IT Professionals

Is The Taser Really A Danger?

Posted by on Nov 16, 2006 | 11 Comments

When I first discovered the following, I was upset, but for different reasons than most people I suspect. Now before I continue, understand that I have a number of friends that are retired law enforcement and one who is still active. Hell, my own post-father-in-law was US Customs. So let me be clear in saying that I understand fully when force is needed and when it is not. In this instance, it’s truly open to debate.

It’s not about right or wrong, there is a time and a place to follow up with alleged harassment concerns.

A number of people who have seen the “tasering video” exclaim that the cops involved were being excessive. I take a slightly different stance. I say that the police involved were poorly trained and frankly, not making safe choices for those involved. Shooting electricity through someone is not going to gain the result of cooperation. Tasering is an alternative to other non-lethal responses. It’s designed to subdue a potential threat, either to themselves or others.

Look, the young man featured in the video was pretty stupid to challenge people carrying guns (the police) in the first place. But even still, I believe wholeheartedly that the proper police response should have been for them to order him to the ground, taser once if absolutely needed, then hogtie him in order to carry him out to the squad car. The end goal should have been suspect removal, not putting on a show that could have led to a riot. It was stupid, sloppy and frankly, the cops involved ought to be fired for a total disregard of dealing with this situation like law enforcement professionals. At the very least, they need to be suspended with mandatory retraining, in my opinion.

To be clear, the suspect was indeed, resisting orders from law enforcement. And while the whole reason for be “harassed” (lack of school ID) is certainly overkill in this instance perhaps, when you become resistant to those who have been given law enforcement power by those in charge, you will pay the piper for putting up any resistance.

Look, the smart money would have been for the suspect to be an adult, cooperate while making a note to himself that he will be taking the Police Dept to court if he honestly felt that his rights were violated. But instead, he opts for putting on a show and frankly, endangering his own life along with anyone else who decides to jump in to be “a hero”.

Abusing technology.

As I mentioned before, I believe the driving force behind this sloppy police behavior was the result of some very poor training. Tie that in with what could have been a potential “power trip”, and you have a Molotov cocktail for that given situation.

At this time, I am going to refrain from stating that the cops involved were suffering from a serious power trip as a definite fact. I am not doing this to be nice, rather because I am not inside their heads. Thus, I choose not to speculate. But the fact remains that they opted to use a piece of protective technology foolishly. Essentially, it was used as a cattle prod against the suspect.

Is the Taser really a danger? You be the judge.

Read this PDf file very carefully. It contains a sentence that the officers in this video apparently were unaware of. On page 3, you will discover that it is advised to avoid prolonged exposure to the Taser device as it can cause exhaustion. Could this be why there was no action in the “getting up” department with this suspect? Once again, he could just be resisting, but the potential is still there nonetheless.

So was the police response with the Taser justified? I am going to say no. Instead of the justified trip to the police station, he was shot with electricity by a police officers that obviously believe that we don’t live in an age with video cameras.

To the young man who resisted: I agree that the cops were out of line with their methods, but next time, don’t be an idiot by putting yourself at risk over something so stupid. Follow up with it legally.

And to the officers involved with this instance, you placed others in harms way rather than dealing with this like professionals. I challenge you to show me written proof from your commanding officer that this was proper procedure. We both know that this was sloppy, stupid and even though I could not see what happened in the beginning, had the potential to be quite excessive. Your department ought to be ashamed of the lack of proper handling of this.
[tags]police, poor judgment, taser, YouTube[/tags]

  • Emery

    Matt, Thanks for this report. I had heard about this incident in the news,
    but had not seen the video or details. I agree that this was a totally unprofessional over use of force, and unfortunately typical of law enforcement being ignorant and over using technology they obviously don’t
    understand. Be it a radar gun, or a tazer, or whatever, they generally know
    just enough to be dangerous. I am amazed these officers were able to get
    out of there with their lives — this was a discusting show of police state
    brutality and mentality, and something I am afraid we are likely to see more
    and more of. The guy was stupid to do anything other than say yes sir,
    but the officers were criminally negligent and abusive of their responsibility and power. The public must wake up and take back control of society, or we are in deep do-do.

