SUE THEIR ASSES!
Apparently the Tasings will continue until we can force the police to find a less violent means of dealing with the people they’ve sworn to serve and to protect. A million dollars from the officer and another from the town should serve as a nice incentive to re-think their actions.
Nan passed along this tale of a 90-pound autistic boy being Tased twice. Supposedly he posed a credible threat to the police officer.
Riiight.
9 Responses to “SUE THEIR ASSES!”
![]() Comment by Dawn February 21st, 2009 at 8:24 pm |
It doesn’t stop there. In Canada we’re tasering children too – canada...y.html |
![]() Comment by Nance Confer February 22nd, 2009 at 8:05 am |
Right. They should be doing their child beatings the old-fashioned way! Oh, that’s not right either, is it? Hmmm. . . this could get complicated. Nance |
![]() Comment by Rob February 22nd, 2009 at 8:46 pm |
Well, as usual, there’s more to the story than the headline can hold. “The Bells contend the school district failed to follow the guidelines they had set up to deal with the boy’s outbursts — techniques the family says would have given the boy a chance to cool off.” “When the physical force failed to control the 5-foot boy, Kinkade drew his Taser and shocked the boy two times” “The Police Department has an autism response team, but it was not dispatched. Kinkade is not a member of that team, according to the suit.” Anyway, here’s another plea on my part to consider the difference between things that hurt and things that injure. Owies are lower on the scale than injuries. You wanna “force the police to find a less violent means” of dealing with violent people? They already have one – a nightstick upside the base of the skull is much quicker and less violent. You sure you wanna have them pull their stick instead of their tazer? |
![]() Comment by dcobranchi February 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 am |
Yes. If those are the only two choices. Which I highly doubt. |
![]() Comment by Rob February 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 am |
So, I’m interested in your answer. A tazer causes incredible pain, but really no lasting effects. (Rare exceptions make the news a handfull of times each year.) It’s called ‘pain compliance’, meaning someone gets zapped until they don’t want to fight any more. A nightstick upside the skull has a far greater chance of causing injury – broken/cracked bones, concussion, etc. On top of that, if dood thinks he’s bulletproof, he’ll keep fighting a cop with a nightstick until incapacitated – at much greater risk of injury. I just wonder if you’ve really considered the difference between intense pain that immediately dissapears with no lasting effects, and having the hell beat out of you until you can’t fight back because you’ve been beaten into unconsciousness. Anyway, it’s always relevant to consider the level of threat, and cops who beat or taze people who are no threat need to be brought to justice. If that happened here, yeah, sue ’em into the ground. |
![]() Comment by dcobranchi February 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 am |
How many people died from night-stick injuries prior to Tasers’ widespread use? And how many have died because they were electrocuted? Or because a cop stupidly pulls his gun and shoots someone in the back thinking he’s shooting them with a “harmless” Taser? |
![]() Comment by Rob February 23rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm |
I’d like to see a good study done. Quick googling shows me: Nightsticks/physical force: From a 2003 study entitled “Deaths among criminal suspects, law enforcement officers, civilians, and prison inmates: a coroner-based study.”: 77 cases; 14 occurred prior to or during arrest, 10 during police chases, 2 during police transport. The Arizona Republic newspaper listed ~90 taser deaths a few years back. When looking at actual coroner’s report – there’s a lot of gunshots, lethal drug ingestion, wrist slitting, and even one guy who filled up his home with natural gas, then set off by the taser. Out of ~90 original media stories, half of the coroners report’s are unavailable, the other half has 6 listed as taser-related. Looking at those 6, a lot of heart attacks coupled with serious abnormalities like gigantic hearts/livers/spleens. In other words – medically fragile people who probably would have died under any sort of forceful restraining methods. I suppose the multitudes of people hit by a taser who fall off bridges aren’t listed as taser related by a coroner. |
![]() Comment by NMcV February 23rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm |
Rob – I’ve worked with children and adolescents and children who were bigger than me, and who were having meltdowns, angry, screaming, making threats, fighting. Some of these kids were autistic. Others were schizophrenic, FAS, brain injured, or just plain “severely disturbed”. I once took sharp scissors away from the boy who was trying to puncture my pregnant belly. I’ve never had to use either Taser or a nightstick. “To a small boy with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” |
![]() Comment by JJ February 24th, 2009 at 9:14 pm |
Not to mention that things that hurt DO injure, if the NYT science times section today is to be believed. Abuse in childhood changes the brain whether it breaks bones or not, through its response to stress hormones and eventually what kind of parent that child will become —
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