Cops cleared in 'Don't Tase me, Bro' case

[Scurrilous]

Source: Miami Herald

<snip>

"The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has released a 300-page report on the infamous zapping of University of Florida senior Andrew Meyer, whose rowdy actions, catch-phrase and police Tasering during a John Kerry town hall forum made international headlines.

''Don't Tase me, Bro,'' Meyer, 21, squealed after police put the screaming, combative student down on the ground and relaxed him with 50,000 volts from a Taser.

FDLE has determined that University of Florida police did nothing improper in subduing Meyer after he resisted arrest.

A statement from University of Florida President Bernie Machen and links to the FDLE report can be found at www.president.ufl.edu/incident/."

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/282692.html

[whoneedstickets]

1. In a related story, Cowpokes cleared in livestock prodding incident...

...just follow the herd, stay in the corral and you won't get the juice!

[qazplm]

4. oh please

that guy did everything he could TO get tasered. He was rude, disruptive and uncooperative.
This is Kerry, not Bush, you can't tell me that Kerry is "the man" or that "the man" was trying to protect Kerry.

This wasn't some Quixotic quest to slay "the man", this was a jerk with no concept of how to act in public.

[whoneedstickets]

5. Sorry, was that a Mooo?

My bovine is a little rusty, you might want to translate...

[qazplm]

8. oh please

take that sanctimony somewhere where it sells.

[bos1]

85. Mooo #2

[Zhade]

67. NICE.

Zing!

[bos1]

84. That's also a Moooo

[liberalnurse]

15. I have to agree with you on that one.

He waited to be the last one to ask a question knowingly that the session was trying to conclude..rudely dragging thing along then evoking the "drama flare".

To be uncooperative was his intent.

[mikelgb]

24. yeah they should have just shot him and been done with it

it's what he wanted right

[cstanleytech]

43. Heck I would have tasered the kid

he was acting like a punk and its not because it was because it was an event where kerry was as I would have probably tasered at any event where someone was speaking and he was acting like he did.

[DemBones DemBones]

86. OK, let's issue tasers to all teachers. Teachers have to

deal with that sort of misbehavior from teenagers all the time: kids who won't sit down and be quiet.

[Zhade]

68. Sure. The response was appropriate.

In East Germany, maybe.

[fasttense]

76. Thank god our selected government officials are protected from rudeness.

I think tasering a student for being annoying is perfectly justified. I mean what if he had asked an embarrassing question? It could lead other people to ask embarrassing questions of our government officials. You know, like what if someone asked the bushes. "Why they did absolutely nothing to stop the 9/11 terrorists?" It could make our selected officials feel uncomfortable.

There is no telling where annoying people asking embarrassing questions would stop. What if the MSM were to ask the administration's economic advisers, "Why isn't trickle down working? Why aren't the rich trickling all over the middle class and poor instead of just getting richer?"

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement should have cleared those taser-wielding cops. We need to protect our politicians from uncomfortable questions. It is the least they deserve for working so hard for so little reward.

You have got to know this is sarcasm...or not?

[nodehopper]

100. I guess you accept that tazering people is OK

[WileEcoyote]

9. Reminds me of that perverted cowboy and his horse

He kept saying: "Giddy yup, Whoa back!" "Giddy yup, Whoa back!" "Giddy yup, Whoa back!" "Giddy yup, Whoa back!"

[pingzing58]

2. In a Fascist state the police keep those in power by suppressing free speach.

[varkam]

7. But the police were not suppressing free speech in this instance.

Free speech does come with some caveats, especially when you are given a platform from which to exercise that right. For example, when Imus was canned for his remarks about the Rutgers basketball team, his free speech rights were not being infringed. He has a right to free speech, but he does not have a right to a platform.

In this case, the platform was the University, and they had set up a few rules governing the questions (for instance, you had about a minute to ask your question). The student disobeyed those rules, and the the police had the issue of what to do about a student that was becoming unruly. You may disagree with the rules that were inherent to the specific platform, but that is a reservation that needs to be taken up with the University. I think some better questions to ask about this case are questions like where was the moderator, and also did the police follow proper protocol in using the taser. According to this report, they did.

[pingzing58]

20. The police have a right to shoot you in the head and then claim you threatend them, whose to tell?

I agree with you. Security and police, agents the military and the government, can kill at will and will never be brought to justice. You don't understand fascism and the power of right wing idiots and how they remain in power do you?

[varkam]

21. Uh....what does that have to do with any of the points I made?

I fail to see any relevance at all.

[pingzing58]

26. Ok, the kid wasn't following the rules of the conference concerning questions and their length.

Security had the right to remove the student from the forum and use as much force as was necessary to subdue the perpetrator. Now, is this an isolated incident or is their a greater issue concerning "police brutality" or lack of training, etc. The revelance concerns a trend that goes beyond this single incident. Perhaps you "can't see the forest for the trees."

