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Author Topic:   UCLA student tased multiple times... pointless police violence?
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 61 of 142 (364783)
11-19-2006 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by jar
11-19-2006 4:17 PM


Based on the evidence that NJ cited...
I think NJ's position is that tasers are physical control/pain compliance. If that is the case we can look at what the police regard as pain compliance:
Techniques that force a subject to comply with an officer as a result of the officer inflicting controlled pain upon specific points in the subject’s body, such as pressure point techniques.
A taser does not come under this.
If we look at what a weapon that is used to gain control of a subject we find them called 'intermediate weapons':
Response Level 4-- Intermediate Weapons
Weapons that are primarily used to control a subject, such as a baton.
The matrix, as we can see says that using intermediate weapons is excessive use of force unless the subject is using active physical resistance.
Resistance Level 4 -- Active Physical Resistance
A subject makes physically evasive movements to defeat an officer’s attempt at control. This may
take the form of bracing or tensing, attempts to push/pull away not allowing the officer to get close to him/her.
For example: A subject braces against a table or chair or grabs a doorway; or pushes the officer’s hands away.
And thus: The matrix would indicate that the initial tasering might not be excessive - since when somebody screams 'get off get off' it is mostly coupled with attempts to get away.
Every other tasering, from the evidence so far presented, was excessive as defined from the matrix NJ put forward.

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 Message 60 by jar, posted 11-19-2006 4:17 PM jar has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 62 of 142 (364809)
11-19-2006 11:51 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by Chiroptera
11-19-2006 4:04 PM


Re: Gaining Compliance
I hadn't seen that video. Yea, I would agree then that the officers went to far.
NJ does make some good points about escalation, I just no longer agree that they were applied appropriately in this circumstance.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 63 of 142 (364831)
11-20-2006 6:02 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Jazzns
11-19-2006 11:51 PM


discussing police brutality
NJ does make some good points about escalation, I just no longer agree that they were applied appropriately in this circumstance.
He most certainly did make some good points, but I think this reveals a problem with discussing specific cases of LE activity.
When a particular case is brought to attention, it has been my experience that LE officers almost always shift discussion to general theories as well as practical experience in OTHER cases.
That is to say there is a switch from discussing the merits of a specific case, to anything BUT that specific case. And it is usually something people can agree to to some extent. Unfortunately agreement on those issues have nothing to do with the case. When the case is mentioned it is always caveated by not knowing the full situation. Yeah, we can all agree to that too. We don't know the whole story... but that cuts both ways.
What that leaves us to comment on is not what might have been, what theory says, or what practical issues have been found in other cases, but simply what we have available.
We CAN discuss conclusions that can be drawn (even if we agree they are tentative) based on the evidence at hand. But as I said that is usually avoided to give officers the benefit of the doubt, appealing to mistakes in OTHER cases, or procedural rules they are likely to be following.
I guess I can't blame LE officers for doing this as it is basic nature to associate and defend one's "own" from outside criticism. But it is something that has to be understood and overcome when looking at any specific case.
From what we have available, both video and witness testimony as well as UCLA admission for why the kid was shocked, it seems pretty clear cut. Discussions of theory are smokescreens. The only thing which will change this is solid evidence which calls events in the video as well as witness testimony into question.

holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This message is a reply to:
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Jaderis
Member (Idle past 3426 days)
Posts: 622
From: NY,NY
Joined: 06-16-2006


Message 64 of 142 (364832)
11-20-2006 6:09 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Hyroglyphx
11-19-2006 1:48 AM


