Last words of her brain...well, what little there was of it?

Well said. Usually the police brutality videos are clear the the cops are power hungry and out of control. I had to re-watch the beginning and the lady did try and run. Could the fat man have grabbed her insted of tazing her???? I personally would be scared to grab her. Might get stuck with a needle from looking at her.

Here is a first. I am actually saying its more that civilians fault than an cop on a power trip. Nothing here against cops, Just assho!e cops.

A screwdriver is quite obviously a deadly weapon. From the little snippet I read, the guy holding it most certainly intended to use it as such. Do you really think it is smart practice to respond to deadly threats with anything less than the same? The number or placement shots is of no consequence. Cops are trained to apply reasonable force until the threat is eliminated and there are plenty examples of criminals taking several rounds and going on to kill innocent people.

How is it these rogue cops get away with being brutal, cold, mindless killers? Do you really think we live in a society and have a legal system that would allow that? You have no idea how closely these events are scrutinized, analyzed and rehashed in court as they are held up against very clearly established standards of "reasonable."

Back to the girl, the issue isn't just "was she a threat to the officer," but was she a threat to herself or others. As someone else hypothesized, what if she ran into traffic and caused a 5 car pile up killing innocent people in the process.

Marsha, i never said that tasers were harmless.. they are "less than lethal" as are rubber bullets and bean bags... but we all know that many people each year are killed by both of them as well as tasers...

my whole point is, dont [Bleeeeep!] with cops, and this type of stuff wont happen to you... listen, be courteous, and dont ever EVER think about running... plain and simple..

oh, and being a cracked out hop head probably isnt the wisest idea either, cuz it will likely land you in confrontation with said cops...

next time wear a hard hat!

There have actually been very few causes of tasers causing a death. In each case that I am aware of, the person had a heart attack that was as much related to the stress of the event as opposed to the electrical current.

The electricity in these tasers is for the most part harmless. They run at 50k volts, but amps are the bad kind of electricity. These taser are very, very, very low in amps.

Many alarmist try to pin "taser related deaths" such as someone falling and hitting their head on the pavement on the evil taser device, which just isn't accurate.

pretty easy to say that as you dont even know me... i have had plenty of life expieriences, for the most part the last 10 years has pretty much been bad.. not by my doing, but the whole process of learning "Life"... you can go ahead and ask Mark about that if you would like, he knew my dad before i was born, and my dad knew his dad quite well, as well as my grandfather, my uncle also dated his sister Cheryl..... im sure he could give you some insight on just how much expierience i have dealt with...

cops dont just walk up to an unconsious person and shoot them because they told them to lie down and they didnt listen.. and when cops cross the line, they get reprimanded for it, the only reason people think that cops get away with everything is by the stories portrayed on the news, by the MEDIA.. blowing everything out of proportion on 1 issue, when the same thing happened in a small town, and noone reported it, because the potential to be a huge story just wasnt there... to each their own tho...


Coley, number 1 thing my dad taught me about electricity, Volts/Watts dont kill... AMPS kill, so i 100% agree with you.. usually the ones that die, are crackheads, tweakers, or the such, and their heart is going at 900mph to begin with, add addrenaline, and stress, boom goes the heart...

Those are the exact types of cases being addressed in courts right now and without exception (that i know of) the courts are finding that this is unreasonable and finding against the officer.

Courts are saying that taser use is reasonable to address a threat, but not to gain compliance when someone is passively resisting.

And to put things in perspective, there have only been a few instances (out of thousands of taser applications) where the person was "unable" to comply. One in Federal Way that was well publicized.

Avid, your right, i was out of line... im sorry.. but, you insulting me back is kinda childish dont ya think? all my point was, is that it seems as if you are backing a drug addict in a way... if he would have grabbed the back of her shirt, and the momentum caused her to spin forward, and slam face first into the bumper of that car, we would still be having this conversation, albeit arguement, about the use of excessive force... its a lose lose for him, cant get around that... its sad, but it happened... if she would have thought twice about her choices in life, she would probably be far better off... thats not the case tho, and she got what she got... once again, im sorry...

Marsha, i dont need to scour the internet, to find dirt on cops, then form an opinon that all of them are bad, and argue about practices of the law, pertaining to a few, or bunch of people that were injured or killed by BAD cops... everyone knows that there are bad cops, in every state... if you base your judgement off and handfull of occurances, with a handfull of cops, and imply that basically all of them abuse their power, then you should understand why some gamewardens consider pretty much everyone they encounter to be doing something wrong... because they are doing the exact same thing... forming an opinion, based on a handfull of others actions, and saying all or "most" are bad... is that fair?

either way, im done... if people want to rush to the aid of a drug addict that phucked up, so be it... if anything else needs to be said to me directly, do it via PM...