[varkam]

49. Tasers, as far as I understand them...

are used because physical confrontation actually put people at greater risks for physical injury (not that there aren't risks inherent in tasing). I really don't see this as an incident that is indicitive of facism because his first ammendment rights were not violated at all. If you want to think that I cannot see the forest for the trees, then go right ahead.

[bos1]

41. Free speech if you remain very polite, follow all the rules, and make no difference.

how very nice.

[varkam]

50. No - that's not what I said.

What I said was that when you are using a platform to exercise your free speech then you have to follow the rules inherent in that platform. The student can go out on the street corner and say pretty much anything he wants to all day long, but he doesn't have the right to use a University-sponsored forum to say whatever he wants, for as long as he wants. He has to follow the rules that they have set in place. Perhaps you don't agree with those specific rules, and that is fine, but that is an issue that should be taken up with the University and not with the police.

[bos1]

83. This is exactly the point. And the problem.

You say "The student can go out on the street corner and say pretty much anything he wants to all day long." -- shoving free speech onto street corners. In the 21st century. It's a joke.

It's like once when an actor at the Oscars said something political and the next person said "this is not the place for political opinions."

BS! It's exactly the place!

[LanternWaste]

92. And throwing him out is a suppression of his free speech?

I should allow any visitor at my home say anything and everything he wants to, regardless? And throwing him out is a suppression of his free speech?

[karynnj]

99. As it is the 21st century, he also has the internet

which he and his friends used to get his self aggrandizing video out before millions. The difference with the actor is that he was invited to speak by virtue of winning and stayed within an appropriate time.

Meyer was given time to speak, even though most speakers would simply have allowed the arrest to occur then. The police let him - but then he abused that gift. If he wanted the answer, all he had to do, was after Kerry said he had read Palast's book, asked his opinion - and quieted to hear the answer. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to hear Kerry answer than Meyer summarize?

[karynnj]

73. Imagine he would have stopped after he asked his first question

and the Senator started to respond or if, when the Senator had said he read the Palast book, he would have asked what the Senator thought of the book's conclusions or specific points made in the book. I know of no instance where Senator Kerry has ever refused to answer a question and he did start to answer, but was cut off by Meyer. Doing this would have been "following the rules". It would also have led to an answer that people here might have liked hearing - even if they disagreed with it.

Ask yourself, which would provide more information - Kerry answering the question or Meyer continuing to attack him?

[Progressive Friend]

59. Hardly surprising that the Confederate State of Florida sees nothing wrong with police brutality

[karynnj]

72. His speech was not suppress

He was allowed because Kerry intervened when he first disrupted to ask a question. When he finished asking his first question, he interrupted Senator Kerry's attempt to answer - to harrangue further. The Senator had already tried to engage him by saying that he had read Palast's book. If he was interested in getting an answer - he would have taken the opening the Senator gave him and asked what he thought of the book's conclusions and then listened to the answer. People here likely would have wanted to hear the answer.

There is a concept of a "heckler's veto", which is specifically not protected by the the first amendment. Meyer's actions get pretty close to that line. While he had a microphone, he did prevent the Senator from answering. He did not have the right to turn the event into his own forum. Even when the microphone was taken away he continued to yell. I wish the police could have avoided tasing him, but once he was told to leave the auditorium by the police, he had to listen.

The people I see as more victims in this are the kids who set up the event, who were bashed online while Meyer was lionized, and the Senator, who had actually responded with civility to Meyer's rudeness.

[varkam]

3. Relaxed him with 50,000 volts from a tazer?!

Lol! I don't know if the author of this piece has ever been hit with a tazer, but something tells me "relaxing" is not a good word to describe the experience.

[Justitia]

25. yeah, because he was "rowdy", "screaming" & "combative". -eom

[varkam]

51. Right, but I just thought it was an odd word choice is all eom

[Justitia]

90. No, I was agreeing w/you, being sarcastic about the article's word choices, they are way biased.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the "relaxed w/taser" idiotic stmt.
Then I saw the words they were using to describe his demeanor and that's what I posted.

The tone of the article was ridiculously editorial.

Just wanted to clarify I was agreeing with your sentiments.

[varkam]

96. Oh, okay.

:hi:

[Mad_Dem_X]

35. That's what I thought, too - "relaxed him?"

I would hardly call shooting someone with a taser "relaxing" them.

[varkam]

52. When I think relaxation...

I think classical music, napping, maybe even a back rub or two...being taserd just doesn't come to mind :D

[The2ndWheel]

6. The cops played that guy like a FDLE

FDLE while Rome burns.

FDLE-de-dee

Alright, that's enough.

[tandot]

10. I've read the 17-page executive summary and I am glad the cops were cleared

http://www.president.ufl.edu/incident/FDLE-Executive-Summary.pdf

Especially parts f), g), and h)


And, the statement about the 9/11/2007 incident to a friend that "if he liked what he had seen...that he should go to the Kerry speech and he would really see a show"

Also, Page 11 is very telling:

"While en route to the Jail, ..... does not realize he is being recored. When .... .. off camera he is much calmer ..... tells Officers that they did not do anything wrong. .....