Re: Reviewing the video
Well, we could look at in two ways. If the kid really didn't want to be tasered, he wouldn't have. If he really wanted to leave, he would have. If he didn't want to get tasered, at any given time he could have taken their threats seriously, especially after at least being tased once. He just wanted to play his little game. So, you can either look at it as the cops were being completely unreasonable, or you can look at it that he chose, willfully, not to comply. That's how I see it. As an LE officer, you have to take control or they will walk all over you. Could they have tried to diffuse the matter verbally better? I don't know. I would certainly hope that they tried very hard at diplomacy. But I can't make that determination with the evidence provided to me.
Yes, we all hope they tried at diplomacy, but I doubt there was much back and forth to be had in a university library. I doubt that the kid in question was waving a gun at the officers. I doubt he was threatening the other students. He simply (as far as we know) did not have a UCLA ID and was in a library where such an ID was required.
The more important question is why is passive non-compliance equated with resistance? He was handcuffed. He had no means of escape. Why was it so important for him to "get up?" Why did he have to follow that order, especially after being electrocuted? He was already in police control and custody. Was not the order to "get up" just a power play on the LE part? The order to "get up" and his non-compliance just seems to give the police more reason to tase him again. It seems logical to follow the order to resist pain, but why should anyone follow such an order? Just because you don't have an ID and someone else has a gun and a badge?
Where is the real crime here?
I don't think 3+ officers really need to electrocute someone to subdue them after they have been handcuffed. No justification whatsoever.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-19-2006 1:48 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 65 of 142 (364917)
11-20-2006 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by Silent H
11-19-2006 3:39 PM


