With thanks again to J-dog, who has his finger on the pulse of weaponry of all stripes, comes yet another imaginative use of Tasers. As Joel put it, “the family that gets tazed together stayzed together.” That’s his line, so don’t blame me.
From KTVU News, the tale of the Brentwood, California, police response to a 14 year old shooting victim:
The shooting occurred at about 9:15 p.m. near the 7000 block of Brentwood Blvd., where three teenagers were standing. One received at least one gunshot wound and ran with the two others back to the victim’s neighborhood, according to Sgt. Mark Misquez.
Police later arrived and began assisting the victim. The victim’s family and friends gathered at the scene, and, according to Misquez, interfered in the assisting officers’ work. The officers then ordered the family members to step aside and when they did not comply, police responded by tasing some of the victim’s family, including his father and sister.
“As the brother was getting tased the dad approached asked them to stop tasing his son, then they started tasing the dad at that time there were three cops tasing two people who were already on the floor,” said witness Janine Esquivel.
Darn those parents of a 14 year old shooting victim, who just won’t comply promptly. Don’t they get it? So what if it’s your son or brother who’s lying on the ground in a pool of blood, a mere child, writhing in pain. If the cops say jump, you jump. They have no time for sympathy for the victim’s family, nor understanding, nor tolerance. They are busy being heroes. Nobody interferes with a hero. Not if you know what’s good for you.
Thank God the family wasn’t so appreciative of the cops’ heroic efforts that they hugged them.
What is particularly shocking (can we still use the word “shocking” in relation to Tasers, where nothing is really very shocking anymore?) is how utterly indiscriminate their use has become. It’s not merely a substitute for the old cop stand-by, the nightstick, but for talking, or reasoning, or calming as well. Why repeat yourself when you can Taser somebody in less time.
In this case, we have a distraught family trying to help a young member. There’s no clear indication of how long it took police to arrive (note the language, “Police later arrived,” suggesting that it didn’t happen quickly), and the family was there for the young man. Note further that the compulsion to taser, to subjugate and control, took precedence over victim. Not satisfied with tasing the family members who were caring for the victim because they didn’t “step aside” when told to do so, the cops then engaged in a second round of tasing those who complained about the first round of tasing. And what of the victim while this was happening?
What distinguished this story from most is that the family, while not sufficiently complaint with the cops, were not implicated in any independent wrong-doing, such that the apologists can argue that they deserved a good tasing anyway. That said, however, it doesn’t mean that they got a quick tase and that was the end of it:
The police took several individuals into custody for assaulting and resisting officers, according to Misquez.
But of course! They assaulted police by viciously throwing their bodies into way of the police tasers. When I recently wrote a piece for Judicial Reports about how complaints like this appear before arraigning judges, the editor told me to stop kidding around. He had trouble believing that this was mere hyperbole. If only it was.
As a concession to J-dog, this is not an indictment of the Taser per se, which was a far better choice in this instance than a fully loaded Glock which would likely have caused the deaths of many bystanders (though no one at which is was aimed). It is, however, an indictment of putting a weapon like this into the hands of children, telling them that it’s non-lethal so that they should feel free to use it whenever it’s convenient, and setting them loose on the street.
Maybe we should just be thankful that the shooting victim survived and his parents were killed for being there. This outcome is beginning to look increasingly likely.
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See – here was an incident where the “Claymore Mine” of Tasers, AKA “Shockwave,” could have come in handy. Officers, if properly trained, could have set up a perimeter of Shockwaves around the victim and tended to their duty uninterrupted.
But by the time they set up the shockwave, they could have already tased the whole family, including grandma and grandpa.
Look toward the future. It’s not unlikely we’ll see similar gimmicks that can be set up in a matter of seconds — say, by installing them around the squad on swing-out arms.
Like most technology, there would be a legitimate use for such things; like most technology, it’s a safe bet that there will be widespread inappropriate (to use the gentle term) uses.