<snip>

He made 2 phone calls and "appears to sound elated that the arrest has occurred and at one point states that he is happy this has happened."

<snip>

he seems to have been especially elated about the media attention and Matt Lauer wanted to an interview.

[Mojorabbit]

11. He was a college

kid who got tasered for acting out. I am not ok with that at all.

[tandot]

13. Did you read the executive summary?

I read all of the 17 pages of it and he was a stupid asshole who went to the Kerry speech to make a scene and interrupt it.

Just read the summary and tell me that you still stand by your statement that he was a "kid who got tasered for acting out..."

Here ya go:

http://www.president.ufl.edu/incident/FDLE-Executive-Summary.pdf

[Mojorabbit]

14. He was a KID

who acted out studidly. He did not deserve to be tasered for that. The was surrounded by cops who could have got him out of there. He should not have been tasered for being stupid and looking for attention.

[tandot]

19. Apparently still haven't read the summary

...never mind then. Have a nice day.

[Mojorabbit]

22. Did read it

Read where the cops said it was safer to taz him rather than take him down. I don't want children in this country tazed for acting stupid. Period.

[tandot]

23. See, the cops didn't know if he is just acting "stupid" or if he

is a thread to the other students or Kerry. Remember this one:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18134671/

"Worst U.S. shooting ever kills 33 on Va. campus"

-----------------

He was asked to stop, he didn't. He was asked to leave, he didn't. He was actually given ample time and the opportunity to leave by himself. When they tried to escort him out, he broke "free and charged toward the stage"

Senator Kerry didn't have any security detail with him. How do you decide if someone like this is just "acting stupid" or is getting ready to attack?

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mojorabbit]

64. Well your statement

"As far as I can tell, the only major difference between folk like you and the average Fox Viewer is that someone else got to you first" tells me all I need to know about continuing this discussion with you. You don't know anything about me.

[TheMadMonk]

71. Not a blessed thing. But if you quack like a duck...

You are defending as a "kid", someone who is legally his own person, entitled to make his own decisions and legally responsible for his actions. A person who spoke of something "really big" that would happen at this event. From that alone it is clear that his actions were largely premeditated or the direct consequence of actions which were entirely premeditated.

He set out to have this confrontation. And he got it. He played those cops like a Strad. and the outcome (or potentially worse if they had opted for overwhelming him physically (their only other viable option) instead) was inevitable. And those cops had no real choice but to go along with his game or admit defeat and surrender the field to him to detriment of a great many other people. An obviously less than ideal outcome.

The majority of the people who were actual eye witnesses, and ideologically disposed to agree with the substance of his words are in agreement that the "kid's" actions were beyond the pale and that the police response was measured and at all times appropriate.

The vast majority of objections came and come from people who's argument essentially boil down to "I hate tasers, they're cruel/evil because of the "unnecessary suffering" they cause." and/or "Some cops are sadistic bastards. No cop in general can be trusted not to be such a bastard and instruments of pain should not be placed in their hands." That sort of shallow reasoning is reputedly the domain of the average Faux viewer. A woolblind sheep, willing to accept without thought anything which panders to their preconceptions. If you think that there is ALWAYS an alternative to pain/harm, then you and I are doomed to disagree.

And let us hope that our personal disagreement ends there. Because if I need to explain why I object to hearing someone repeatedly and unswervingly assume the worst of cops, simply because of the bad behaviour of a few, then I'll escalate from Faux viewer to finding little to tell them from a Klansman in their basic nature. Those who don't like the comparison, shouldn't practice hate without reason, and guilt by association alone is never adequate reason.




And even this was 100% a kid out of control, I still have a problem with your problem. The obligation of the police is to ensure an absolute minimum of irreversible harm to every party involved or merely present at the scene of a confrontation. And that includes protecting that "kid" from having an "assault police" charge on his resume. A short, sharp, incapacitating take down that leaves no lasting harm, or minimises the likelihood of such, no matter how painful is always to be preferred to one that might well cause actual and appreciable harm or even likely death to any one or more amongst: the guilty; the obligated to act; and the entirely innocent.

Right now for all its shortcomings the taser, is in my opinion, the best available general purpose instrument to delver that harm minimising shock and ensure temporary incapacitation. Not just when properly used, but because, even (or perhaps especially) when improperly and excessively used, it's potential for lasting harm is far, far lower than for any instrument that relies on kinetic energy, or imposing physical restraint on an unwilling person for effectiveness.

Zero harm, minimal anguish, 100% selectivity, instant take down. That pretty much describes the perfect law enforcement weapon, and the taser seems to come as close as we are currently able to meeting those ideals. The taser is still admittedly a bust on anguish, that is extreme, but at least soon over. And it might well be something that can't be eliminated without adversely affecting the three far more important ideals that have been pretty much met as closely as is physically possible with current knowledge.

[tom_paine]

79. Good post. It gives me pause to rethink.

However, my question is this. The kid was clearly restrained by 5 cops by the time he was tazed. They had him well in control. It's hard to tell from the pile in the video, but it seems clear he was tiring and had lost his appetite and perhaps his ability for further sustained struggle or resistance.

