Tasering in America – right or wrong??

It doesn’t really matter that he was being warned that he might be tasered. A threat does not automatically justify an action. eg. “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your brains out” - guy refuses and gets his brains blown out. Would the killer be acquitted on the grounds that he had warned the victim and the victim brought it on himself by refusing to comply with the threat?

I don’t know about this guy’s lawsuit though. In Canada I don’t know if it would be worth much. For one, what’s his damage? If there’s no lasting injury, at most he could get a nominal amount. Damages are compensatory, that is, they should put the victim back to where he was. If all he had was some temporary tingling, what’s there to compensate?

There’s the possibility of punitive damages (designed not to compensate the victim but to punish the wrongful behaviour), but in today’s security-conscious age I think cops get a lot of leeway in dealing with potential security threats.

In the U.S. though I think damage awards tend to be a lot higher than in Canada, which is why you see a lot more ambulance-chasing lawyers in the U.S. There’s bigger money for lawyers, and one of my friends moved to Chicago for that reason, but the lifestyle and that kind of practice does not appeal to me.

@ncscswitch:

OK, I watched the video.

At the time he was tasered, he was BEING HELD DOWN BY MULTIPLE OFFICERS.  He was not physically resisting, he was verbally resisting asking why he was being put under arrest.

One of the officers did threaten to Taser him if he did not shut up and leave.  HOWEVER, Tasering is significant (and potentially deadly in some cases) force, and the individual was NO physical threat to ANYONE at the time he was tasered.

Had he been “loose” and moving around, had he be moving toward the stage, had he been physically assaulting the officers, then yes, taser him, cuff him, and haul his a** out of there.

But NONE of those things were the case.  He was being held prone by multiple officers, and only his mouth was still functioning.  The Officers already had ample opportunity and time to cuff him and lead him out.

The Taser was excessive force, and the student WILL win a lawsuit, probably in 7 figures, over this incident.

And I would imagine the guy has a few thousand attorneys trying to get him to let them handle the case so that they can take 1/3 of his certain settlement.

The student could win a lawsuit, but he also responsible of some infractions himself.
Moreover, I agree with Frood, there are not injures from the action to be repaid.

The damage award would be punitive (y’all are correct, there are no real compensatory damages here unless the student does have lasting injuries/harm from the tasering).

But in our current legal environment, there would be a MASSIVE punitive award as “punishment” for the police, and as a warning to other officers elsewhere to not use excessive force.

Remember, the jury that would determine the size of the award would be made up of 12 people who would not want to be tasered for no reason, and in most jurisdictions it would also likely include at least one member that would be openly hostile toward police.  And the fact taht we have real video of the event that shows without doubt that the individual was completely restrained and prone by multiple officers at the time he was tasered…  There is NO defense here for the police.  That tasering was 100% illegal, 100% against the policies of every police department in the nation, and 100% unjustified.

Lastly, most jurisdictions have liability policies of a couple of million dollars that can be used for both settlements and judgments.

So I see this one being settled pretty quickly for a pretty fair amount of cash.

This concept of “excessive force” is a bit puzzling to me.  Clearly if they were unable to subdue the guy, then the force was inadequate.  Then more force would have been needed to bring them up to “adequate”.  The cops were having difficulty putting him in a position to be arrested.  They did not have enough force to do this.  Therefore they needed more force.  I think the struggling, hands-over-the-head, wriggling etc. required a little something extra.  Sadly a bullet would be considered inappropriate and excessive therefore a tasering was the best way to subdue him.

One could argue whether arresting the individual was necessary, however i’m not sure how to best remove a screaming idiot from the room without arresting him - can they detain him without arresting him? 
One could also argue whether they should have removed him from the room before they arrested him - i could go with this one - that would have been a smarter decision if they could have pulled it off.

This guy knew what he was doing.  He WANTED to get tased (if he wasn’t mentally disturbed) and he knew how to get tased.  The cops tell me to chill or else i get tased, and i flop down with my hands behind my back.  This guy steps it up and starts yelling at them.

The tasering was wrong.

Going on the lines of what Switch said, the guy was under a pile of cops.  You tase someone in that position, and it’s excessive.

Why did they tase him?  Because he wouldn’t shut up.  Poor cops…having to hear the pleas of a guy the just assaulted.  And Kerry was even talking to him when they tased him.

It all started when they simply turned of the mic and grabbed him.  We don’t like what you are saying, so we’re gonna shut you up.  And naturally, anyone would resist something like that because it’s so ridiculous and in your face - you’ve committed no crime.  He didn’t act up, just asking WTF is going on.

