man tazed for not signing ticket

[King Profile]

Siren, you fascist.

[Siren Profile]

Had to be the first one, eh?

[Ryan Profile]

You want a source? I'll be a source. I don't care what PDs official use of force continuum states today. Back when Tasers first started being debated or deployed, they repeatedly and publicy exclaimed how tasers could be used by officers in situation where force was needed, but less then lethal force was desired. An officer facing a violent person either had to fight him (dangerous) or draw his weapon--potentially deadly consequence in a situation where the suspect wasn't presenting a weapon or any other immediately deadly threat. They said the Taser will fill the void between violent, and deadly violent.

If they had said we developed this new device called a taser so cops have a way of shocking your ass when you piss them off, we would have never agreed to let them have them. Besides, if Tasers were there simply to make people obey, sign tickets, shut up, etc we would have just issued cops cattle prods--they're cheaper and they've been on the market for decades.

I fully admit, I was wrong about tasers when they first came out. People said they would be abused, and I didn't believe them. I guess I'll learn to be more cynical in the future.

While I appreciate your response, it's simply hearsay. While you seem quite against tasers, it doesn't really prove that they were initially to be used as an "option to LETHAL force."

An "option to LETHAL force" would be anything else that would seriously mame or kill a suspect in a deadly situation. Officers have no other weapons, really, aside from firearms as an additional option. They have cruisers, but I don't think that would go over too well.

While this source is somewhat unreliable (hey, it's 3am), it does somewhat prove that Tasers weren't meant as a lethal alternative.

Tasers were introduced as a less-lethal weapon with the intention to be used by police to subdue fleeing, belligerent, or potentially dangerous suspects, often when a lethal weapon would have otherwise been used.

Their intent is not to kill. Lethal or deadly force would imply that death could very well be an outcome.

[[ecgn] btt Profile]

Something I notice that has not been mentioned. Less then 45 seconds after the dude was tazed. He was able to quickly get on his belly and calmly talk to the officer. So whats the big deal? The cop should have slapped him for talking like that. If we are worried about the few people that die each year from tazing. Well if we had to stop everything that killed a few people a year then will just dig a hole and crawl in now. No wait a few people die each year from digging. So I guess there will be no shovels either.


As I said before. I have had speeding tickets in five states and none of them required me to sign them on the spot or show up in court. They were all signed by me (admitting guilt) and mailed in with money order for the amount of the fine.

Some people think cops have to be obeyed no matter what they say. Cops have been using tasers to imprint that belief in the public's mind.

I am one of these people Chacal. But only when I know I have broke the law. Which happens to be the only time I have had to deal with a cop. Or when I am around people breaking the law. I guess I am just lucky that I never got pulled by a cop that was just randomly looking for someone to taze for fun. Very lucky since there seems to be so many that seem to want to taze for fun. If I did nothing wrong and a cop gives me shit then they might just get some shit back. To me it seems to work like this. No brake law no worry bout cop. When law is broke give cop no shit no need to worry.


One last thing. I am not a betting man. However I would bet my house that everyone in this thread would call the cops if they were in trouble. So lets not come down on them to hard.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

The main justification the people who are for tasers seem to be that the police are always right and that they can do what they want to citizens. Now excuse me for contradicting you but you are wrong. The police are NOT always right. If YOU choose to abdicate your rights to a police state, that is YOUR right to do but it does NOT infringe upon my, nor anyone elses right to not live in a police state. When a man or woman puts on a badge it does not instantly make them right. More often than not it makes them a tyrant. Please note, I did not say it makes them ALL tyrantical. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

As to proving that it is and was promoted as an alternative to lethal force. It is a fact. It is in my own memory as such and they always attach that statement or a variation thereof to any defense and justification of using a taser. Here is a link for you, although again I can't believe you need one. http://www.enotes.com/company-histories/taser-international-inc

In the video the guy had his BACK to the officer, his hands in plain view and was making NO threatening motions. Now exactly what was the officer afraid the guy was going to do? Release a cloud of deadly gas in his direction? Or am I assuming too much to say the officer needs justification to tase someone? Because I AM assuming this is understood to be the case. If you are assuming the officer may do whatever he wishes and whenever he wishes, then we have no common ground to begin with and will never come to an agreement. I would also suggest you to read (and understand) The Constitution of the United States. I have a great link for a college class on youtube if you like that spans several hours.

Now, as for your ludicrous assertion that no one has ever died from a taser.. Once again I cannot believe you could ever assert such a thing with a straight face. There have been numerous news reports stating just such a thing over the years. Saying that no one has died from a taser is like saying no one dies from a gunshot but only from a loss of blood or from organ failure. If a person would not have died without being tased, they died from a taser. Here is a link from CBS news and notice, by the way, once again they are saying it is an alternative to lethal force. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/12/earlyshow/main648859.shtml

I found these links with very little searching and keep in mind these are only from and concerning The United States. There are many other reports concerning other countries which are facing and grappelling with the same issues. Obviously though, their laws and rights differ.