Hell, his pleas of "Don't taze me, bro!" to me constitute a surrender. If they had not tazed him, he likely weould have "been good" just from the THREAT of it. That is my sense of the video, anyway.

Even IF the kid was premeditating and was an asshole, the response was still excessive and just gave the asshole what he wanted.

Since you bring up the mentality of the average "Faux News" watcher, I feel compelled to remind you that it is also Bushie Propaganda Strategy that the validity of a given incident is attacked through attacking the credibility of the victim. I also feel compelled, since your post did make me rethink, are you not doing at least a little bit of that in your post. Just something to think about.

Whatever the effectiveness of tazering vs. billy club or chokehold, people have died from the use of all three on mutiple occasions.

Finally, this discussion is not so much about the overall effectiveness and use of the taser as this incident is for the misuse of excessive force to restrict free speech.

It is more about the abuse of a tool rather than it's worthiness.

[TheMadMonk]

101. Perhaps he was tiring, However, ...

...he had already "submitted" a number of times only to renew his struggles at a higher level as soon as the cops relaxed. I don't see how the cops could safely take the chance that this (the last) time was for real. Five cops and one perp in close quarters? One wildly swung elbow could have all so easily turn that confrontation into something very unpleasant.

I read "Don't taze me, bro!" as something far closer to the utterances of Brer Rabbit than an expression of submission. And I wasn't the only one at the time who thought so.

I know it gave the arsehole what he wanted, but I don't really see what other choices the cops had but to go along and concede the floor and venue to the disruptor, or escalating physical confrontation and possible injury. Actually I think the cops waited to tase him, so as to make it clear to the audience that he wasn't leaving them with any choice but to knock him on his arse and do it hard enough to keep him down.

Indeed attacking the victim is a common "defense method" of those holding the moral low ground. And there are at least one or two here on DU, guilty of the same crime and quite a few more that are capable of attacking the man in general if they don't like his message.

Am I guilty? I don't think so. I did form my opinion very quickly while watching the vid, thinking: "This bloke's asking for trouble. He's going to get it. And it's the cops who will be wrongfully blamed." I was waiting for it to turn into something really ugly and was quite surprised and relieved when it ended so cleanly. I think the kid's an idiot. But it's what he did that I have my problem with.


Indeed people have died as a result of police takedown methods. But I have a very strong feeling the numbers of fatalities would stack up quite favourably for tasers against the others. (I don't like that sort of research and I don't do it very well, so I'll wait for someone to prove me wrong and reverse myself if necessary. :D )

It certainly started that way, but when people immediately weigh in with shite like: "The report is wrong, because cops are bastards."; And "Tasers are evil because they cause incapacitating pain." It's going to take arguments on the merits of the taser to counter those people. I don't really expect to change their minds, but I hope to prevent the spread of their poison to the minds of others.

Any tool can be misused. One major merit of this one, is that in the event of it's misuse it's highly unlikely to prove lethal to the person it is misused against. Of course, that relative safety probably increases the likely hood that tasers get used unnecessarily and/or excessively. I happen to think the trade off is worth it.

Part of the problem may indeed be bad cops. But a good deal more is down to the criminals they are up against. Criminals who behave like it's "The American Way" to fight back and make the cops fear for their lives. And incidentally give the true bad cops a smokescreen behind which they can be bad with near impunity.

[tabasco]

30. He WAS and IS an adult.

Stupid adults who do not follow lawful instructions from police should not be surprised to get tased.

I'm not exactly a law and order type myself but this is not an example of police brutality. Possibly an over-reaction but the police were well within lawful conduct.

[Scout]

55. the cops were TYRING to get him out of there ... they warned him

several times, he kept resisting.

God, i hope you're not a parent, because i bet your kids are brats.

[nick303]

57. He wasn't a kid nt

[Mojorabbit]

63. He is a kid to me

maybe it is because I am old... but my nephews in college are still kids in so many ways. You make it ok to taz college students and then they move to high school students, then as we have seen on this board to middle school. I don't think it is ok. I don't want any kids to be tazed. I don't want it to be socially acceptable for people to be tazed right and left for minor things which is what is happening.

[Zhade]

69. Some people will excuse fascism to remain smugly superior.

Their wavering on our rights is dangerous. I'm with you on this one.

[JeanGrey]

61. He did exactly what he wanted to and got the reaction he was

hoping for.

[karynnj]

75. Not to mention that the Kerry speech was on Iraq and the overall

war on terrorism (for lack of a better name). Senator Kerry is one of the strongest Democratic voices on these issues, but other than in the University of Florida's paper, nothing the Senator said in a typically thoughtful speech was covered - just the actions of this self indulgent young man.

People here don't get that he didn't want answers to the questions, which might be why he cut the Senator off as he attempted to respond - he wanted drama.

[onenote]

47. he was a college student who got drive stunned when he resisted the cops

I'm not bothered by it at all.