It’s a sad state when you give police enough power to tase you into submission when they don’t like you.  Welcome to a police state.

I find it funny that you all laugh while you see your civil rights eroding right before your eyes.  I guess if you are entertained, you don’t care what’s taken away from you.

If it was ok to tase him because he was attention whoring, then they probably should have done it to Kerry too.  That’s all he was doing there anyway.

@Jermofoot:

The tasering was wrong.

Going on the lines of what Switch said, the guy was under a pile of cops.  You tase someone in that position, and it’s excessive.

Why did they tase him?  Because he wouldn’t shut up.  Poor cops…having to hear the pleas of a guy the just assaulted.  And Kerry was even talking to him when they tased him.

It all started when they simply turned of the mic and grabbed him.  We don’t like what you are saying, so we’re gonna shut you up.  And naturally, anyone would resist something like that because it’s so ridiculous and in your face - you’ve committed no crime.  He didn’t act up, just asking WTF is going on.

It’s a sad state when you give police enough power to tase you into submission when they don’t like you.  Welcome to a police state.

I find it funny that you all laugh while you see your civil rights eroding right before your eyes.  I guess if you are entertained, you don’t care what’s taken away from you.

If it was ok to tase him because he was attention whoring, then they probably should have done it to Kerry too.  That’s all he was doing there anyway.

Quoted for truth, every last bit of it.

@Jermofoot:

The tasering was wrong.

Going on the lines of what Switch said, the guy was under a pile of cops.  You tase someone in that position, and it’s excessive.

Why did they tase him?  Because he wouldn’t shut up.  Poor cops…having to hear the pleas of a guy the just assaulted.  And Kerry was even talking to him when they tased him.

It all started when they simply turned of the mic and grabbed him.  We don’t like what you are saying, so we’re gonna shut you up.  And naturally, anyone would resist something like that because it’s so ridiculous and in your face - you’ve committed no crime.  He didn’t act up, just asking WTF is going on.

It’s a sad state when you give police enough power to tase you into submission when they don’t like you.  Welcome to a police state.

I find it funny that you all laugh while you see your civil rights eroding right before your eyes.  I guess if you are entertained, you don’t care what’s taken away from you.

If it was ok to tase him because he was attention whoring, then they probably should have done it to Kerry too.  That’s all he was doing there anyway.

So what would the appropriate solution be?  Allow this guy to further monopolize the session?  I mean shall we just anticipate that any otherwise civil discussion/political/religious event be subjected to the whims of any loud-mouthed obnoxious brat pushing a political agenda?  Is there a point to having these meetings if there is no recourse by the organisers when someone like this decides he wants to “make a point”? 
I won’t bring a “slipery slope” argument into play, but i do see too many events that get shouted down by people with an agenda - whether liberal or conservative, religious or “other”. 
So what is your solution?  If someone refuses to adhere to the understandings of a civilized society, and distrupt a meeting then are we to just sit down and watch it implode to the rantings of this brat?  Hope that he eventually sits down and shuts up?  expect that he would be escorted peaceably (he wouldn’t) kill him?  beat him into a coma?  drug him?  There are many other options - which are your favorite?

You remove the individual, and you might even charge him with Disturbing the Peace (which is effectively the crime of pissing off a cop).

6 police officers with one prone wimpy student.  I am sorry, if they cannot cuff and drag 1 wimpy kid out of a room with 6 officers, then we need better cops.

Again, the Tasering was a complete violation of both the law and police department policies in every jurisdiction in this nation.  There was no threat to the offers or others present, and the suspect was already 100% subdued.

And yes, I do see this as just another example of the massive and rapid Orwellian marche of our society overall.

@cystic:

@Jermofoot:

The tasering was wrong.

Going on the lines of what Switch said, the guy was under a pile of cops.  You tase someone in that position, and it’s excessive.

Why did they tase him?  Because he wouldn’t shut up.  Poor cops…having to hear the pleas of a guy the just assaulted.  And Kerry was even talking to him when they tased him.

It all started when they simply turned of the mic and grabbed him.  We don’t like what you are saying, so we’re gonna shut you up.  And naturally, anyone would resist something like that because it’s so ridiculous and in your face - you’ve committed no crime.  He didn’t act up, just asking WTF is going on.

It’s a sad state when you give police enough power to tase you into submission when they don’t like you.  Welcome to a police state.

I find it funny that you all laugh while you see your civil rights eroding right before your eyes.  I guess if you are entertained, you don’t care what’s taken away from you.