Re: Gaining Compliance
First let me say that I enjoy your eloquence as always, and am particularly glad for it here.
Well, thank you. Right back at you. I appreciate our dialogue.
You aren't necessarily the typical officer.
I disagree here. I think I am the typical officer. I think most police officers are generally very good ones only because becoming a police officer is an exceedingly difficult thing to do. There is a lengthy process that weeds out those of an unstable nature.
I am currently in the process of applying with the Port of Portland, who handles all law enforcement aspects in the ports surrounding the Portland metro area and handle Portland International airport (PDX). They have a very typical law enforcement structure. First, you have to take a two hour test to measure one's intelliegence capacity and attention to detail. Anything lower than 70% is unacceptable and you will be weeded out immediately. Contingent on your success, one then goes into the background investigations portion, which is basically what I do now. They are looking for several things. They check your residency for the past 10 years, employment history, references, driving record, criminal record, drug usage, and your credit report. They are looking for someone with minor, if any, traffic infractions. Somebody with no criminal record, and if so, a misdemeanor at most. They are looking for reliability from your previous employers, looking for someone who has not taken any kind of drugs in at least 3 years. Some drugs will completely preclude you. They are looking for someone responsible who can manage their own financial affairs because if they hire you, they can't have all of this looming debt hanging over your head, because it would essentially mean it looming over their head.
Once you make it past there, you then have to take a physical agility test to see if you are even capable of performing the duties of law enforcement. After that, you have to take a polygraph exam to see if you are a deceptive or honest person. This one mainly focuses on honesty. They aren't looking for squeaky clean people necessarily, they want an honest and forthright disposition. However, this is also used as a tool to find those who have fallen through the cracks by never getting caught by an LE agency. Provided you make it, you then have to take a comprehensive psychological battery to see if you are stable enough to perform the duties required of a good law enforcement officer. You also need to go through a minimum of two interviews, sometimes three. Contingent on your success, you then have to attend a law enforcement academy that goes over a wide array of curricula. You must maintain a good average in order to stay in the program.
Provided you pass all of these steps, you finally made it. This process usually is very effective of weeding out people that don't belong in that type of work, obviously for its sensitive nature. I think we can all appreciate that. Having said that, there are people who slip through the cracks. And I'm sure we all have the quintessential bad cop in mind. It happens sometimes. But I wouldn't to say that it is far more rare than good cops.
Just as it is true one cannot go into a situation believing the student, one cannot go into the situation believing the officers. I cannot judge their behavior based on the way YOU approach your work. These guys can be incompetents or they can be malicious thugs.
You have to look at it from several different angles. I know what a cop who looses control looks like. This usually happens when they are very scared and those reactive instincts begin to take over. Watching the video, I didn't see that. They didn't lose control. Losing control would entail hitting the man, screaming unduly at him or at the crowd of bystanders, using profane or demeaning language. I didn;t see any of that. They were professional in their dealing with the public.
I agree with this. The question is in which way are they enforced? To what end? Since you later reject the mechanistic approach we have some area in common. In a nonmechanistic scenario it comes down to officer discretion. Some use that term to mean whatever the officer wants as he is in charge.
The law is written in black in white. And officers could view it in a letter of the law approach, when viewing it as a spirit of the law approach is much better. There's always going to be extenuating circumstances, and in this way, officer discretion is paramount.
I can tell you one thing that officers look for that will determine the outcome of almost any situation. Attitude. If the officers had said, "Hey, I know its annoying, but I have to ask you to leave to get your id card." If the man had simply said, "Oh, yeah, my bad. I forgot." You know what the officer might have said? "Hey, listen... Don't worry about it this time, just from now on, try to remember." And that would be that. But this kid was clearly not too bright. I would venture to say, based off his irrelevant uses of certain words, he had an aversion towards authority. His attitude made it what it was. Even when you are faced with a bad cop who has a terrible attitude, you shirk it off until they leave and go through the proper channels, i.e. his employer. Popping off at the mouth, whether you are in the right or not, is pointless. It will get you nowhere.
Let me tell you something. I've had the misfortune of meeting the world's worst cop. This man came up to me, literally for no reason, and started harassing me saying, "Look at you, with your faded-ass tatoo's! You're a loser!" I don't think I could explain the shock on my face. This came out of nowhere... Nowhere! And to top it off, my tatoo's are not faded at all, especially back then. But I did notice that his were severely faded. I thought that was ironic. Now, imagine if I started popping off at the mouth. What do you think would have happened to me? This man was downright dangerous. He might have been the type of guy to arrest me, take me in a dark alley, and wail on me with a billy club. Instead, I chose to eat his words.
Maybe 2 or 3 days later, I was at work, and I noticed the same cop outside. He had stopped a convertible with two women. They aways down the street so I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I noticed his swagger as he walked up to the driver's side door, reach in, and brazenly grabbed the breast of the driver. I was stunned! This time, I made sure that I got his badge number and his name and reported him. I never saw him again. I can only presume that he was fired. In fact, in those days, I recall hearing that Internal Investigations at the Miami police department got 39 officers fired. It wouldn't surprise me if he was in that number.
According to the student... and in hindsight we know he IS a student and so had a right to be there... they stopped him on his way to the door by grabbing his arm. Why would they need to do that? Why would they have to confront him at all if he is moving toward the door? Would you agree that if the witnesses are correct that he was moving toward the door and the officers prevented it, they screwed up at this point? If not why not?
If that's what happened. If the officers actually grabbed him and stopped him form leaving, then yes, that's a big problem. But if they simply touched him and said, "Hey, let me talk to you for a minute," and he flew into a rage, then the officers are still justified.
The scenario then begins with them asking him to leave or whatever, and he goes limp. It doesn't matter how many times they ask him to leave. Once the guy goes limp its over. One can use simple pain techniques to induce movement, or much more easily they can pick him up and throw him out. As noted by someone else earlier bouncers do it all the time.
Hang on here, because we don't even have consensus on whether or not the man did anything wrong. Should he even have been arrested, or should they have left the scene? We keep going back and forth with the best to affect the arrest or whether what he did was even an arrestable offense.
UCLA said the police decided to use the Taser to incapacitate Tabatabainejad only after the student urged other library patrons to join his resistance.
Do you have a transcript? I'd like to read their official statement.
This is THEIR excuse (and why would they lie?). The guy was asking others to join his resistance so they taser him. That is not to protect themselves, that is to simply shut someone up. You can easily see in the video that police were not being surrounded in such a way that anyone but a complete chickenshit would think that the student's call for communal resistance would be answered by violent uprising. As it was he was being passive (even if loud). Thus that would seem to suggest passive resistance. Okay so maybe more people to be carried out?
Whether the man called for an uprising is irrelevant. And if their department issued that as the official reason why, that is a bunch of b.s. That would be the police chief trying to save his butt from a scandal, which is scandalous in itself. You can clearly hear from the audio that he was screaming and becoming highly agitated. Then you hear the officers saying, "Get up," meaning he sat right back down in protest. If called from some sort of uprising, he said it under his breath or was making gestures to the crowd because I certainly didn't hear anything like that.
Why couldn't they continue to carry the guy screaming from the building? Unless students were blocking their way (which you can see in the video is not the case) there was nothing preventing them from ejecting him relatively peacefully.
They should have carried him out because the taser wasn't working.
This is really long. I'll finish the rest later.

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Silent H, posted 11-19-2006 3:39 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 66 of 142 (364922)
11-20-2006 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Hyroglyphx
11-20-2006 1:01 PM


Still patiently waiting for a response.
Just wondering if you had time to respond to Message 60 and Message 39?