[Scout]

54. he got tasered for resisting arrest...

not because he was "acting out."

Read the report, the kid was a jerk looking for media attention.

[biermeister]

12. but what I really want to know

Is Kerry a member of Skull & Bones?

[karynnj]

82. This is no secret

It is in every biography and Kerry has answered that he was.

In fact, in 2004, one story that ex-Senator Hollings told illustrated how Kerry did use the friendship that he had with another S&B member of his year. I don't remember some of the details, but he spoke of how he was frustrated that because of a drought cattle in SC needed hay, for which he had found a source elsewhere - but neither he couldn't get assistance from the government in transporting it. Kerry, who was on (I think) the Commerce committee with him heard this, left the room, and returned to say that Fred Smith, the man who started Federal Express, could help him.

Smith, a very conservative Republican, was the guy that Kerry spent most of his senior year flying airplanes with. In that example, he did not offer to help because he was Kerry's S&B "brother or because he was Kerry's friend, but because he saw it as a reasonable thing he could do. What S&B gave Kerry was connections to many other likely to be extremely successful Yale students. Some, like David Thorne, were already close Kerry friends - others weren't. It seems to be networking at the most elite level of society.

Some books and websites try to connect the fraternity to everything both Bush's have done. Kerry is actually a problem for them here. It was Kerry who investigated and publicized both the illegal Bush activities in supporting the Contras and Central and South American drug dealing and BCCI. Most of what we know on both is because Kerry investigated and exposed it - when NO ONE ELSE would. He endured both death threats and ridicule for years because he pursued these things. If he could have been pressured by the Bushes because of S&B or anything, he would have been stopped from doing both of these investigations. (Not to mention, if there were a deal on 2004, Kerry and Teresa would not have had their good reputations slimed.)

Here is how a long time Kerry staffer described what Kerry did on Iran/Contra:
"You mean the Iran-Contra committee? Well, there was a lot of water under the bridge, between his trip to Nicaragua, and Iran-Contra. He had been investigating Oliver North and Contra drug trafficking, and other violations of U.S. law at that point for about a year and a half. He'd been making a lot of charges about what's going on, which the wiser and grayer heads in the Congress said were false, which the Reagan administration said were absolutely false.

I remember Dick Cheney attacking John Kerry in 1986 for things John Kerry was saying about the Contras and the NSC and Oliver North. Every single thing John Kerry said was true. The attacks were aggressive, and were based on hopes, wishes, and politics -- partisan politics, not reality. John Kerry's reality was proven -- and it was proven -- when the plane went down in Nicaragua, and it turned out that that was tied to the National Security Council, and money out of Saudi Arabia, and money from the Iranians, and ultimately, as we showed, related in part to narcotics money, at least in other elements of the Contra infrastructure.

There were a lot of people who were mad at John Kerry for having been right. The Reagan administration was, of course, furious. They didn't want him anywhere near the Iran-Contra investigation, because he knew too much and he was too effective. That's what I believe it was about. …
<snip>
(response to a later question on Kerry testifying to a closed session of the Iran/Contra hearing, later declassified):

Here's the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a Republican, telling a junior Democrat, who doesn't have any committee, or any particular jurisdictional rights here, "Keep going." And it was John's questions that caused Eliot Abrams to wind up getting indicted for not telling the truth to Congress. John's a prosecutor. John follows the facts. The facts matter.
"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/interviews/winer.html (reading the sections on Iran/Contra is well worth it - the 4 paragraph quoting rule made me cut lots of good stuff.)

Note that Reagan and Bush wanted Kerry far away from that investigation - the people actually on the investigation ended up showboating, giving immunity that destroyed criminal cases and ended up making North a hero to very many people.

[tabasco]

16. I think there should be a "Don't tase me Bro" smilie. n/t

[tammywammy]

27. I got this one

[tabasco]

28. Hahahaha! But I have to squint to see it!

Gettin' old and decrepit.

[tammywammy]

33. It's to the point now

That I'm reading all the taser threads just so I can post it. :)

[2rth2pwr]

36. Nice t shirt

Front

Back

[la la]

44. well, billoraly

was giving out bumper stickers with 'don't tase me, bro' printed on them. That, right there sickens me.

The guy knew what he was doing and the cops didn't know what he WOULD do.

I, personally, have no problem with him being tased- none whatsoever.

[Snarkturian Clone]

17. Please do not use a electronic weapon to deliver a mild shock

to my person, fraternal unit.

[pattmarty]

18. Am I surprised? HELL NO!!!!!!!

[goodgd_yall]

29. Oh, really?

surprise, surprise

:eyes:

[coalition_unwilling]

31. I have not followed this issue as closely as I have others, but I

wonder whether this FDLE report is a pre-emptive strike aimed at heading off future civil litigation or influencing that litigation's outcome.

Any thoughts on this?

[onehandle]

32. He was clearly out of control and putting on a show for his website.

Not sure if this particular situation called for tasing, but I do know that this particular guy deserved it.