If it was ok to tase him because he was attention whoring, then they probably should have done it to Kerry too.  That’s all he was doing there anyway.

So what would the appropriate solution be?  Allow this guy to further monopolize the session?  I mean shall we just anticipate that any otherwise civil discussion/political/religious event be subjected to the whims of any loud-mouthed obnoxious brat pushing a political agenda?  Is there a point to having these meetings if there is no recourse by the organisers when someone like this decides he wants to “make a point”? 
I won’t bring a “slipery slope” argument into play, but i do see too many events that get shouted down by people with an agenda - whether liberal or conservative, religious or “other”. 
So what is your solution?  If someone refuses to adhere to the understandings of a civilized society, and distrupt a meeting then are we to just sit down and watch it implode to the rantings of this brat?  Hope that he eventually sits down and shuts up?  expect that he would be escorted peaceably (he wouldn’t) kill him?  beat him into a coma?  drug him?  There are many other options - which are your favorite?

Let’s be realistic here.
Kerry had no problem answering his questions.  The guy obviously wanted to make some points, no matter how unpopular or stupid they may seem, and complied with protocol which was to wait for your turn at the mic.
Maybe I didn’t see or hear the video correctly, but it seemed like the cops were the only ones who wanted to make a scene, only because they didn’t like what he saying/asking.
The disruption came when the cops shut off the mic and grabbed the guy.  Had they let him ask his questions, which Kerry was privy to answering, he may just have turned and walked right out.

I can see why the guy was so worked up - in his mind, he’s expressing his political views and he’s being silenced. Now, if he had been taking over the session for 15 minutes, then clearly he was out of hand. But if they simply didn’t like the one question he asked.

The student was a bit of an idiot though, and the cops were idiots too. I’d send everyone back to basic journalism and basic cop training.

I think what Switch is trying to get at is that our legal environment is such that the police are treated more like the enemy then as law enforcement.  If an officer of the law so much as breaks the law in a trivial manner, s/he can expect huge punishments from the courts.  This probably heralds back to the days of colonialism.  Not genetic, cultural.  Americans, by and large, distrust authority figures, it’s not in our nature.  So when an authority figure appears to be as evil as we expect them to be, we nail them as hard as we can to show the other authority figures that they better toe the line!

Just my impression of it.

Anyway, I don’t condone lawsuits by in large.  I’d rather the officers just be stripped of their badges and dishonorably discharged from their units.  Lawsuits just make the government rich, and any entity that can afford multiple trillion dollar budgets does not need to get more rich!

DTMB is the new fad at ytmnd.com

Here are a couple good ones that I found.  :wink:

http://ghosttasers.ytmnd.com/
http://tazeelo.ytmnd.com/
http://canttazethis.ytmnd.com/

Haha I love ytmnd

Well, I am sure 6 cops could have removed him from the room.  They could have pulled out sticks and beat him into submission.  It may seem like an easy thing to just drag a guy out of the room, but when he’s kicking and screeming and acting like a three year old some one is going to get hurt in the process.  If the guy being romoved want to risk injury to himself to make his point thats his decision.  The cops have a responsibility to do what they can to keep bystanders as well as them selves from being hurt.  If a tazer makes that happen, more power to 'em.

As a rule cops don’t just go around tazering people for jollies.  They knew there were camera present and I believe, until some one shows diferently, that they were acting within their departmental policy.

Did anyone stop to think that it’s most likely that they were instructed to remove this guy from the room.  I would be willing to bet that te cops didn’t just decide “hey that guys gotta go”.  Most likely an organizer directed them to remove him.  At that point it is there resopnceability to make that happen.

As usual on the net people react to what they are shown with no thought that there might and almost always is more to the story.  It’s more fun to be outraged than it is to think that maybe there is a rational explanation for what I am seeing.  :roll:

@dezrtfish:

Well, I am sure 6 cops could have removed him from the room.  They could have pulled out sticks and beat him into submission.  It may seem like an easy thing to just drag a guy out of the room, but when he’s kicking and screeming and acting like a three year old some one is going to get hurt in the process.  If the guy being romoved want to risk injury to himself to make his point thats his decision.  The cops have a responsibility to do what they can to keep bystanders as well as them selves from being hurt.  If a tazer makes that happen, more power to 'em.

How would a guy under a pile of cops hurt anyone? He wasn’t even on PCP.

As a rule cops don’t just go around tazering people for jollies.  They knew there were camera present and I believe, until some one shows diferently, that they were acting within their departmental policy.