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-20-2006 1:01 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 67 of 142 (364943)
11-20-2006 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Hyroglyphx
11-20-2006 1:01 PM


Re: Gaining Compliance
Have you undergone the training with the Taser where they shoot you with it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-20-2006 1:01 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 68 of 142 (365104)
11-21-2006 8:27 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by Hyroglyphx
11-20-2006 1:01 PM


official transcript
Mmmm... to cut things down let's drop the issues of what the typical LE officer is like, as well as whether LE officers tend to approach these issues with a biased eye. Clearly we have different personal experiences, but they are tangential to the thread topic, so we can leave it at that.
I know what a cop who looses control looks like. This usually happens when they are very scared and those reactive instincts begin to take over. Watching the video, I didn't see that. They didn't lose control. Losing control would entail hitting the man, screaming unduly at him or at the crowd of bystanders, using profane or demeaning language. I didn;t see any of that.
??? I know what a person acting like a power hungry prick looks like, and that's what I saw with at least one of the cops. I'm not saying they did what they did because they were afraid or "lost control" of themselves. From my viewpoint (watching the tape), and witness description, they were in control of themselves, but acting callously and negligently.
But uh, as far as hitting the guy, screaming unduly in general, and using demeaning language to the bystanders: They shocked the guy, they kept yelling at him when it obviously didn't make a difference, and threatened bystanders with tasering.
But this kid was clearly not too bright.
I'm not sure where you get that assessment.
Even when you are faced with a bad cop who has a terrible attitude, you shirk it off until they leave and go through the proper channels, i.e. his employer. Popping off at the mouth, whether you are in the right or not, is pointless. It will get you nowhere.
That is a practical position, not an objectively correct position. When you have a "bad cop" on your hands, its every man for himself on how to deal with it. There is nothing wrong with standing one's ground... even if it means you will soon be kicked down.
In this case the guy went limp. IIRC I did not hear any direct anti-authority screaming until after he was shocked. If I was engaged in passive resistance and someone hit me with a taser I might very well be "motivated" to add some flavor to the screams. That is after all exactly what a taser is going to do, PUSH the subject to do SOMETHING in an aggravated fashion. The hope is that it will cause the person to move, but it could simply make a person scream louder and with less discretion.
If that's what happened. If the officers actually grabbed him and stopped him form leaving, then yes, that's a big problem. But if they simply touched him and said, "Hey, let me talk to you for a minute," and he flew into a rage, then the officers are still justified.
Well we can say "if" about anything. The OP presents a situation and we can only make an assessment based on what we are given. Obviously IF it is not as described in the material available then our assessment would be wrong. I'm nost suggesting that we decide a court case on this... but we can generate a preliminary conclusion.
The subject and separate witnesses claim that he was moving toward the door when they approached and stopped him. We can assume for sake of argument that it was simply to do what you said. Why should they interfere with him at all, if he was moving toward the door? And in any case there is no indication that he "flew into a rage". He went limp.
we don't even have consensus on whether or not the man did anything wrong. Should he even have been arrested, or should they have left the scene? We keep going back and forth with the best to affect the arrest or whether what he did was even an arrestable offense.
I'm sorry I should have made my comments clearer. I was making an assumption for the worse possible case (for the student). From what I have seen he was violating a policy and those who owned the facility wanted him out. They had that right. He of course decided to protest the policy with them. When police arrived he, once stopped, continued his protest.
Trespassing, obstruction, and disturbing the peace are all legal offenses. So yeah he could be arrested. Whether he should is up to UCLA or the officers. I think kicking him out would have been enough.
Regardless, it is how he was removed that is the prime issue, not how he was going to be processed.
Do you have a transcript? I'd like to read their official statement... Whether the man called for an uprising is irrelevant. And if their department issued that as the official reason why, that is a bunch of b.s.
Ask and ye shall receive. Here is the relevant excerpt...
Since, after repeated requests, he would neither leave nor show identification, the CSO notified UCPD officers, who responded and asked Tabatabainejad to leave the premises multiple times. He continued to refuse. As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building.
Tabatabainejab encouraged library patrons to join his resistance. A crowd gathering around the officers and Tabatebainejad's continued resistance made it urgent to remove Tabatabainejad from the area. The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a "drive stun" capacity.
Start by noting that this release conflicts with eyewitness testimony of what occured before he went limp. But we can deal with it from that point on.
Honestly, does what they say make any sense to you? As you say you did not hear him asking anyone to join him. You can see the "crowd" in the video. Do they really seem menacing or something that should have changed how they were handling the situation?
I'm not sure where "urgency" shows up in that matrix you presented on allowing tasering as opposed to less violent methods available to them.
Finally, this release doesn't quite cover why students asking for officer badge #'s were answered by threats of tasering.

holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-20-2006 1:01 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
mick
Member (Idle past 4986 days)
Posts: 913
Joined: 02-17-2005


Message 69 of 142 (365112)
11-21-2006 9:07 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Chiroptera
11-19-2006 3:26 PM


Re: Reviewing the video
chiroptera writes:
Because the problem wasn't just to eject the person from the premises. The person was questioning and resisting the official representatives of the authority of the state. Any resistance to the state at all can become a terrible example to others that will serve to undermine obedience public order
I agree completely. It seems pretty clear that the only offense that the student committed was not bowing and tugging his forelock at the cops' request. That kind of behaviour is what the cops (and people like nemesis juggernaut) think is "escalation".
Well, of course it IS escalation. From the police point of view, any challenge to their complete authority is the most dangerous challenge that can be made. Passive resistance to the cops is far more dangerous to them than any screaming drunk or loony with a knife. Of course, that is the reason the cops got mad. They undoubtedly treated him worse than they would have treated somebody caught drunk driving but who responded with the expected obsequity.
Fuckin pigs.
Mick

This message is a reply to:
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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 142 (365231)
11-21-2006 7:05 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by jar
11-19-2006 4:17 PM


Re: Based on the evidence that YOU cited...
You provided a link to a procedures manual as part of your support for your position back in Gaining Compliance (Message 30) wich can be found at comprehensive training manual.
According to the very manual that you cited the rentacops screwed up and did not follow the Response Matrix that can be found on page 4 of the manual you cited.
Sorry it took awhile to respond, but I go in chronological order, and I usually have many posts to respond to. I'm too popular here and often get alot of people piling on me for my unpopular beliefs.
The Response Matrix warrants the use of pain compliance for resolving passive aggressive people. So, there is no inconsistency there. However, if you listen to the tape, the man was likely being an Active aggressor before being tased. So, in that, it seems doubly justified.
In addition, a host of other options have been presented by myself and others.
Do you agree that according to the very Response Matrix that you cited the rentacops did NOT follow procedure?
I think that once tasing was not achieving the intended goal, which was to remove the subject from the grounds and to affect the arrest, they should have shifted gears. I certainly would not have tased that man as many times as they did. I would have removed him physically probably after the first or second tasing-- this all depending on whether he was actively aggressive towards them in the beginning.
But to show that the response was still within the realm of reason, I listed 4 more real-world examples of tasers being employed on video. I think each instance shows that law enforcement personnel were justified in their actions. I will show you another instance of tasing that I do not agree with.
I think the officer shot the woman prematurely out of fear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVdH1G0KQt4

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by jar, posted 11-19-2006 4:17 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 71 of 142 (365235)
11-21-2006 7:11 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Hyroglyphx
11-21-2006 7:05 PM


Re: Based on the evidence that YOU cited...
But to show that the response was still within the realm of reason, I listed 4 more real-world examples of tasers being employed on video. I think each instance shows that law enforcement personnel were justified in their actions. I will show you another instance of tasing that I do not agree with
Irrelevant.
Sorry but using a taser does not even fall within the realm of pain compliance as defined in the manual YOU provided.
However, if you listen to the tape, the man was likely being an Active aggressor before being tased. So, in that, it seems doubly justified.
Again, assumption of facts not in evidence. I listened to the tapes and see no such indication.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-21-2006 7:05 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 72 of 142 (365259)
11-21-2006 9:42 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Modulous
11-19-2006 4:07 PM


