Following an incident in Cornonado, California, where a police officer tased a man not wearing his seatbelt, a federal appeals court is questioning the use of Tasers. When is it appropriate to use the a Taser? Michael Gennaco, who has conducted internal reviews of Taser use for the LAPD, comments on the decision made in the 9th circuit ruling:
This decision talks about the need for an immediate threat. . . . Some departments allow Tasers in cases of passive resistance, such as protesters who won't move," he said. Tasering for "passive resistance is out the door now with this decision. Even resistance by tensing or bracing may not qualify.
Still, there is a need to question the use of Tasers all together. Can we trust the officer to use the Taser "appropriately" and only at a time when the person refuses to comply with the officer's orders? I don't believe so.
The incident that prompted this court case involved a man who was stopped at a traffic light for not wearing his seatbelt. The driver, Carl Bryan, stepped out of his car to speak to the officer, Brian McPherson. The officer says Carl made a step towards him and the officer used a Taser. Carl Bryan hit the pavement hard, knocking out his front teeth and badly brusing his face.
As described by the Los Angeles Time:
a taser, which resemble handguns, can be fired from about 20 feet away and project two dartlike electrodes. The electrodes send an electrical charge coursing through the target -- a shock that temporarily paralyzes the person's muscles and causes extreme pain.
I would say this is excessive and unesscessary force abused by law enforcement all too often.
I would prefer a tazer over a gun, but now they have both and use violence less sparingly. I think unarmed cops may give cops a healthy fear of abusing people. Robert Murphy wrote about an ideal police force in an unpublished fiction story called "Minerva" which I luckily downloaded before he took it offline a few years ago.
I'm not totally sure how the argument presented here works. I agree that police officers are probably not trustworthy enough as a group to be authorized to use tasers at their discretion, but I would probably say that they are also not trustworthy enough to be authorized to use guns, batons, or pepper spray either. Yet that being said, if we are to have police officers, it doesn't seem reasonable to expect that they should go about their jobs unarmed. So is the idea that there is never a situation in which a taser would be a more appropriate weapon to use than any of the others with which our police officers might be equipped instead? Are tasers better than pepper spray?
It seems to me that the larger problem here is that police officers are typically given a free pass by our legal system when they initiate physical violence unless there is incontestible proof that the officer acted in a grossly irresponsible way. Short of such proof, officers can usually fall back on the "I had to act quickly to protect myself" defense or the "the suspect was being uncooperative and threatening" defense, and all too often such testimony is simply rubber stamped by the legal system. The problem, I would argue, is not tasers themselves but an environment in which tasers can be abused without repercussion.
Here in the UK, we have traditionally had an unarmed police service (the word "service" is their choice). Approximately half of all police personnel have immediate access to weapons in a locked box in their vehicles that may only be opened with the permission of a senior officer. This means that they are required to make a careful and considered assessment of the risks to all concerned when entering dangerous situations, rather than dive in with "all guns blazing".
Currently tasers may only be used by weapons-trained officers, but there is a proposal that tasers should be available to all officers. Most of the population of the UK is unhappy with this idea precisely because of the abuses reported from the USA.
Danny,
I was not trying to make any argument. I was just noting the fact that tasers are misused and in return questioning if they should be used at all. You are right however, this is a complex issue. I do believe we need a police force to handle the true "crazies" out there, but what kind of weapons should an officer carry for this situation? Ideally, tasers and other more serious weapons should be handled only by experienced and proven reliable officers. If these officers misuse their weapons then they should be held strictly accountable by the courts.
Thanks Nicole for giving us something to compare this too.
Word :)
I believe the original reasons for the tazer was so they would not take a life with a gun and to be used only in life threatening situations..Now it is used as a cattle prod and we are the cattle.
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