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Let's Talk About Tasers
Like Glenn, I write a lot about civil liberties, which have been at the heart of the national conversation since the beginning of the War On Terror and the expansion of the national security state. But my interest in civil liberties predates 9/11 and until then was usually pointed at the far more prosaic issues of police and prosecutorial misconduct (and the inevitable conclusions any study of those things brings to the issue of the death penalty). Nowadays, the theme of civil liberties seem to be a sub-plot to a James Bond flick rather than "To Kill A Mockingbird." And yet, I think the two are intertwined much more closely that we think. In our apparent acceptance of torture as a legal method of interrogation, the bar of civilized official behavior has been lowered to the point where we are accepting torture in everyday life as if it's nothing. Indeed, we are using it as a form of entertainment.
I'm speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. "Don't tase me bro" is a national catch phrase.
Tasers aren't benign however. They kill people. Nobody knows exactly why some people die from being tasered, and they certainly don't know how to tell in advance which ones are at risk. But there have been hundreds of deaths similar to the one below, which nobody can adequately explain:
A Detroit teenager who police say fled a traffic stop Friday died after being subdued with a Taser. He is the second Michigan teen to die following a Taser stun in less than a month. Warren Police say they don't know why the 15-year-old bailed out of a Dodge Stratus he was riding in during the stop on Eight Mile near Schoenherr, leading officers on a half-block chase that ended in an abandoned house on Pelkey in Detroit. The car was stopped for having an expired license plate. In the scuffle, officers shocked the teen one time with a Taser, police said. Shortly after, he became unresponsive and died.
Taser International has successfully defended themselves in lawsuits by attributing the deaths to drug use and if that doesn't work do to the fact that drugs were not present in the victim, they rely on an unrecognized medical condition called "excited delirium", a disease that only afflicts people who die in police custody. Juries apparently find this convincing. Taser has only lost one case.
But that isn't the real problem, although it may eventually be the path by which tasers are banned for use in civilized countries. As awful as the possibility of death is, tasers would be a blight on any free people even if they weren't so often deadly. Tasers were sold to the public as a tool for law enforcement to be used in lieu of deadly force. Presumably, this means situations in which officers would have previously had to use their firearms. It's hard to argue with that, and I can't think of a single civil libertarian who would say that this would be a truly civilized advance in policing. Nobody wants to see more death and if police have a weapon they can employ instead of a gun, in self defense or to stop someone from hurting others, I think we all can agree that's a good thing.
But that's not what's happening. Tasers are routinely used by police to torture innocent people who have not broken any law and whose only crime is being disrespectful toward their authority or failing to understand their "orders." There is ample evidence that police often take no more than 30 seconds to talk to citizens before employing the taser, they use them while people are already handcuffed and thus present no danger, and are used often against the mentally ill and handicapped. It is becoming a barbaric tool of authoritarian, social control.
Last week there were three taser episodes that made the rounds on the internet. (There may have been more, but these were the three most discussed.) The first was of a drunken, belligerent man at a baseball game who after 41 seconds of discussion was tasered while sitting in his seat. Indeed, the video shows that the taser threw him down onto the cement steps where he rolled down several. Since this scene must have happened literally thousands of times over the years, you have to wonder what they must have done in the past. Somehow I doubt they pulled out a gun and shot them.
The second incident was this sad tale of a man who allegedly refused to come out of a store restroom. Police blew pepper spray under the door, kicked it open and instantly tasered the man. It was only afterward that they discovered he was deaf. Police tried to book the man anyway, but the magistrate refused to accept the charges.
It was the third incident, however, that should get civil libertarians' serious attention. It featured an Idaho man on a bicycle who happened to ride past a police stop in progress on the side of the road. He had nothing to do with the stop, but was pulled over by the police and told to produce his ID. He said, correctly, that he had no legal obligation to produce ID and the police insisted he must. The situation escalated and he demanded that they call a supervisor to the scene when the police said they were going to arrest him. He ended up being tasered seven times -- you can hear him moaning in pain on the tape at the end. (In an especially creepy moment, the police try to confiscate the tape of the incident.)