[Bonobo]

34. HTF do you figure it's NOT torture to cause overwhelming pain to gain submission.

[TheMadMonk]

39. Hmmm, I seem to recall a few idiots here, claiming....

...that overwhelming and extended (as in for days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime) and possible permanent maiming is preferable to death. ie. "Why didn't they shoot to disable, rather than kill." That question (or its semantic equivalent) is a common them in cop shooting discussions.

Excuse me, but a tasing is a brief pain, and the ultimate outcome virtually every time is a live and perfectly healthy person who get's to see their kids (if any) grow up.

And how about submission holds? A good many of those work on the principle of making attempts to struggle result in overwhelming pain or debilitating/permanent injury.

Perhaps you advocate using a feather to tickle them into submission. Whoops, nope that's out too. The vic. might soil themselves and suffer a lifetime of mental anguish.

[Bonobo]

53. I advocate submission holds on jerks. Wanna meet?

[TheMadMonk]

56. What for? Try not to break anything going to work on yourself.

I won't say you personally, but certainly a lot of people like you seem perfectly willing to argue the merits of shooting to kill vs. disable. And then you get your knickers in a twist over something which on the whole is far less harmless than a bullet.

[Bonobo]

58. Whatever, I never said anything of the kind. But to me, tasing is clearly inhumane.

[TheMadMonk]

60. Sorry if I read you wrong, But I got the impression that a "dark alley" ...

... would be an appropriate venue for that meeting you mentioned.

And if I didn't, please note I did not include you personally in the kill vs maim argument. Simply that people a lot like you are willing to argue that IF guns are to be used (and discharged) then the policy should be to take the approach which minimises the likelihood of death to the guy looking at the end with the hole in it. With: even at the cost of appreciably increased danger to innocent bystanders and LEOs, as an unspoken subargument.

And then pretty much the same people start screaming blue murder when a taser is used to defuse a situation which might only otherwise ultimately be resolved with a gun.

Yes there were other options available:
- Hand the bloke a soapbox and ownership of a meeting which had been organised on behalf of someone else.
- Dog pile and take a risk that he was willing to take his game to the point of personal injury, possibly injuring a copper in the process.
- "Fuck it! Just shoot the bastard."

In another age he would have received some other response not likely to kill, but almost certain to make him worry about something other than making a nuisance of himself. Say a nightstick across the shoulders or the back of his legs. Or perhaps a swagger stick across the rump.

I'll take the taser thank you very much. Haven't directly experience one, but I am familar with both the very unpleasant tingle of extra high tension voltages and the heart pounding thump of a hit from domestic current (great headrush BTW so long as you don't "latch on") And I once took a million plus volt static charge hit right in the middle of the forehead from a Van Der Graff (Wonder if that name was coined for/by a bastard son?) generator, so I have some experience with being on the wrong end of an electric charge. It's not nice, but the pain itself also ends as fast as it hits.


Or perhaps you might try to look at it from another direction: Dog piles are personal, about as personal as it can get whilst remaining fully clothed. You're soaring on adrenalin and get an elbow or fist in the nose. Your immediate reaction is to hit back, and do it harder. Who hit first ultimately does not matter. By definition a dog pile is many on one. And the most likely outcome of things getting out of hand is going to be very unpleasant (and quite possibly permanent) to the bloke on who's behalf the pile was organised.

Any face to face confrontation has the potential to escalate in directions that are less than ideal for all parties involved. And circumstances of course modify the severity of any such confrontation.

The whole idea behind putting an instrument between you and an opponent is to control the degree of violence one party can inflict upon another. Once upon a time all "advances" were in the direction of smacking harder for a bigger result. The taser is an imperfect, but still significant step, in the direction of smacking exactly hard enough to achieve exactly the desired result.

Of course taser use can be abused. But anything can be abused by someone sufficiently determined to do so. One thing that can not be argued against, is that as far as weapons go: When abused, a taser is far far less likely to result in lingering or permanent harmful effects.

And that perhaps is where we're in conflict. You perhaps see this "safe abusability" by authorities as an invitation for the bad hats to go right ahead and have fun. Whilst I take the longer term view that some of this ilk will go right ahead whatever you put in their hands. So it is best to minimise gross and/or lingering harm despite the almost certainty of increasing lesser transient harm in the process.


Pain and response to it is something which has been honed by hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Who are we to discard it as barbaric anathema in the course of just a few decades. Instant pain in the event of an ultimately harmful action (say pressing one's naked buttocks against an oven door) makes an association which sticks for life. Hot ============ hurt.

Sometimes it's a good idea to help inevitability along or to substitute a lesser hurt for a greater harm. In lions, mum belts the kid across the savanah, because the alternative is dad literally biting the kid's head off. We're a little beyond that, but sometimes it helps to devolve to those levels briefly. Particularly if a likely outcome of continuing an action is death or appreciable harm to themselves or others. People argue about kids focusing on the immediate. Batch processing as opposed to true multitasking. Reacting rather than forecasting.