Re: University of California Police Department's tazer policy
Yes, one has to be mindful that weapons can be present. That does not give you an excuse to throw a grenade into a house before raiding it.
Actually stun grenades are quite effective. But you meant 'frag' grenades, in which case, your point is noted.
Even if the initial tasering can be justified, all subsequent ones were uneccesary. He was handcuffed and could be searched for weapons.
Well, I still maintain that the man could have avoided all of that by simply complying. At the same time, I would agree that the taser was essentially an ineffective tool and they should have gone to another method.
I don't see what difference the race of the police officers in question make when his complaint was that he was being singled out for being middle eastern.
It could be that you think that it is my complaint that it was racially motivated. I don't know if it was - but I do know that institutional racism has plagued various police authorities for a long time, and is well documented.
Police officers are beyond reproach until it is demonstrably proven that they have engaged in any wrongdoing. These are the results of this whole counter-culture where the righteous is placed on trial and the offender is placed in an iconoclastic status. BOTH the officers and the offender should be presumed innocent until a court of law makes that determination counter to that. I see it as a diversionary tactic instead of dealing with the actual argument. (Not you, but the people that mention it erroneously). Aside from which, was it determined that the librarians made the call and the police responded? If that's the case, that puts a damper on the whole racism charge.
What I also know is that the reports state the suspect was upset over being singled out for being middle eastern. This would tend to be reinforced by his references to the PATRIOT act.
Well, what a convenient defense.... LOL! That way, whenever a person from Middle Eastern decent has done anything wrong, they can always fall back on this in order to place the arresting party on trial.
I did not say they were lethal. They are less-lethal weapons. I'm not suggesting they are truly very dangerous. I am merely commenting on the police's own policy guidelines:
quoteb) The potential risk of serious injury to the individual being controlled,
Being hit by a taser can cause injuries indirectly, such as biting the tongue or hitting the head aganist the floor. As such - the police are required to bare in mind the potential for injury and whether potentially causing injury is warranted.
Modulous, anything has the potential for injury. A man attacking a police officer may indirectly hit their head on the floor during an ensuing struggle and bite their tongue. Does that mean that takedown maneuvors should be outlawed? I mean, if you are allergic to pepper foam, you can die from anaphylactic shock. Does that mean we should outlaw pepper foam? The fact is, I can't find a single case of someone dying as the result of being tasered, not to say that it isn't possible. And to show how confident they are with this method, any department employing the use of tasers must be instructed in their usage. That entails the officer having to be shocked with it as well.
Also, tasering itself can lead to death. For example if he had a medical condition (it is reported he stated he had a medical condition), or if he had taken stimulants.
That's not a good enough reason to abandone the whole project. You'd have to show that tasers routinely cause death or serious injury. Otherwise, just about everything could be outlawed. Hell, we take medications that pose a greater threat than tasers ever could.
As such, the police should weigh these into their decision. Unless the suspect is posing some kind of threat - thus must be removed quickly - tasering is not necessary and alternative methods should be employed. Those same methods that are used successfully by police that don't have tasers.
The alternative is hitting them with a big stick. I don't need any medical documentation to show how much worse batons are.
I didn't say it was designed to be lethal. I said that that 'taser use should be employed only where serious threat to the safety of others is present. I fail to see how the police might think there was danger to others to the extent that a potentially lethal form of control is required.'
Serious threats require firearms. I guess we'd have to first come to an agreement on what constitutes a serious threat.
You didn't comment on the policy guidelines themselves. That they specifically discuss that tasers should only when the situation merits it. It specifically states that passive demonstrators should be dealt with in other ways, time permitting. There was no other time pressures on the police at the scene. They simply had to get him out of the building.
That's fine. I've already mentioned that I would have done things differently. I can't about the initial tasering because the camera didn't show the reactions of the individual. It was implied, based on audio, that he was becoming combative, but I can't say for sure. And after the second or third shock, it should have been apparent that a new method would have been more useful.

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Modulous, posted 11-19-2006 4:07 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by anglagard, posted 11-21-2006 10:00 PM Hyroglyphx has replied
 Message 74 by fallacycop, posted 11-21-2006 10:11 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied
 Message 76 by Modulous, posted 11-21-2006 10:30 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied
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anglagard
Member (Idle past 837 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 73 of 142 (365265)
11-21-2006 10:00 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Hyroglyphx
11-21-2006 9:42 PM


Taser Deaths
NJ writes:
The fact is, I can't find a single case of someone dying as the result of being tasered, not to say that it isn't possible.
Check the second Google hit under the search term "death by taser."
Help Center - The Arizona Republic
The title is: 167 cases of death following stun-gun use
quote:
The Arizona Republic, using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser's own records, has identified 167 cases in the United States and Canada of death following a police Taser strike since September 1999. In 27 cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone's death. In 35 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor. Below is a synopsis of each case. The Republic requested autopsy reports for all of the cases and so far has received 50.
The rest of the article examines each incident.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-21-2006 9:42 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 75 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-21-2006 10:25 PM anglagard has replied

  
fallacycop
Member (Idle past 5521 days)
Posts: 692
From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil
Joined: 02-18-2006