Now, many people will say that he should have just showed his ID, that it's stupid to confront police, that like Henry Louis Gates you get what you deserve if you mouth off to the cops. And on a pragmatic level this is certainly true (although I would reiterate what I wrote here about a free people not being required to view the police in the same way they view a criminal street gang, which is to say in fear.) But the fact remains that there is no law against riding a bicycle without ID, and there is no law against mouthing off to the police. Certainly, there can be no rationale behind using a weapon designed to replace deadly force seven times against someone under these circumstances.
These are just three incidents that happened last week. There's nothing special about them. They happen every day. Even this horrific scene, which is so shockingly authoritarian (excuse the pun) that it makes you feel sick, is not unusual:
A former Southern Virginia University and Brigham Young University adjunct professor of political philosophy and jurisprudence, Dr. Lowery entered the Utah Third District courtroom alone on November 22, 2004, to make oral argument before Judge Anthony Quinn. Two Salt Lake County Deputy Sheriffs sat at the back of the courtroom, one on each side of the door. Other deputies were in the foyer of the courtroom. No members of the public were present.
Dr. Lowery suffered from major depression, bipolar disorder, paranoia disorder, delusional disorder, and psychotic disorder. Judge Quinn granted one of Dr. Lowery's motions made under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II, which allowed for reasonable modifications of court rules, policies, or practices in order to accommodate Dr. Lowery's multiple mental disabilities.
Near the end of his oral argument, the traumatic content of the argument moved Dr. Lowery into moderate mania, and he characterized a previous crabbed ruling by Quinn as "bullshit."
Impatient for the speech to end, Judge Quinn took that as an opportunity to order the bailiffs to take the professor into custody and cool him off.
The plaintiff's state of agitation was caused by his mental disabilities. The deputy sheriffs' approach only caused the situation to escalate. As five or more Salt Lake County deputy sheriffs/bailiffs seized Lowery from behind, he shouted, "I am cooled off; I deserve to be heard. I deserve to be heard, your Honor, and you are violating my access to due process at this very moment. I am not violent and --"
Judge Quinn interrupted him with ordering the bailiffs to take Dr. Lowery to a holding cell. A split second later -- unclear whether following the judge's orders or acting on his own accord, a bailiff sent 50,000 volts of incapacitating electricity into the lower back of the unsuspecting professor. As the courtroom video shows, nothing in Dr. Lowery's behavior suggests that the bailiffs had any reasonable motive to believe they or the judge were in physical danger.
Yet the taser gun fired more than once.
The repeated electric shocks blew Dr. Lowery over the podium, and he landed face down on the floor, with two bailiffs on his back. The electric blasts caused Dr. Lowery's bowels to empty twice. He screamed, "Help me!" while he complied with a bailiff's order to stay on his belly, neither capable nor willing to offer resistance. Then, suddenly, he went unconscious.
Remembering they were still on camera, the bailiffs shouted at Dr. Lowery to not resist again (though his resistance was only instinctive) and threatened him with more electrocution. When they realized that he could no longer hear them, they dragged the man across the floor, put him in a chair, and massaged his heart. One bailiff called for paramedics. [...]
Since no one but the victim and the abusers were in the courtroom, this crime remained unknown to the public until recently.
(Read on if you can stomach it.)
Here's the Youtube of the event. You can see for yourself if there was justification for the reaction of the judge or the police.
Representatives of the government torture innocent citizens into unconsciousness, on camera, in United States courtrooms with tasers. They use them on prisoners and on motorists and on political protesters and bicycle riders, on mentally ill and handicapped people and on children And it's happening with nary a peep of protest.
America's torture problem is much bigger than Gitmo or the CIA or the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The government is torturing people every day and killing some of them. Then videos of the torture wind up on Youtube where sadists laugh and jeer at the victims. It's the sign of profound cultural illness.
- Posted in
50 Comments so far
Show AllApologists for the Police using tasers continue to claim it "better then the Alternative of shooting the suspect"
Yet studies show that the number of people SHOT by the police has not increased OR decreased when making Arrests since the introduction of the taser.
The number of people tasered however has jumped into the thousands per year in the Canadian Cities where these numbers were analyzed.
In other words it is being used as an enforcement/compliance tool rather then one to protect lives.
Tasering people for not following Police orders is more common then even this article suggests. People have been tasered for refusing to sign traffic tickets.