I know kids, so I concede this point absolutely. Having done so, I will also say this, I would far, far prefer any child of mine, or in my charge, to be thinking "my bum" instead of "my ball" when they reach the kerb.

And really is the modern enlightened way of "training" a child any less barbaric? Frustration piled upon frustration to stifle undesired behaviour is dangerously close to torment in my book. Rewarding positive behaviour can only go so far. And simply rewarding the absence of negative behaviour is bribery pure and simple. Not to say that one should not reward the exemplary absence of undesired behaviour. Nobody likes a kid who wants and asks for everything in sight. But a kid who runs a gauntlet of temptation (shall we say the aisles of a supermarket or variety store) wordless should get their Kinder Surprise or matchie (matchbox car). (And YTF am I having trouble seeing the screen at this moment?)

Some lessons are best forgotten, but never ever to be unlearnt. That is why in dangerous circumstances I will smack a toddler's bum without hesitation, even if their placing themselves in danger is ultimately my fault. I'll castigate/report myself immediately and deliver my apology when the kid can appreciate it, and despite my disbelief I'll than the Powers That Be, that I have the opportunity to do so.

Pain is the best teacher bar none. EOM

[Bonobo]

65. Kool! A "tortured explanation" for a "defense of torture"! LOL!

[TheMadMonk]

66. I do not defend torture in the slightest.

But I listen to many "enlightened" people advocating torment (continual frustration of desire) as an appropriate way of discouraging inappropriate behaviour. And torment is the adjunct to pain which makes torture torture.

It is the prospect of never ending pain which is supposed to break the subject. And the goal of torture is indeed to break them. To take them apart and extract the useful and discard whatever remains like so much unwanted rubbish.


If you can't see the difference between that and what I speak of: The short sharp application of a minimum of pain to discourage immediately and patently harmful behaviour, is a long long way from maximising anguish in order to elicit a desired result which is highly undesirable and quite probably of further harm to the party being coerced.

The evil lies not in the instrument, instruments have no volition. The evil is always and solely in the manner in which the instrument is applied and the purpose to which it is put.

Pain is an instrument honed by those hundreds of millions of years of evolution I mentioned earlier to maximise survival not just of of the species, but of the individual creature itself.

Modern "enlightened" methods do undeniably work, and they do achieve desired ends. But they are complex, time consuming and very easily misapplied even with the absolute best of intentions, unless it is applied by people who have a bloody good understanding of exactly what it is that they are doing. Modern methods are NOT something which can easily be learnt by rote, because they require finding the proper non-violent leverage point for each individual subject.

On the other hand acceptable (and non harmful) limits to pain can be defined with scientific exactitude.

Pain as a punishment might well be barbaric. Inflicting pain for selfish purposes most certainly is. Pain as an immediate and inevitable consequence of potentially harmful actions is not. It is purely and simply the most effective tool in natures survival kit or she would not have hung on to it all this time and given it to every single living animal. She tries and discards and retries any number of innovations with mind boggling abandon. But not this one. If by some accident of birth an individual is left bereft of this tool, their chances of survival are virtually nil.

[Threedifferentones]

37. I just don't understand the taser

He was subdued, he never threatened being violent. There were so many cops they SHOULD have been able to cuff him and drag him out of there, and once he's out of the public eye how much will he yell?

Not only was the taser unnecessarily violent, it actually got him way more of the publicity he sought than he would have gotten without it. Those cops acted stupidly, IMO.

[TheMadMonk]

45. No he did not make a direct threat of violence. Would have defeated his purpose somewhat.

What he did was coolly and calculatedly carry out a campaign of escalating behaviour with specific intention of forcing the police to in turn escalate their response. This much was plainly obvious in the original footage of the incident. This police report simply confirms what a good many of us already knew.

This dickhead, "(role)played" the protagonist to perfection as he worked his way through the Police "How to subdue a subject with the minimum possible force." handbook.


We have premeditation: "Wait and see."
We have gaming the system: "No hards, you guys were just doing your jobs."

He wanted (and worked for) the police to do unto him that which could be spun/interpreted as excessive police behaviour. And unlike with the bloke in the library, a good many of the audience at his performance (who I will presume to be mostly fairly progressive and liberal in their outlook, given the speaker) were all but cheering the cops on.

I shall repeat. The only difference between Ijits like you and Fox viewers is that someone else got to you first.

[TheMadMonk]

46. I think the cops recognised the pattern of this ijit's behaviour.

And chose to tase him rather than take the chance that in a dogpile he would escalate again in order to force them to cause him some actual injury, or do injury (accidentally or deliberately) to one of their own.

[bos1]

40. this is still a shame on the USA

I've seen 2 new vids of the incident from different angles. He was just an energetic person worked up about how bad the political system is. He was perfectly justified in asking why he was being dragged away. It was perfectly fitting for him to stand with his arms up and say he wants to hear Kerry answer and to ask loudly if anyone was going to help him.

All the people here who were glad he got manhandled and tasered contributed to my losing just about my last hope for the democratic conscience of the USA.

