I am busy renovating, but thought I would note the plethora of tasing incidents:
Michigan Police Taser Durango Bride & Groom at Wedding Reception
Family questions death after Statesville Police Department Taser ...
"Missouri Police Taser injured boy 19 times"
digby's take:
on the tased bride:
Maybe there was no taser. But I wouldn't be surprised. Wedding receptions are notoriously dangerous and there were only 14 different law enforcement agencies present. The police must have felt overwhelmed and would naturally need to taser the groom or risk having to use deadly force instead. That, after all, is the rationale for taser use.
on the broken back tase:
Right. A kid lying on the ground with a broken back was allegedly saying "shoot cops, kill cops" so they had to taser him 19 times to "subdue" him. Sure, that makes sense.
What is it going to take to end this reign of terror? Every single day we hear of police officers somewhere tasering people who present no threat to them and who could easily be dealt with without shooting them with electricity to make them comply. In this case, it's perfectly obvious that the kid was injured and couldn't get up! The police interpreted that as non-compliance, which they seem to automatically use as an excuse to shoot citizens full of electricity these days.
Well... at least they weren't shot....
The only thing I can add is that the father of the guy who was killed after multiple tasings is in jail and was tased by the same cop....crazy....
I use ellipsis too often... but... what are you going to do....?
Eugene is going through a TASER discussion right now and the response of the pro-police crowd is exactly "thank God the police had this valuable tool and didn't have to shoot someone." Of course the man who was tased was originally approached by police for "blocking traffic." He was tased after he was dragged to the sidewalk where he resisted arrest.
ReplyDeleteYes, thank God the police did not have to resort to shooting someone for blocking traffic or resisting arrest!
I can't believe that I live in a town that just three or four years ago had two police officers raping women while on the job and a massive non-investigation of these allegations, then an attempted cover up, and STILL assholes write into the paper demanding that the "whiners" stop second guessing the police and calling for elimination of all civilian oversight.
Wow, Dave. I didn't know you felt that way. Which isn't to say that I thought you were pro-police brutality (or condoned police rapists)...I was just exposed to such an extreme perspective during my time with the anarchists that I have no sense anymore about what a "reasonable" perspective on the EPD is. It's good to see that my opinion is not as warped as I feared--there are some things that are fucked up about the EPD and they do need oversight.
ReplyDelete(Incidentally, I was just thinking about this over the weekend. We took baby R. to a community drumming event in downtown Durham. At one point, three cops on bikes rolled up to check things out. I instinctively assumed that they were there to order us to disperse and began anticipating trouble. But (a) they weren't and (b) no one else seemed to have the same assumptions or apprehensions. That's when I realized I might have some cop issues that I need to sort out...)
It actually gets worse, as the Eugene police weren't originally even involved with the protest. A DHS person was "concerned" that the 15 or so people gathered to protest the county spraying of pesticides might end up wandering down to the courthouse, so he decided to monitor the protest. He called the police because the protesters were allegedly blocking traffic and frightening the citizens.
ReplyDeleteThe other main reaction of the fine citizens of Eugene is that if you don't want to get tased, you shouldn't be out demonstrating or protesting. I guess these ar ethe people that would have supported the British circa 1774...if you didn't want to get shot, you shouldn't have been taunting the soldiers.