  • Mike Fleckenstein

    Greetings, Matt,

    RE: Is the Taser really a dangerous weapon?

    First, let me express that the opinions that I express here are not necessarily the opinions of the department or the university that I work for. I should also note that I do not work for either the department or the university involved in this incident.

    Second, I’d like to indicate my surprise that you would broach a subject like this in what I thought was supposed to be a computer related news and information forum. While I’ll agree its your space to do with as you see fit, it seems a little unnerving to see an editor drawing conclusions and taking a stance based upon what he’s seeing and hearing in a video, and upon knowing and being related to past and present members of the law enforcement community.

    I am an auxiliary police officer for a small department in another state. I have twelve years experience in that capacity. We are trained to a very high standard, and in the course of that training I have been Tasered three times – once being shot with the probes and twice being drive stunned as was done in this video. We are also trained in the use of force, and the force continuum that indicates or suggests a proper level of force in response to a given level of resistance by a suspect.

    What you have here is a piece of video that brings a quick emotional reaction. Sound resonates in that building, and as you point out the suspect plays the part up well, drawing the crowd into the scene. Certainly there was potential for unwanted crowd involvement – the scene could quickly have gotten out of control.

    As I noted above, I also work at a university. In my duties I am frequently in and out of the library. I have no recollection of ever seeing anyone with a video camera there. It seems highly coincidental that there just happens to be “an incident” involving a very vocal subject and someone with a video camera in the same place at the same time.

    Any opinion on whether the actions of the officers was justified in this case requires you to draw certain unsubstantiated conclusions. My conclusions are as follows:

    1. In the interest of enhancing the safety of its library patrons, there is a requirement that library users, for at least some portion of the library’s business hours, are required to possess a student identification card and to produce it upon demand.

    2. That the library or the university has hired staff to, at random times, check to be sure that anyone present in the building has the required identification card. It would seem that they even make an announcement on the building’s p/a system prior to beginning their check.

    3. That in the event these employees find a person who either can not or will not produce the required identification card, they ask the person to leave, and upon refusal call the university police to deal with the situation.

    4. It is likely that there is a sign or other form of publicizing the library’s rules, and that this is one of the conditions under which you are allowed to use the library.

    5. That once the police become involved they will likely seek cooperative resolution.

    6. That by refusing to comply with the library’s rules of operation, the requests of library staff, and the responding officers the subject would be considered “disorderly by trespass” in most jurisdictions – a crime.

    7. It must be pointed out that being a university police officer is very different from being an officer elsewhere. All police officers have to deal with the requirements of law, their department’s policies, later second guessing by people with half the facts, much misinformation, and no training. For a university police officer you have to add in the politics of the campus environment. Everything you do is tempered by how parents might react when Johhny tells them his side of the story, regardless whether his story was truth or fiction.

    8. While you contend that the officers lacked training, I’ll take the opposite stance that the officers used their training properly and showed a great deal of restraint. You hear their repeated demands that the subject get up. He chose to refuse. Assuming that the force continuum used by their department is similar to the one used by mine, when verbal commands failed then it is appropriate to go “hands on”. There can always be questions about the amount of force used in any given situation. Our department describes it as that amount of force necessary to effect the arrest, as guided by law, department policy and the force continuum. While you say that the officers should have dealt with the situation more quickly, in reality the only way to have done that would be to use more force, since the subject was clearly not going to get up and leave on his own.

    Where the Taser fits in the force continuum varies from one department to the next. In our department you could use the Taser or chemical spray at about the same time. In another setting this subject could have been sprayed, although it wouldn’t be prudent to do it in a closed air, student filled environment such as a university library. But the next option available in the force continuum is the application of physical blows.