Avid, again, im sorry...

Drug addicts, crooks, law breakers of all sorts, you, and I all have the right to be treated fairly regardless of how badly we screw up.

Unlike our political system, I do believe our legal system is very good and highly functional despite the many severe challenges. Due to the dynamic and changing nature of something like law enforcement, the system can never be perfect, and unfortunately many times they are deciding right from wrong after the fact. Interpreting and applying law in this country, especially when facing rapidly evolving and life threatening circumstances, is likely the hardest and most unforgiving job on the planet.

The biggest problem, in my mind, the disconnect between reality/the system, and the public. Unfortunately things like TV and the media have completely distorted "our" perceptions of what is possible, reasonable, and even appropriate.

Following policy and training is the right choice, until policy and training is changed.

Sig line material. lol

The first time I tried to lightly control a handcuffed small female while putting her in the back of the patrol car, I took a nice kick to the thigh that would have really hurt if she hit where I think she was trying to hit. My first hint should have been when she hit her husband with a dog carrier causing a gushing head wound. My second clue was when I saw the S&W pocket automatic on the seat of the car that she was trying to get into. Rookie error. From then on, there were no kid gloves. The size of the subject really has no bearing.

Laying hands on someone is not a gentle procedure, specifically because of this possibility. When an officer lays hands on a person, it is to take complete control, including swiftly taking a person to the ground if needed. You can't choose the surface you get to take someone down on. They choose the situation, time and place.

Tasers don't kill people...

Overeager cops do.

Fish on...

Todd

The b!tch was out of control.
Now she's not.

The end.

I still don't see a problem with it.


FIshy

Here is an article about a study that was just done. Not really much of a "debate" anymore:

"This is no longer arguable," said Dr. Byron Lee, a cardiologist and director of the electrophysiology laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. "This is a scientific fact. The national debate should now center on whether the risk of sudden death with Tasers is low enough to warrant widespread use by law enforcement."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/health..._r=1&ref=us

Your asking Ranty for common sense is like asking your
kidneys to filter the water out of a gallon of Ammonium Hydroxide.
A probably painful process. In the Marsha case , guaranteed to
produce a lot of annoying verbal backlash.

Any sort of exposure to electrical current can interfere with the hearts natural rhythm. I think the tone or approach of this article is somewhat incomplete and misleading. They looked at 8 (7 deaths) cases and determined that the electrical current that the taser generates can interfere with the hearts natural rhythm/electricity in certain individuals. I would be curious to know more about the demographics of the folks that died. Age, physical condition, etc. It is well known that a certain percentage (very small) of the population is far more susceptible to ventricular fib than others. To date there have been nearly 100,000 taser exposures across the country and the instances of cardiac arrests due to ventricular fib are extremely low. Much, much lower than say folks dying from accidentally touching an electrical fence. Less than .003%. Be careful when you read that "XX number of people have died after being tased" as in many of these cases the death was not a result of the electrical current and/or subsequent cardiac issues.

Amps are the bad kind of electricity and the std taser units used by most LE are very, very low in amps, around 2 milliamps or .0021 amps. Compare that to the AED machine that is used to restore natural heart rhythms which runs about 60 amps through your body.

As common sense would dictate, there is no perfectly safe way to employ force in the context of law enforcement. By nature, the term should tend to imply there is a risk of injury or death. The question is and will always been, was the application of force reasonable. If given the choice, I would much, much rather be tased than shot, punched, hit with a baton, or run over with a car as I am faaaaaar less likely to suffer any lasting damage as a result. I've been tased as a matter of fact (long story) and it sucks, but only for a short time.

I think science and law will continue to show that when used reasonably, tasers are still a fantastic tool that lead to far less damage than other applications of force.

Being a fairly new tool, the "appropriate and reasonable" issues are still being determined, but recent cases have been determining that taser deployment is only reasonable in cases of active resistance or worse. In other words, they are appropriate in cases where physical manipulation or other control/defensive devices would also be reasonable and again I think the potential for harm to the subject is far greater with other methods. Tasers will never be considered "deadly" force as deadly force is defined as force that is "likely" to cause death or serious injury and the stats on the tasers show quite the opposite, you are very, very, very unlikely to die as a direct result of being tased.

Bottom line, better not to find ourselves having to worry about such things!

Good post Coley.

Sg