It should be obvious by now that cops and tasers do not go together.
It appears far too many cops use the devices to electrocute people
simply because they refuse to cooperate, not because they pose
a threat to the officers.
For instance, a woman was tased in a Sheffield Lake, Ohio, police
station not because she threatened officers — in fact, she
was restrained in handcuffs — but rather because she refused
to “cooperate,” as the video at the left demonstrates.
“Last November, [Kristina Fretter] was stunned with a Taser
while in handcuffs in the Sheffield Police Department booking
room after being picked up for drunken driving. The officer who
fired the Taser, Edward Long, resigned, and charges were dropped
against Fretter in exchange for her promise not to sue the village,”
the Chronicle-Telegram reports.
(Article continues below)
“Tasers occupy a strange place in the police rulebook,”
notes Peter Gorman, writing for the Fort Worth Weekly. “Law
enforcement officers learn what is called a ‘use of force
continuum’ to determine what means or weapons they may use
in different situations. The ‘continuum’ begins with
simple police presence, then moves up to issuing commands, then
the use of open hands, and after that, pepper or other chemical
sprays, closed hands (including elbows and knees and other takedown
moves), the use of a hard baton, and finally, the use of lethal
force.”
You might think Tasers would fit somewhere near the “lethal
force” end of that list, right before a gun. Instead,
however, many police agencies place Tasers immediately after
the “issuing commands” force level — which
suggests to officers that using a Taser is less serious even
than a push or pepper spray. Which also means that if an officer
asks you to produce your driver’s license and you ask
“Why?” rather than immediately complying with the
order, there’s a chance, in some jurisdictions, that you
could, within their rules, be hit with a Taser for refusing
the command. That’s in part how Tasers have begun to be
used, not as serious, life-threatening weapons, but as a bully’s
tool of compliance, something to get people in line —
with sometimes egregious consequences.
One such jurisdiction seems to be Austin, where a man was tased
for producing his license too slowly (see video). It appears the
cop in the video was looking for somebody to use a taser on, as
the man in the vehicle seemed to be following orders, albeit too
slowly for the cop. The man’s crime? He was driving 70 miles
per hour on a 65 mph road. Please keep this in mind the next time
you are in Austin and you are driving five miles per hour over
the limit.
As an increasing number of disturbing incidents reveal, far too
many cops apparently get off on electrocuting people, thus prompting
an obvious question: are police departments hiring sadists who
revel in inflicting pain and suffering on others? Sadly, it appears
the answer is affirmative.
It’s an inescapable conclusion: cops love their taser guns
and they love even more to use them on people not quick enough
to respect their authority.