[Chomskyite]

42. Having had my own experiences with overreating police

. . . they are more than capable of making something up in order to argue to their superiors that the use of force was warranted. To those who are expecting the utter truth this report written by police based on the testimony of other police, I also have a country to tell you about that is most certainly supplying the insurgents in Iraq and most certainly pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

[midlife_mo_Jo]

77. Many of his comments were recorded

The police didn't have to make up anything!

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

48. The use of a Taser wasn't necessary

but, it was easier and, frankly, that makes it the American thing to do.

[MisterP]

62. my, there's lots of SLORC members out tonight

[redqueen]

87. *snort*

[karynnj]

88. You equate what happened in Burma to what happened to Meyer????

[Vinca]

70. This is outrageous, but not unexpected. It's more likely than not

they'll clear their own of wrongdoing. A somewhat similar thing happened around here a few years ago. A guy who was apparently mentally unstable went into a church during services and threatened HIMSELF with a pocket knife. The police responded and blew the guy away. Despite claims by parishioners that disputed the police allegations the guy turned and lunged, the cops were cleared. The guy's family eventually settled a lawsuit against the town. It seems in our "terror, terror, terror" environment, all levels of law enforcement are encouraged to use excessive force.

[ShortnFiery]

74. Yes, in California, The Authorities blew away (shot dead) some "strange man" fleeing from a fire.

They're NOT certain if he may have been an arsonist. :wow:

Wanna bet he'll be deem an terrorist arson by FOX news?

This is almost as disgusting as the UK authorities mistaking a Brazilian man for a middle east terrorist and then promptly firing SEVEN bullets into his brain.

"Because ya know, I means ya know, fellow Citizen, they wouldn't run if they're PURE and innocent." :crazy: :thumbsdown:

[CRF450]

93. It was a justifiable shot because his rammed his truck into their cruisers

And that is attempted murder on a police officer.

[abmand]

91. cause LEO

are the only ones that can be trusted with discretionary use of lethal force....but thats besides the point. the more important question is here is when the police went from a community based organization to a state enforcement- agency. Yes police always had the duty to enforce the law, but it seemed like 30 years ago they were more interested in serving their community- if a dispute could be solved without an arrest- then every attempt was made to solve that dispute without an arrest. I mean, back in the late 1980's if you were caught underage drinking, your alcohol was confiscated or you were told never to do it again. there was no arrest made. Now, if you are caught underage drinking, you get handcuffed, and a summons for court and you now have a criminal record because you had a drink of alcohol..how does this help society.

[Zodiak]

78. The cops are always cleared in these kinds of incidents

...because in a fascist country, obeying authority is more important than individual or human rights.

Tasers kill...if it had been me, I'd be pushing up daisies. Bad heart.

And a few people here would be making excuses for the cops or finding some flaw in my personality that would justify my death.

These incidents are an authoritarin's wet dream.

[Javaman]

80. My god, just what did police do before they had tasers?

hand cuff them and throw them in the police car?

oh sorry, that is so pre-9/11.

[Twenty3]

81. Night-stick

if I recall correctly (?)

[minkyboodle]

95. I'd prefer a taser

to getting a 60s style beat down with a night stick/club...
Am I crazy? btw this is completely unrelated to the OP.

[Roland99]

89. Good! This moran was an attention whore and the cops were completely justified.

[CRF450]

94. What I'm seing here is exactly what repugs are making us out to be

A bunch of spineless cop bashing pussies who will continue to bash cops in a incident like this where they were justified in using the tazer!

I am disgusted with this attitude:(

[TheMadMonk]

102. You and me both mate.

And I'll raise your :( with a :puke:

Literally dozens of these posts indicate very clearly that their authors have not acquainted themselves with the facts of this case, and have very little (if any) interest in doing so. They have their own "facts". "Facts" which are every bit as abhorrent as the "facts" used to justify hating people for their skin colour or their sexual orientation.

[Twenty3]

103. Well said

We really do face a police state and torture in this country and in the world, but this ain't it. And maybe when we're done with the wailing and gnashing of teeth here, we can work on that there.

I honestly believe "the other side" is using this event to whip us into a frenzy, to keep us from being a real threat on the legitimate issues, to divide & conquer. Just my opinion. I don't think it's working entirely, but I'm disappointed that it's working at ALL.

[CRF450]

104. A police state thats been created by the repugs, but at the same time

I feel that most here are over-reacting to what cops do.

The majority of police officers are just doing their job, and there doing it by the book with proper procedures. I see tazers as a better alternative to the clubs they used to use, a couple minor jolt of electricity is better than getting big ass bruises that can last a good couple of weeks, or worse, broken bones. Yet many here make it out as just a torture device from the few stories of totally abusive use that shows up. Yes, their are lots of times these are used in a unjustifiable manner, but death and abuse is few and far between from their use as a whole.

[Joanne98]

97. SUE THEM!

[rAVES]

98. "dont taze me bro" guy? I think they where well in their rights to.