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500th Taser death in America
- Thread starter lexi
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That would create an entirely new issue.
It would suck to be the cop that learns his Tazer is one use only. I would just go for my gun each time.
speculawyer
Member
Does he win a free iPad?
You know, an acquaintance of mine, former police president of the state of Thuringia, Germany, once explained to me why the police decided on a HK pistol with five rounds instead of a Glock: If a cop doesn't manage to stop, or at least hit his target in five shots, giving him fifteen rounds would do more harm then good.
FreeMufasa
Junior Member
You people will not silence UTB!
Wanna play this sport so bad.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
how much stronger are police tasers than commercially sold stun guns?
bought my girlfriend a stun gun a while back when she had a scare on the way to her car.
bought my girlfriend a stun gun a while back when she had a scare on the way to her car.
scar tissue
Banned
I'd rather have cops who aren't trigger happy.
I'm pretty sure most police departments require you to be tasered as part of training to carry one. That seems like a lot of deaths but then I don't know what the mortality rate was under the old whack em with a stick until they drop method.
That's not going to happen as long as you have guys who risk their lives daily.
shrimpjive
Banned
I wish cops were given the authority to shoot civilians for these minor kerfuffles. It's sad to think that they're out protecting us with only a tiny little spark between them and the criminals.
Psychotext
Member
I can't help thinking that the vids in this thread...
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=463289
...would be a bit of an eye opener for some here. Especially the one where they taze then shoot a guy who has just survived (with severe injuries) a horrific car accident.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=463289
...would be a bit of an eye opener for some here. Especially the one where they taze then shoot a guy who has just survived (with severe injuries) a horrific car accident.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Police already are required to be shocked before they can carry one.
And if someone is genuinely being uncooperative and that first shot is ineffective? What then? Bring out the batons and aim for their knees?
To me the article is incomplete/misleading... shouldn't the headline be tasers kill 60 people? How do you automatically attribute 440 other deaths to tasers without more detail? If someone falls to their death after being tasered does that not count as a "contributing factor to their death"?
Sure there are some egregious ones like the boy on the bike but those are most likely outliers. Are we so sure that some of these people wouldn't have died by being detained in some other fashion? There's just not enough info in the article that I can see to be throwing the 500 number around so lightly. Why is the taser the "contibuting factor" in death is so few cases?
CornBurrito
Member
I'm amazed at how religious people, who tend to preach that every life is sacred, can be so callous.
So just comply with anything, like a dog. Never stand up for yourself, especially when a police officer is abusing his/her power, wrongly accusing you of something, violating the own laws the officer is supposed to protect, etc etc.
It's not that black and white. You get mouthy with a police officer and you could die.
ReBurn
Gold Member
I think that the bigger issue is that without police to kill us with tasers people would never die.
Amakusa
Member
I can say I've never been an Idiot around a cop, people get teased because they run, don't lay down, ask retarded questions like why are you arresting me?
There are a lot of good cops, the vast majority, who read situations well and respond appropriately. They aren't all power mad, trigger happy idiots.
Some are.
FreeMufasa
Junior Member
huh? Wouldn't you want to know why your being arrested?
I would rather someone be tased than shot. Surely that counts as life being sacred. Further, Christians realize the whole reap what you sow. Don't run from the cops, don't attack the cops, don't attack your family or neighbors, don't get drunk in public, don't Occupy Wall Street in a disorderly manner, & it's a pretty good chance that you will never experience a tazing.
On the other hand, it would certainly suck to just be sitting on the couch as an innocent citizen of this great country watching Fringe & a cop comes in and tazes me and I end up dying of a heart attack.
However, I like those odds over them doing the same thing to me with a gun or cop stick.
scar tissue
Banned
Amakusa
Member
You can ask that question all you want, if the cop doesn't give you an answer what next? Will you run? Will you not lay down? *ZAP* People will ask why are you arresting me and not allow the cop to arrest them. *ZapZap* You can ask all questions you want, after he's searched you, cuffed, and you're sitting in the back of his car or where ever he puts you.
When keeping it real goes wr*zapzapzapzapzap*
CornBurrito
Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
What's the alternative? I doubt whatever alternative you have will never result in a single death.
How exactly does that post imply either of those sentiments?
CornBurrito
Member
Not JGS's post. But mclaren777 basically posted "they ran, they deserved it."
I'm not saying that we should ban tasers. I'm just saying that these deaths are really unfortunate. I find the belief that people deserve to die for being uncooperative pretty disturbing.
Rubbish King
The gift that keeps on giving
Angry Fork
Member
Risking their lives illegally frisking random people for weed? Teaching cops to look at all muslims as terrorists? Or setting up speed traps to nick money off people (while speeding themselves and breaking traffic laws because lol we're cops who gives a shit nobody gonna stop us lolol)? Or tazing a 120 pound girl running in a parking lot (because they're too fat and lazy to chase them)?