[[ecgn] btt Profile]

If you think we are headed toward a police state. Blame the law makers not the police.

[Chacal Profile Website]

Let's not denigrate the tazer too much. It has proven to be a reliable tool for silencing disrupters. Ask the "Don't taze me, bro!" protester who refused to obey a command to shut up.

Officer Bro wasn't impressed.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

Sadly Chacal, I agree in your assessment of our future. I hope we don't get there and I hope that others also realize where we are heading and wake up!

BTT. I blame us the citizens for allowing this perversion to continue largely unchallenged and unchecked. It's not just because of lawmakers, although they too bear some of that blame. Laws and bills are passed with one intent and then people use them for different purposes or apply them in situations clearly beyond the original intent.

[King Profile]

My neighbor disappeared after he didn't sign a ticket. I'm scared. The gov't's gone TOO FAR! We've got to do something! I think im going to send a train full of explosives under the Pentagon, so we can start over. Give the power back to the people. Oh wait, i'm sorry, i'm in fantasyland along with all of you claiming that our society is crumbling down under the constant bombardment of tyranny and evil men. The way i see it, i'd rather be bitching about being tazed then not being alive because a cop shot me.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

Since when is it acceptable to shoot someone over a traffic ticket? I missed that meeting. I can't believe the stuff you guys are implying and outright saying...

[King Profile]

Since when is it acceptable to shoot someone over a traffic ticket? I missed that meeting. I can't believe the stuff you guys are implying and outright saying...

Hey V... I don't know, i can't believe you assumed i was speaking about getting tazered over a traffic ticket. The scope of the conversation ballooned to the overall paranoia of a police state and the exuberant and excessive amount of cruelty the police officers and other elected government officials wish to force our country to submit to.

The one bad thing about the internet is allows paranoid assholes spout their own form of propaganda in the likes of blogs and forum posts saying our whole society is crumbling down...

[Siren Profile]

Tazers have been linked to a FEW choice situations where people have died.

I'm pretty sure, in this video, the guy didn't die..... actually, overall, and GENERALLY speaking...people dont die when they get tazed. I know several officers that endure being "tazed" during their use of force training...and 5 seconds later, after the TEMPORARY effects of it have worn off.... they laugh and high 5 eachother....... they aren't whimpering and bitching about how awful and inhumane it is. I'd say pepper spray is a lot worse...the effects lasting much longer-term.

Everyone wants the right to be able to act like a bitch and get away with it...and then they want the right to also act like a bitch and have any punishment inflicted not be ...... um.......punishment-like. Which makes no sense.

Tickets have instructions on the back of them on how to take your case to court, and other alternatives to accepting the ticket. The guy has a million options staring him in the face, and he chooses the one option of acting like a jerk-off. These "tazer deaths" ARE being looked into.......which is great...but you people need to realize that tazers were not created to temporarily restrain people and "sneak a few murders in there".

How many people have died because of cops abusing their power? I'm sure some.... how many cops have died because of people abusing their rights?

Maybe those that are so paranoid about cops should start looking at their government.

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

First off, I am not a paranoid asshole. I tried to refrain from name calling in my posts and I would appreciate the same restraint in you.

Secondly, one is not paranoid if the stuff is really happening. I acknowledge that my arguments can be seen in a broader sense. There is a constant erosion of liberties and rights in this country and has been since day one. It is like evolution in the sense that it happens all the time even though you are not aware of it. It is happening though you cannot see it sometimes. Some people sleep and do not see. Some people see and do not care.

Refusing to accept what one sees is not my problem in this situation. I said what I know to be true about tazers and backed it up with articles. That is not paranoia. I do not lack empathy either, which is something that seems to be a deficiency in some. I do not think someone deserves to be tortured because they didn't follow an order. I do not think just because a cop agrees to be tazered that he then can tazer anyone else at will. It is no justification whatsoever. I would be willing to bet that the same people saying it is ok to tazer people are also ok with the US torturing suspects.

We have inalienable rights which are inherint in being a human being. We give power to the congress, to the police and to courts. They do not give anything to us unless we allow them to. I personally do not cede my rights to them whereas some of you seem to. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, here is the link that I mentioned earlier. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8321747074978323622

It also seems I must remind people that I said I was fine with tazers as originally conceived. As an alternative to lethal force. I am NOT ok with them being used to force compliance to an order. In the first instance, the occasional casualty is acceptable to me. In the second I have problems with the very concept of forcing someone to comply and also with the deaths involved.

[King Profile]

First of PA, i apologize if you took offense to me labeling a genre of people "paranoid assholes" I normally agree with a lot of the things you say and you explain your points very clearly.