    While the Taser is certainly painful, in 99.999% of uses the affects are gone within minutes. The same can not be said for physical blows which can result in permanent injury to the subject and injuries to the officers involved. Everyone has heard the claims of deaths caused by Tasers. I am not a judge of that, other than that I have been tased three times and still have the ability to sit here and write this reply to your article. I can attest to the lives that Taser has saved – even within my department’s jurisdiction. An example is a suicidal subject who wanted police officers to shoot him, and did everything he could to make that happen. But the officers involved, showing restraint, tased the subject instead of having to shoot him. You can see similar results department after department, nationwide. Additionally, in the old days where you had to physically struggle and grapple or even fight with people to get them handcuffed, both criminals and officers were frequently injured. In departments where Tasers are used, these injuries are greatly reduced.

    In my opinion, the officers involved in this incident showed restraint and the proper application of their training. Was their performance perfect? Maybe, maybe not, I wasn’t there. And in fact the video offers no evidence of the level of resistance the subject offered. I have many times had a subject say “I’m not fighting you” while he’s throwing punches and kicking.

    A couple of questions:

    With no training in the use of force yourself, why would you decide that the police were inadequately trained and/or used inappropriate force? And why would you use the medium of a technical news forum to express that opinion?

    When we’ve turned the good guys into bad guys, who will fight our crime? Law enforcement is a tough profession. Every time you wear the uniform you become a target in a very dangerous world. Instead of rushing to judge, perhaps we could sometimes determine the facts of the case and when appropriate rush to defend our brave public servants.

    Thank a cop today.

    My two cents…

    Mike Fleckenstein

  • Hmmmm

    I don’t see how this relates to IT Professionals, maybe take this to another blog if you need to rant.

  • Chuck

    A key point here, I think, is that these were campus cops. I don’t know the specifics of this college, but my experience has been that campus cops are only about a half-step above mall cops on the law enforcement evolutionary ladder. Little or no training and minimal experience, coupled with the claims of a non-lethal, personal protection device, are all factors in this incident.

    And in any case, based on the audio feed for the video, the “victim” was pretty obviously more interested in making his “point” than in co-operating with the library authorities or the campus police.

    Just think – 10 years ago, instead of a mild shock to the nervous system, this lunkhead would have been receivin multiple blows from one or more nightsticks.

    -cjb-

  • Yaacov Iland

    A taser is “designed to subdue a potential threat, either to themselves or others.” If there’s no potential threat, don’t use the taser. Simple. If the guy is on the ground and not fighting back, you do not taser him. If the guy is walking out of the building, not threatening anyone, you do not taser him. That’s where the cops messed up and that’s where your assertion that the cops should “taser once if absolutely needed” is wrong as well. I agree with pretty much everything else you wrote, but in this case, there was no grounds to use a taser even once.

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    I chose to post this because the GnomeREPORT is indeed, an editorial piece of my choosing. The event was seen as relevant considering the Taser technology was involved. The Taser is designed to subdue, yet was being used in what some might deem overkill.
    Had he pulled that crap with me, he would have been put to the ground, restrained and taken out of there. There would have been none of this “walk, get up and walk” BS.
    As far as my lack of training in the use of needed force, whoever said that I was not trained in this area whatsoever? While I am not going to elaborate too much, I will say that I am qualified more than you might think. That, and I was very clear in separating fact from my own opinion.
    Fact: The Taser was not needed to make someone walk. This is an silly, obviously. It is a tool to subdue, not motivate.
    Fact: Considering the limited view of the video we have to watch, the audio more than made up for this shortcoming. The officer commands are /quite/ clear: Move or be shocked.
    Fact: The individual ignoring officer commands is a moron. When an authority figure asks you to comply and it is not a threat to your life to do so, it is suggested to follow the order. It could end up preventing injury. That was not the time to “make a stand”, it could have ended a lot worse.
    My Thoughts: Mike’s expression above is valid. I cannot judge 100% based on what the video was showing, as it brings on an emotional reaction to the uninitiated. No question there.
    But understand that I am not “New” to this type of thing. I believe that most of the “screaming” was for show. Therefore I did not buy into that.
    But the verbal commands being exclaimed by the officers to motivate an individual to comply with “standing up” after shocking them is frankly, a result of poor training with regard to dealing with an uncooperative individual.
    And I say again, even if there was a clear and present danger, this was not appropriate at all, Mike. I believe you know this to be accurate. It’s subdue and remove, not poke and prod.(oh, and I was “upset” by the handling of this, not the reaction of the suspect specifically.)
    Having said this, I would like to thank Mike for his thoughts.