Unless you're talking about like murders and stuff, where they show up after the crime has already been committed, set up a perimeter and try to look like top boss as if they're doing something for the community.
The tales of stopping a bank robbery heist are quite rare. I can side with SWAT guys, FBI etc. risking their life, but the every day failed football players? Nah.
How about we take tazers/guns from police all together? OR allow citizens to have whatever weaponry police have, and able to defend themselves if deemed necessary without bro-police-gang defending each other in court.
Disorderly manner = whatever the cops say is disorderly.
Suddenly they say you can only protest in a 50 ft. by 50 ft. area and now their voices are essentially shut down because police will surround them and nobody else will give a shit. And if a protestor goes out of this zone he deserves to be tazed? Alrighty then. Protests are supposed to be disorderly that's the entire point otherwise nobody would notice them. You mean to suggest don't commit violence while protesting, which you can make an argument for, but so far police have done much of the violence against protestors and not the other way around.
Of course I find them unfortunate. I do not believe for one second a police uses a Taser with the intent to kill someone.
From the list of options available for a police office to detain a suspect, tasers are better than other option outside of pepper spray.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
I don't understand, so no cops have even been killed? None have ever been assaulted or injured? None ever risk their life? They're all just being a bunch of meanies and taking people's weed or sitting at speed traps? What's with the stupid extremes of everything?
mclaren777
Member
He had numerous visual cues that the police wanted him to stop, but he still made poor choices
"When Police Officer John Turner arrived, he saw Roger Anthony pedaling along 10th Street and followed in his patrol car. Turner put on his sirens and lights and yelled for him to stop, but Anthony continued to ride away, police said.
Scotland Neck Police Chief Joe Williams said Turner saw Anthony take something out his pocket and put it into his mouth. Turner got out of the car and yelled for Anthony to stop. When Anthony didn't, the officer used a stun gun on him, causing him to fall off of his bike."
Again, only idiots get mouthy with police officers.
You should watch this video
Angry Fork
Member
They die so little that whenever someone does it's plastered all over every newspaper for a week. I don't mean to say some don't risk their life, there are good police around, however rare they may be, but I refuse to believe the majority do as implied by the other poster.
I'm going to do some googling now to see how many have died in the last year in NYC.
edit - I could only find an article that said 11 cops in NYC died since 2010, although it was a 2011 article so it may be more.
Like I said before, I don't mean to suggest some don't risk their life, but I don't think ordinary police should have guns/tazers at all. Guns should be much harder to obtain for civilians as well. England does fine without them except in cases where higher-tier police are necessary. That's not going to happen anytime soon here so if police are going to be allowed to do what they want with the weaponry they want then civilians should as well. I should be able to have the right to defend myself against a police officer who I deem to be imposing on my rights or threatening me. Unfortunately I would never get away with such a thing because civilians are deemed to be of lower status than police.
Well they tased a guy that was riding a back. Hes obviously going to fall.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
No shit? Some places are less dangerous than others, I for one am shocked. What does this have to do with the dumb idea that it should become the wild west and everyone should carrying guns that are police issue?
So because of that you want all police to lose guns? Or if you only certain ones, how do you decide it? By number of deaths in the area per year? Where's the cut off?
Yeah I don't get it, if you're a cop in any decent sized city you're gonna see some crazy shit. I have a friend who's a cop and even though he is a douche sometimes, he doesn't deserve to put up with half the shit he gets from people.
Angry Fork
Member
Multiply this across thousands of police and realize why people don't like them. Police are a state sanctioned gang with human flaws just as the rest of us have, but with benefits civilians don't have, mainly having bros back you up when you do something illegal and judges automatically on your side because you're "risking your life" daily.
BruiserBear
Banned
This comment just struck me as lacking sense. Let me explain.
Even if the police approached a black man, or someone who they've mistaken as a criminal, they're not just going to walk up to you and taze you. They would likely approach you, and ask you to stop for a moment so they could talk to you. If you then acted foolish, and ran or physically resisted them, maybe then you'd get tazed.
That doesn't mean I think all tazings are necessary, just that the two examples you cited don't seem to make sense IMO.
I've known a few cops personally in my days, and if I'm being entirely honest, I think the douche characteristic is quite common for that profession. They're often the "act first, think later" type, and they seek out those careers because they kind of like to be the boss of people.
Also, when you talk about how much "shit they take", my first thought is "That's part of the job. If you don't want to do it, then don't fucking sign up for the job". Also, the cops I know all love to tell you how hard their job is. I kind of think the self pity factor is rather high as well, which just leads them to be more douchey, because it's justified seeing how "hard" their job is. :/
Of course if you're just being silly and flopping around like a fish while they try to arrest you, it's certainly not worthy of a tasering. If trespassing (Like pushing through barricades) is involved as opposed to merely loitering about, I say taser/spray is appropriate.