I whole-heartedly agree with your statement that we have "inalienable rights which are inherint in being a human being". Humans are also prone to folly and no one is perfect. Since the beginning of our country we're alloted the right to bear arms. Its only fair to say that the people we charge with protecting our rights such as cops carry fire-arms as well. You can say this is a fight fire with fire attitude but if i were a police officer investigating a disturbance, and there was either reports of weapons fire or a shooting of some sort, i'd prefer something more than just a baton or pepper-spray.

But there have been accidents in the past. A kid has a gun that realistically looks like a handgun or weapon of some sort and he gets hurt or killed. The tensions were high or there was a language barrier of some sort.

Calls for a weapon thats less-lethal or can be used as more of a deterrent comes into play and thus we have the tazer. Of course, there are misuses of this less-lethal weapon. Sometimes the situations can be deescalated in another manner and they aren't. Language barrier, tension, whatever and the situation has gone bad. There are bad cops but i believe on the whole there is an extremely high ratio of good cops compared to bad cops. Sometimes the good ones do stupid things... but don't we all? We're not all perfect and its hard to watch someone hold another person to an extremely high standard that we ourselves can't meet.

Behind every incident such as this there should be some involvement with an inquiry to protect the civilian. And thats what our courts are supposed to do. Something tells me that if a cop is going to go out of his way to taze you, he is also going to arrest you... which i believe should be followed up with a court date and you have the option to secure legal counsel. There are ton of vids of cops doing something wrong. And there are a ton of people jumping on them for what they do wrong. However, you never see vids of routine traffic stops where nothing goes wrong and people responding to it saying "thats the way it should be!" and things of the like. And I guarantee you that along with the good cop/bad cop ratio there is a good stop/bad stop ratio which coincides with the latter.

If there are reports of police officers abusing their powers, then they need to be reported. Its amazing how so many people don't use their locally elected officials to hear their protests or air their complaints. Thats where it gets hazy since the stigma of "all politicians are corrupt" fits. Do you trust your locally elected official? Does he have the same political views as you do? Should that matter? Should everyone have the same belief/value system? Is that even possible? Probably not.

Not every cop wakes up in the morning and with his early morning coffee says "i'm going to taze the SHIT out of someone today... and violate their rights too" I don't wake up and say, "i'm going to try and screw over some of my customers today" I think people are inherently good-natured there are many people who down the line are psychologically who slip within the cracks of the 8 billion odd people who inhabit the earth. I use "slip within the cracks" loosely as it could be used to argue that i truly am a fascist like some claim since my view of the people who commit crime and break laws should punished for them is different than some of the people who post on this forum, live in my city, work where i work and are citizens of the US.

But hey, that makes me different from everyone else. No two people are the same, we don’t have a collective mind and we have independent thought. The human psyche is a mysterious thing that the brightest and most intelligent people can observe for the length of humanity and never understand. No one is without fault including the people we elect to represent us in our government, the cops that are hired to protect the citizens, and you, me and every normal joe who is out there in the population doing his thing to survive.

Now, testing the limits of our law blatantly is more like a virus as compared to an immune system which tries to fight off any bad thing in our system. Which do you prefer our society represent? I prefer the immune system. I hope I clarified my standpoint on police, the government and so on and so forth. People throw out statements like “its scary how this society is turning into a police state and people don’t even know it” and the like. However, they offer no solution to the problem, they don’t state what they exactly disagree with. I may be guilty of that too… but hey… i'm human and i'm prone to folly just like everyone else.

[Ryan Profile]

As to proving that it is and was promoted as an alternative to lethal force. It is a fact. It is in my own memory as such and they always attach that statement or a variation thereof to any defense and justification of using a taser. Here is a link for you, although again I can't believe you need one.

There is a very fine line between an "option for lethal force" and an "alternative for lethal force." See the mix up here?

Option indicates that there is another way to use lethal force.
Alternative, in this case, indicates that lethal force is not needed.

In the video the guy had his BACK to the officer, his hands in plain view and was making NO threatening motions. Now exactly what was the officer afraid the guy was going to do? Release a cloud of deadly gas in his direction? Or am I assuming too much to say the officer needs justification to tase someone? Because I AM assuming this is understood to be the case.

Either your eyes were closed when you watched the video, or maybe we saw two different videos.



The man's right hand is in his pocket, and he's pointing to something. Officer's training kicks in here. Is he attempting to distract the officer while he digs around in his pocket for something? Perhaps. The officer begins to draw a taser.



The man's hand remains in his pocket, and he begins to walk towards the vehicle. Is there something in his pocket he's trying to get? Is he trying to get back to his car and grab something?

These may sound insane to you, but again, the traffic stop is probably the most dangerous thing an officer can do. Not all criminals have shaved heads and tattoos.

Now, as for your ludicrous assertion that no one has ever died from a taser.. Once again I cannot believe you could ever assert such a thing with a straight face.

Someone had asked why tasers weren't banned. This is why. There is no significant evidance to support that people die directly as a result of being tased.