Actually, there has been much debate about not only the lethality of a taser, but also the excessive employment of them.  People have died from being tased, there are records showing that cops are more likely to use the taser since it is considered nonlethal.

Did anyone stop to think that it’s most likely that they were instructed to remove this guy from the room.  I would be willing to bet that te cops didn’t just decide “hey that guys gotta go”.  Most likely an organizer directed them to remove him.  At that point it is there resopnceability to make that happen.

Unfortunately, we can’t just silence what we don’t want to hear.  A discussion must include even the fringe arguments that are unlikely.

As usual on the net people react to what they are shown with no thought that there might and almost always is more to the story.  It’s more fun to be outraged than it is to think that maybe there is a rational explanation for what I am seeing.  :roll:

What could possibly be more to the story?  You can see everything from start to finish on the video.

@Jermofoot:

@dezrtfish:

Well, I am sure 6 cops could have removed him from the room.  They could have pulled out sticks and beat him into submission.  It may seem like an easy thing to just drag a guy out of the room, but when he’s kicking and screeming and acting like a three year old some one is going to get hurt in the process.  If the guy being romoved want to risk injury to himself to make his point thats his decision.  The cops have a responsibility to do what they can to keep bystanders as well as them selves from being hurt.  If a tazer makes that happen, more power to 'em.

How would a guy under a pile of cops hurt anyone? He wasn’t even on PCP.

how long were they to stay there, pinning him down?  How would they stop him from shouting down the person everyone actually was there to hear speak?  How safe would it be to just hold some thrashing guy down?  Even with the threat of a tasing, he was still yelling and thrashing and resisting.

As a rule cops don’t just go around tazering people for jollies.  They knew there were camera present and I believe, until some one shows diferently, that they were acting within their departmental policy.

Actually, there has been much debate about not only the lethality of a taser, but also the excessive employment of them.  People have died from being tased, there are records showing that cops are more likely to use the taser since it is considered nonlethal.

people die from cars too and people’s reckless empolyment of those.  As for the “lethality” - i have read about that, and i think that one has to be careful about zappng the heart.  But a taser is like a gun.  Maybe don’t give the cops a reason to use it . . . ?

Did anyone stop to think that it’s most likely that they were instructed to remove this guy from the room.  I would be willing to bet that te cops didn’t just decide “hey that guys gotta go”.  Most likely an organizer directed them to remove him.  At that point it is there resopnceability to make that happen.

Unfortunately, we can’t just silence what we don’t want to hear.  A discussion must include even the fringe arguments that are unlikely.

That really depends.  I’m guessing the gay and lesbian coalition would prohibit a conservative Christian from shouting at their meeting (actually - i saw an example where they prevented a conservative Christian from speaking at an organization that was organized for him).

As usual on the net people react to what they are shown with no thought that there might and almost always is more to the story.  It’s more fun to be outraged than it is to think that maybe there is a rational explanation for what I am seeing.  :roll:

What could possibly be more to the story?  You can see everything from start to finish on the video.

Well - if we go just by the video, we don’t know the conditions that Kerry agreed to speak under, we don’t know if this guy had a restraining order against him, we don’t know if he’s got a previous record or experience with these cops or these meetings, we don’t know if he has some kind of restraining order against him.  At any rate, the fact is that he was asked to sit down and shut up, and he very strenuously resisted this.

@Jermofoot:

How would a guy under a pile of cops hurt anyone? He wasn’t even on PCP.

I think CC covered this, should they sit on him for 10 minutes? 20? 2 hours?

@Jermofoot:

Actually, there has been much debate about not only the lethality of a taser, but also the excessive employment of them.  People have died from being tased, there are records showing that cops are more likely to use the taser since it is considered nonlethal.

I don’t know how the laws are inother places, but in AZ you can’t use “less than lethal” on someone unless it has been used on you.  In other words the cops here have all been tazed and pepper sprayed.  They know exactly what it does and how it works.

@Jermofoot:

Unfortunately, we can’t just silence what we don’t want to hear.  A discussion must include even the fringe arguments that are unlikely.

Yeah we can.  You may have freedom of speech, but I also have the freedom to tell you to be quiet if I don’t want to hear it in my house.  I can hold my hands over my ears, mI can turn off the TV/Radio.  And if you’re on my property I can tell you to shut up or leave.

@Jermofoot:

What could possibly be more to the story?  You can see everything from start to finish on the video.

Of course there’s more to the story, unless you were there, you don’t know what was happening outside of the camera view.