigger on a real gun, way too many idiots, drunken rednecks, assholes and abusive people will think nothing of using a taser. They will use it because they think it's cool and they can get away with it. They'll do it for a cheap thrill, to feel power over someone or because they want to hurt someone but haven't got the balls to use a real gun, just like those cops who overuse them. I am afraid they're being used to torture animals, and the potential for child abuse and domestic abuse is huge with so many of these things out there and this easy to get. I bet it happens all the time and is rarely reported because people don't want to get the asshole in trouble because it will only cost his family more money and cause those in his life more grief. Yes the cops use them too much but too many people can get their sick kicks this way and it's disturbing.

stun guns and tasers are a little bit different

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

Yeah but it's still the same kind of thing and still scary to know any half witted redneck might have one.

[Liesje]

You can make one in five minutes with a used disposable camera....

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

That's even scarier! Please don't post the directions!

[Liesje]

Well you can make one with anything that packs a shock, it's not some secret method. Camera flashes have a pretty good "punch". When I was trying to fix my camera flash I gave up b/c the parts were so tiny and if you touch it wrong you will be thrown against the wall.

[bigjohn2441]

Originally Posted by AnnRKeyintheUSA

Yeah but it's still the same kind of thing and still scary to know any half witted redneck might have one.

not really, it's the same result but different delivery. a stun gun you have to get up close and personal at arms length to use it. once you use it on someone they are likely to fall or jerk and move, meaning you have to get in close again to apply the shock. a taser shoots darts (at a pretty decent range btw) that stick in your skin and deliver the shock for as long as the trigger is pressed.

kind of like the difference between a gun and a knife. and stun guns tend to have less power than tasers.

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

Less power is still too much in the hands of some drunken abusive redneck who thinks it's funny to use it on his woman, kid or dog. Because the ones who'd buy that $19.99 would know his victims there would be no problem getting close. I still don't think they should sell them to just anybody.

[bigjohn2441]

Originally Posted by AnnRKeyintheUSA

Less power is still too much in the hands of some drunken abusive redneck who thinks it's funny to use it on his woman, kid or dog.

i wonder how much this happens