Message 74 of 142 (365266)
11-21-2006 10:11 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Hyroglyphx
11-21-2006 9:42 PM


Re: University of California Police Department's tazer policy
You'd have to show that tasers routinely cause death or serious injury. Otherwise, just about everything could be outlawed.
The question isn't whether it's acceptable for police officers to have tasers.
The question is whether it is acceptable for them to taser someone that already is in hancuffs. Answer: clearly not, are you nuts?
Hell, we take medications that pose a greater threat than tasers ever could.
One more completely irrelevant red hearing (A sure sign that you are running out of real arguments)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Hyroglyphx, posted 11-21-2006 9:42 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 75 of 142 (365269)
11-21-2006 10:25 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by anglagard
11-21-2006 10:00 PM


Re: Taser Deaths
The title is: 167 cases of death following stun-gun use
This inquiry appears to be very misleading. Case in point:
"In 27 cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone's death. In 35 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor. Below is a synopsis of each case. The Republic requested autopsy reports for all of the cases and so far has received 50."
1. David Flores, 37, Fairfield, Calif.
A private investigator, Flores died after being shocked three times during a scuffle with police. Flores suffered a heart attack. Toxicology results indicate Flores died from agitated delirium due to acute cocaine and methamphetamine intoxication.
2. Enrique Juarez Ochoa, 34, Bakersfield, Calif.
Police responded to a call from Ochoa's mother, who said her son was acting strangely. Police shocked and handcuffed Ochoa and placed him face down on the ground for 15-20 minutes. Officers transported him to a medical center for evaluation. About 15 minutes later, officers noticed that he had stopped moving. Autopsy report lists cause of death as disseminated intravascular coagulation due to blunt impact trauma while in a hyper-excitable state and cocaine toxicity.
3. Mark Burkett, 18, Gainesville, Fla.
"Burkett, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, collapsed after struggling with officers at a county jail. Burkett was shocked with a Taser and became unresponsive. He died four days after being placed on life support. Autopsy report lists cause of death as acute exhaustive mania, meaning he worked himself into a frenzy that caused him to suffer a cardiac arrest Toxicology exam revealed no traces of cocaine, methamphetamine or steroids. Coroner notes that mania in psychiatric patients can lead to death. Coroner reports family history of paranoid schizophrenia."
5. Marvin Hendrix, 27, Hamilton, Ohio
Hendrix was fighting with paramedics at his house. A police officer shocked him twice. Two minutes after being shocked, he lost consciousness. An autopsy revealed Hendrix swallowed a bag of crack cocaine about seven hours before he died. The cause of death was cocaine toxicity. The medical examiner reported "the exact role of Taser in this individual's demise is unknown.
6. Steven Vasquez, 40, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"Vasquez was shocked during an altercation with police who were attempting to escort him out of a bar. A medical examiner said he died four days later as a result of drug toxicity, due to a mixture of pain medication. Coroner says Taser shocks were not a contributing factor in the death."
7. Vincent Delostia, 31, Hollywood, Fla.
"Delostia was running around in traffic then ran into the lobby of a hotel where he refused to leave. When police arrived, he lay down and kicked at officers. He was shocked, rolled onto his stomach and handcuffs were placed around his arms and legs. After 30 seconds of restraint, he stopped breathing. The coroner said the cause of death was cocaine toxicity and notes a history of bipolar disorder. Says Delostia exhibited multiple signs of excited delirium/"
8. Anthony Spencer, 35, Philadelphia, PA
"Police, responding to a domestic disturbance, used pepper spray and Tasers to subdue Spencer, who was brandishing a knife. He died in an ambulance en route to the hospital. City officials said tests reportedly found that the death was due to cocaine intoxication and that shocks from a Taser were not a contributing factor."
Anyway, these are the first 8 that I've read. I think the headline of this article is extremely misleading, as evidenced by the forensic pathology.

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by anglagard, posted 11-21-2006 10:00 PM anglagard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by anglagard, posted 11-22-2006 2:11 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
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