Over at Turley’s place, where he took some time off from pumping for the vote for the ABA’s cutest lawprof blawger, there was yet another story of a child tased.
I thought and thought. It’s not easy, you know, to come up with something truly effective to protect those who protect us. And don’t they deserve that extra effort?
And then it dawned on me. Crazy at first, but the more I thought about it, the more effective yet safe it seemed. I know, your first thought is how will they ever manage to fit a new weapon on their Sam Brown belt, all the room being taken up by the Glock, the Taser, the pepper spray, the mace, the two extra quick-draw magazines and the Dunkin’ Donuts buy 10 get 1 free card (needed in case they come across some kid who doesn’t respect their authoritah). That’s the beauty of my new weapon. It won’t take up any room at all.
So you ready? Here it is. Patience.
Just wait a few minutes. Heck, maybe even a half hour. But eventually the kid will get tired or bored and want to get back to the TV to watch the new Spongebob Squarepants, and put down the stick. And I guarantee that the cops will be safe, as there is no threat at all that the children will use this weapon against them. Everyone knows that kids have no patience.
The only risk to the police is suffering the burden of overtime. After all, if they can’t end the stand-off immediately, there’s a good chance that they will have to remain on the job for an extended period of time. In a worst-case scenario, it could be an hour. But don’t fear. They will make fresh donuts again for you. After all, you’ll be a hero. And a child won’t be harmed.
Now, police in Pueblo, Colorado have tasered a 10-year-old boy who threw a stick at an officer and was holding a pipe. Captain Jeff Teschner defended his deputies by saying that the use of pepper spray would have put the officers in danger with an unruly ten-year-old boy.Thinking about the risk inherent in police subduing these vicious, violent stick-wielding children, where their pepper spray could cause them to suffer the horrible fate of teary eyes and momentary blindness, I strained to come up with something new, novel and safe for our protectors from the young. After all, what could be more important when confronting a child-predator than making sure our boys in blue made it home safely for dinner?
Teschner insisted that “They couldn’t get close enough to deploy pepper spray without putting themselves in danger.”
I thought and thought. It’s not easy, you know, to come up with something truly effective to protect those who protect us. And don’t they deserve that extra effort?
And then it dawned on me. Crazy at first, but the more I thought about it, the more effective yet safe it seemed. I know, your first thought is how will they ever manage to fit a new weapon on their Sam Brown belt, all the room being taken up by the Glock, the Taser, the pepper spray, the mace, the two extra quick-draw magazines and the Dunkin’ Donuts buy 10 get 1 free card (needed in case they come across some kid who doesn’t respect their authoritah). That’s the beauty of my new weapon. It won’t take up any room at all.
So you ready? Here it is. Patience.
Just wait a few minutes. Heck, maybe even a half hour. But eventually the kid will get tired or bored and want to get back to the TV to watch the new Spongebob Squarepants, and put down the stick. And I guarantee that the cops will be safe, as there is no threat at all that the children will use this weapon against them. Everyone knows that kids have no patience.
The only risk to the police is suffering the burden of overtime. After all, if they can’t end the stand-off immediately, there’s a good chance that they will have to remain on the job for an extended period of time. In a worst-case scenario, it could be an hour. But don’t fear. They will make fresh donuts again for you. After all, you’ll be a hero. And a child won’t be harmed.
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I so agree Scott. But then the officer doesn’t get to use his mean nasty toy and show the child how powerful he is, instilling in him a fear of police (and/or hatred) likely to last forever. That’s always so much more satisfying than actually acting like an adult dealing with an upset kid.
That’s why we let them have donuts, to make bring them back to their happy place.
What are the rules for use of taser in US? Here in Czech Republic they can use it only in situation, which would justify use of weapon. And in case of children/elderly/pregnant this might be only in case they present imminent threat to life. Abuse of gun (or taser) would mean career ending consequences. I know, the european mentality is different when it comes to guns, but still, tasing 10 year old?
Short answer, no, there are no rules here. Each police department makes up their own, and you can see the results.
And would a national policy/law on the subject make things better, or give the devotees of zapping as a first option more cover?
Whether national or, more likely state, law, it should at least provide a baseline for determining when it’s a “righteous shoot.” As it is now, we get the perpetual reaction, “the use of a Taser acceptable under departmental policy.” Ever notice that nobody ever tells us what their policy is? What’s the policy? Taser at will? It certainly seems that way.
My view: Taser is force and should be subject to the use of force rules that are similar to that which apply to discharging a firearm, except reduced from lethal to less than lethal, but equivalent.
The United States is long past due on a set of national standards for use of force. In Phoenix, police use Tasers routinely for apprehending any suspect that seems uppity. In nearby Scottsdale, an officer is required to have lethal cover, which means a second officer must be present before Taser is deployed.
When I was a LEO in a large east coast department, we were required to have authorization from a supervisor to escalate less-than-lethal options past the baton. An officer could shoot a subject who was threatening, but could not use a Taser without lethal cover AND a supervisor on scene.
In the case of the ten-year old, a show of force may have worked as well. The technique is a called a “Four-Cell Move” which requires each officer to grab an extremity and pull it to the ground, using the officer’s full body weight. There are few able-bodied men who can resist this technique. The ten-year old has not been born that could resist so violently as to endanger officer safety.
Pure and simple, over-use of the Taser is just lazy policing.
Agree completely that Taser has become the first resort for quick and dirty policing. But why must cops use any force on a child when there is no actual threat of harm? What’s wrong with ending a situation without anyone getting hurt, even if it means having a little patience?
When they do tell you, the answer at least often sucks. Like, say, this one which was, I believe, mostly adopted; it looks awfully brain-dead to me, albeit with some good stuff (like, for example, the recommendation that the Taser be away from the gun, so as to avoid a Rochester-style Bang-When-It-Was-Supposed-to-Be-A-Zap).
And this came from Minneapolis’ Civilian Review Board, which is supposed to be a watchdog — albeit a toothless one, with weak kidneys, and a need to be let out all too often, apparently — on Bad Cop Stuff.
That said, it seems to me that the analog to the taser isn’t as much the gun (nor, as our CRA would have it, as something like a closed fist strike), but the club/baton, which is part of what keeps my blood at a boil over this stuff, as I find it hard to believe that this incident, and others like it, would have been so blithely dismissed if the story had been about how the cop had “applied the issue baton to” (trans: clubbed) the kid, rather than tased him.
Or maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that one.
“What’s wrong with ending a situation without anyone getting hurt,…”
Two words: Officer Safety.
Can be used with impunity for covering up most any degree of incompetence and almost all mistakes, even deadly ones.
Elevating officer safety to sacrosanct status is one of the major PR success stories of recent times. Perpetrated by the PDs and the unions.
“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
I may have misquoted Sun Tzu, but his is pretty close.
When I worked as a police officer some years ago, we used what was called”common scene”. I can not begin to keep up with these taser incidents, I have tried but its overwhelming. Yes a Federal law would be a good idea,since obviously the police can not police themselves.
P.S. Liked the video.