Should police officers be allowed to shock citizens with 50,000 volts of electricity using tasers?

Question

Police officers are tasing citizens for small reasons. Here is a video clip of a woman being tasered for nothing more than a traffic stop.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/video/taser_video3a.html

Answer 1

would you rather be beaten? or shot?

Answer 2

Yes!!! The people who are against Tasers are the people who never have to take control of a mentally ill combative suspect or simply a very very angry and uncooperative person. Of course from an outside perspective people will say that you should use a wrist lock etc. Well, you have to actually get a hold of a person to actually get the wrist lock in the first place, which puts you within striking distance. If you get knocked out you could have you gun taken and used on you. My sugestion to the people who don't like Tasers is to go out, pick a fight with a very large angry man, and then, without getting hurt or hurting him, place him in a wrist lock, and then into cuffs while wearing a gun on your hip without getting hurt or having your gun taken away from you. Good Luck! The truth is Tasers save a lot of lives, and I am not talking about the Police. Many times officers can Taser a suspect with a knife or some other non-firearm type of weapon that in the past would have been shoot because there is no other option. If people would simply comply with the police orders given, not fight back, not attack anyone with a weapon we wold not need Tasers. There are a lot of people Tasered every single day across the US and very very few every suffer any complications from the Taser. It is rare that someone dies after being Tasered, and when they do there is usually an undelying cause that was not triggered by the Taser it's self. Too many people simply believe anything the Media throws a spin on. For example everytime an officer has to shoot someone the News always has to mention with a stern voice "The officer(s) are now under investigation" Duh! anytime an officer shoots someone they get investigated because it s a homicide and needs to be investigated to ensure the officer acted as they were supposed to. But the news spins it as if there was something fishy or dirty about the shooting. I have five friends that have had the misfortune of using deadly force while working and each and everytime the news spun it to make them sound liek they might have done something wrong. Each of my friends were cleared of their shootings after a deep investigation by ANOTHER DEPARTMENT! The news takes a small piece of a big puzzle and spins it to make it sound more interesting even if it makes someone unjustly look bad. How do I know this? I worked in that industry for five years before I got into lawenforcement. My suggestion is to take all news with a grain of salt and realize there is way way more to the story than what you get on a 30 second news clip. Think about it! When was the last time you heard the News say "Officer's used a Taser Today, but it was justified." That does not sell news. It usually goes more like this "Three Officers used Tasers on a 55 year old black/Asian/Hispanic man while conducting a simple traffic stop" This sounds more suspecious, epsecially by mentionng the race of teh suspect. Who cares about the race of teh suspect,there are dirt bags in every sinlge color, just like tere are good people i every color. The news will fail to mention at first that the man jumped out of his car with a crow bar and refused to follow orders. The news will only show the clip of the actual Taser being deployed if they have it. They will never show the events leading up to the Taser being deployed because that would usually justify the use and not sound as suspicious. Anyway, there are a lot of new stories that are spun way off to make things seem worse than they are because that sells news, and we eat it up ike it's the truth.

Answer 3

No! 1000 times no! Here is a typical true incident. My neighbor, a young man in his late 20s was kind and pleasant except every month when the moon was full. Paranoid schizophrenic. Claimed he was God. Once a month he was a raving lunatic. He went into a bar and got loud and annoying to make sure Police would kill him. He wished to escape from life and the world. The police should have used wrist and ankle restraints and put him in jail. From there they should have called a psychiatrist. He could have been treated. Basically he was a kind, inelligent man. What the 3 policemen did was wrist and ankle restraints, then pepper spray and he started dying immediately, Before an hour was gone he had died. He had been a very strong healthy man. Police should not be allowed to use shock tasers under any circumstances.

Answer 4

There is no such thing as a small stop. Routine stuff goes bad with fatal results in a hurry. It was a "routine stop" that more than one officer has been killed during. Yes, absolutely they should have the right to use whatever means necessary to stay alive. They deal with people with NO respect for life - their own or others. They deal with people who cannot listen to simple things like "sit down" and can react unpredictably. If it's down to someone losing a life or a taser subduing the person at least the person is still alive. And so is the officer. Unless you're a cop and have been there you really have no right to criticize. Not everything shows up on video.

Answer 5

Not on their whims. And let's look at statements like "teach her to be more respectful.". Is this a nursery school, where "teaching" is synonymous with violence? Laws are made to protect people from the government, from unnecessary intrusions and excessive force and violence. The definition of a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested. I think that if people who put these postings up had THEIR teeth bashed in because they were "disrespectful" - and did not have any recourse on restitution - they would be singing a different tune.

And how do we know these officers are the upstanding moral citizens they always portray themselves as? Some of the police I've encountered have not been. Do you REALLY want to give carte-blanch to people to do whatever they want with guns, clubs, tasers, pepper spray, etc to "teach a lesson"?

Answer 6

That video, found on the net, does not state she had a previous battery on a law enforcement officer charge. Tasing her is better that striking her with a baton or using OC (pepper spray.) Tasers have no long term effects unless the suspect is on coke, PCP, or another drug. If that is the case then there is a chance of Sudden Death Syndrome.

Answer 7

yes they should be allowed. in this case she was asked several times to get off the phone and exit the vehicle, she refused and then was warned she would be tased if she didn't cooperate, she made the decision to keep talking on the phone and not exit the vehicle. she deserved what she got. tasers are a less lethal way for officers to gain control of a subject who is not obeying an order.

Answer 8

The use of tasers is currently under review due to about 20 deaths have been related to the use of tasers.

Answer 9

Yes. After watching this video,it was obvious that this woman had no respect for law enforcement. The officer asked her I think it was five times to get out of the car. He asked her to put her phone down and she told him no. What else was he suppose to do? Had he dragged her out then he would have been accused of God knows what. My hat is off to the officers for not only arresting her but getting someone off the road who did not have a license, which also means she was not insured. So had she hit you or one of your family members, there would be no one to pay the bills except you, if in fact you or they lived through the accident. She is nothing more than a smart mouth that uses the race card to cover up her bad behavior. I hope they throw the book at her, and I hope she doesn't have children to teach her bad habits and smart mouth and disrespect of the law to. I hope she has seen this video and realizes that yes the officer did everything he was suppose to do in order to do his job. I hope he got a raise.

Answer 10

Open your eyes. Its not a simple traffic stop. Its a situation where a police officer does not know who he's dealing with, what (if any) weapons she has, or what she's capable of. If she had simply obeyed his requests for 5 minutes she would be back home eating her full fat chocolate bars in front of Days of our lives.
Cops 1 - Dumb A*s citizen 0

Answer 11

She was not tasered for a traffic violation! she was tasered for the officers safety, to control the situation and for her disobeying a lawful order. the officer has no way of knowing if she is a criminal, medically dangerous or just plain stupid. In this case I would guess the latter. . .
I am curious. . .how would you have handled her?