My point was that if you are acting civil, then it decreases substantially the opportunity to die from tasering.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
So what's your solution to these "gangs" that police are? Just going wild west and have everyone fend for themselves?
A baton strike to just above the knee will drop almost anyone and is a lot safer than a taser shot. It also comes with the added bonus that any cop authorised to use such a method must be well-trained and, given the up-close nature of the thing, is much less likely to use it as a policing crutch. You'd use it in exactly the same way you should be using a tazer - a last-resort method of self defense.
Of course, the main problem is this:
My chosen method of brutality would be "none at all".
Your point is flawed in its very conception. Unless you are performing activities that warrant a weapon-based response (ie. you are substantially endangering the physical well-being of others), it should not be expected that you are risking your life from police response at all.
"Don't be stupid if you don't want to get hurt" is an ideal guiding principle for day-to-day action, but you should expect a lot more from the people paid to protect you. They are paid and trained to be better than others, that includes in guiding moral philosophy as well legal power. Meeting fire with fire, or more accurately meeting disrespectful attitudes with weapons, is not behaviour one should tolerate from their employed officers of civil protection.
Their purpose is to keep the peace, not to break it. Anytime they have to resort to violence where violence was not necessary they have failed in their duty to you, their employer.
I think tasers are absolutely a useful tool and method of defense for police officers. They are entirely preferable to firearms except in situations where assailants themselves have firearms or worse. However, it is common in all of these tasering threads in GAF that the use of the taser was entirely inappropriate and grossly disproportionate. It strikes me that the average level of training of these beat cops is not up to a standard where they are able to intelligently use them. Given that they are always cleared of wrongdoing, this is a systematic problem. Either the standard of training needs to be raised, or the average beat cop should not be given use of a taser.
edit - Guys, it's "taser", not "tazer". Just like with "laser", it is a proper noun and there are no alternative spellings. I'm not actually bothered by the different spelling, I just thought you'd like to know. I make the mistake myself frequently.
Angry Fork
Member
No traffic cop should have a gun, tazer is fine though. Drugs should be legalized to get rid of the warrantless frisking/searching. Get rid of quotas. Only police I believe should have guns are ones called upon to something major like a bank robbery/hostage situation etc. in which case SWAT-like beast crew would come in anyway.
Significantly decrease gun manufacturing and shut down gun shops in the city, completely cut the ability for civilians to get them illegally so there will be less guns on the street as well so the argument that police need guns to defend themselves can go away. Stop the killing/violence on both sides. Police should not be viewed as a higher authority. They are flesh and bones and if a civilian feels he is threatened by a police officer he should have the right to defend himself against him. Police actions while on duty should be monitored at all times. They like to play surveillance big brother on civilians well the same should apply to them.
Completely re-design the requirements to become a police officer. Enable psychological tests as well as physical. No brute ego-driven jocks should be police officers. It should be as difficult to become a police officer as it is to get into an IVY league school. Not necessarily intellectually but in terms of moral character.
BruiserBear
Banned
While I think you've got some good ideas there, the IVY League School requirement is impossible. Very few people with that level of education want to be cops.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
So what if it's not a bank robbery it's a shooting at a school? Or a shooting at a home? The closest cop can't respond since he's weaponless and now you have to wait longer for someone else to come? But would they even come since it's not BANK HEIST level of big? And the rest is just stuff that has nothing to do with this ordeal with tasers. Whether you like it or not drugs are illegal, you putting down cops for arresting for it is moronic. It's illegal and it's their job to arrest for that. The second, good luck getting rid of all illegal gun activity. How would that happen exactly? And you're willing to pay in your taxes the absurdly high cost of following every police officer at every second of the day and paying someone to sit and watch the tape of literally every police officer that exists? And good luck with having adequate police if it's as selective as an ivy league school. And what does not intellectually but morally mean? What tests are you running for this?
Angry Fork
Member
That's why I don't necessarily mean intellectually. I get that being a cop (a real cop) could be dangerous, but many would feel a sense of honor and duty to your fellow man. There to protect them, look out for everyone etc. that kind of thing. Police officers should feel this in their gut, but many become police because it's relatively easy to become one and comes with tons of benefits.
I thought about becoming an officer when I was younger because I felt the same way I do now about justice and doing what's necessary for the common good, but I eventually learned the kind of filth in NYC departments and decided I'd never rub soldiers with such people. NYPD is filled to the brim with thugs and paranoid ego maniacs. It's a real shame and I wish it wasn't that way. Especially the current commissioner and mayor which are corrupt sociopathic bed fellows. Now I'd rather just be a nurse or firefighter because at least then you're with people who aren't scumbags.
And based on what I've read NYPD isn't even close to Chicago's level of corruption and douchebaggery. They had the gall to make recording police actions an illegal act. That's some hardcore fascist shit.
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