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    Interesting point, Chuck. You’re right about the “lumps”. ;)

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    I would also like to add that Mike is right with regard to training given to city/county/state law enforcement officers. Those that I know personally are all very dedicated and quite professional. So please don’t take any of this as a reflection of law enforcement as a whole. It’s a tough, sometimes thankless job that requires a lot of hard work and dedication.
    Just want to be very clear on that. :)

  • Scott

    Interesting play here Matt. I know you referred to parts of this as subjective, but the important parts stand out. One, the victim’s an ass. Maybe he thinks Hollywood is watching, but he’s an ass.
    Two, the audio clearly captures that what happened re the multiple taser applications was wrong. How can someone think that telling someone to get up off the floor, and then tasering him when he didn’t, be okay? When it’s multiple times, at least. That isn’t subjective. That’s fact.
    Every officer there isn’t an idiot, but a couple are. And the others should have stopped it, so they need to take some blame.
    I’m sticking to this one point on the officer’s behavior as it was the trigger that almost got pulled. Take the acting out of the “victim”, and if he was my friend, and the toy-cops were buzzing my friend, yelling at him to get up and then re-buzzing him, I don’t think I could stay out of it. And if I go, my friends go. And all of a sudden we’ve got MAJOR problems.
    To slough that off and try to defend their behaviour is reprehensible. I don’t care if they’ve got five dozen years of service. Facts are still facts.
    I agree with the compliments extended to the police. Most are excellent, but no large group is perfect.
    I leave with a reminder of the wish structure for most police officers.
    First, a federal cop, Secret Service, F.B.I., etc. are highly sought after.
    The ones who fail to make the federal level want a job at the state level.
    The officers that don’t make it there, go after local police work, and when they can’t make it there, they try for what is basically a security guards position. Sometimes they are called officers, but that’s buffering the position. Go one more level and you see Police Academy 12! :)
    I am not knocking the lower levels at all. But the trickle-down effect doesn’t just happen in the security/police business. More prestige and more money. It’s a natch.

    Scott

  • Jeff Partridge

    Matt,

    By now, the video is all over the evening news. One thing I think you missed is that these aren’t regulation police involved, they’re campus renta-cops. For my money, that makes it worse.

  • Marco

    I am shocked that in 21 century some people allowed to use this killing device called taser..

    In US people are executed by using electric chair and now the same device (almost) is approved to replace the cops hands, baton or gun. this is a shame that now when we know what Nazi germans did to millions of people, what russian regime did to millions of people, and other regimes did to other nations we allow to use this horrible tool to fight own citizens.

    This taser is killing device, is so unhuman, it is horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!

    How much money in kickbacks someone received to buy these devices for the police. Obviously this company which sells tasers is paying bribes to people who make decisions in police. This is mafia thing. it came to Canada too but hopefully this horrible weapon will be eliminated from Canada. I hope they will catch those who took money from this company who sells tasers.

    BTW the designer and the person who approved taser as safe should be tasered to DEATH to see what they prepared for innocent people.

    They should also change the name of their company to NAZI TASER

    And may be police should start hiring strong real boys who can stop the person with their bare hands and not those gay replicas of man who are afraid of the drop of blood.

    Thanks

    Marco