There a substantive review ongoing in regards to the use of tasers amongst our own RCMP. Let us hope something comes of it.
Two can play this game. Anybody out there know what a coil does for the ignition system in an automobile? If not, just touch the wire plugged into the top of one sometime when the engine is running.
Anyway, it would seem that since Tasers fire probes attached by wires to the Taser gun itself, there must be a way to make a vest (similar to a kevlar bullet proof vest) that could utilize a couple of small 9 volt batteries attached to a coil, which would amplify the voltage from the 9v batteries several thousand times, say to 90,000 volts (this is the same principle behind Tasers themselves.) Thus, when the person is tased with say 50,000 volts, rather than the voltage incapacitating the person intended to be shocked, the voltage from the vest would follow the wires from the taser back and both shock the living shit out of the pig who fired the taser to begin with and neutralize the taser gun itself. If such a vest could be designed to be relatively inexpensive (which theoretically it should be) the pigs might think twice before tasing someone who happens to challange their pseudoauthority and lesser than average intelligence. (anyone ever know the immediate relatives of a police officer? They have tails!)
Sadist America!
why people die from tasers is simple enough -
the taser shocks by a bolt of high voltage electricity. our nervous and cardiac system also work with passage of electric impulses.it is not hard to imagine the heart stopping with this large electric jolt.(25000- 50000 volts?) after all, during resuscitation, only 300 joules of energy are use to shock the heart.
and since the effect is functional only - on disruption of the natural electric impulses, an autopsy will not show any abnormalities - which is why " no one knows why some people die".
obviously, different cardiac systems have different resilience, different preexisting conditions, different body sizes (chest wall thickness/ lung size) - so only a few die. that does not mean a this technique should be viewed as benign.
I'm from Philadelphia, PA, the "City of Brotherly Love". In 1985, as I expect readers here know, the city government, including police and fire authorities, opted to resolve a violent standoff between police and a dissenting group called MOVE by dropping a satchel of C4 explosive-- a bomb-- on the roof of MOVE's "fortified compound".
The "fortified compound" was in reality a row home, and when the bomb set it ablaze, the entire neighborhood went up in smoke. You could look it up.
Come to think of it Mayor Wilson Goode may have been the Father of "Moving Forward". Only MOVE was held responsible for alleged criminal conduct during the police siege.
Philly is also a city that happily maintains a policy of summary execution for the mentally ill who violently act out, or fugitive suspects who allegedly "reach for their waistbands" while fleeing police.
The latter is a more controversial circumstance, but the former is simply commonplace: persons who are clearly deranged and out of control, even when identified as such by desperate relatives asking the police for help, are typically shot to death for refusing to cooperate with police-- or allegedly endangering the cop's safety by "grabbing for the cop's gun" or somesuch.
The moribund "Daily News" letters page is afterwards flooded by reactionary troglodyte proles praising the boys 'n girls in blue and belligerently blowing off critics.
So far, AFAIK there haven't been any incidents of TASER abuse-- maybe the Philly PD is content with the success of their lethal force policies and practices.
This tangent was offered as a reminder of the context, or culture, in which TASERS have flourished-- and which makes them harder to eliminate than kudzu.
As others have noted, TASERS were originally marketed as a more civilized non-lethal alternative to the traditional methods described above.
I have a friend who is a civilian employee of the NYPD. I still remember a conversation we had years ago, when I was on my soapbox ranting about the latest street execution. He agreed with my criticism, but told me about a new gizmo in the pipeline that could effectively "freeze" targets in their tracks temporarily, and without lasting harm.
What he described turned out to be, of course, the TASER. My friend now ruefully recalls how optimistic he'd been that this non-lethal "tool" would work as advertised-- and be used sparingly.
But now it's become a "necessary" tool for the street law enforcer. Homeland Security legislation, in the course of building a more perfect police state, subsidizes the proliferation of high-tech equipment to the lowliest sheriff's station in the Homeland.
One hopes that the increasing publicity of TASER abuse would result in a general public outcry repudiating these barbaric weapons. But in the backwash of government by amoral pragmatists, collective moral outrage doesn't exist-- or has been too dampened to kindle.
As digby notes, the recent encounter between Gates and the police reveals an entrenched "Good German" compulsion for obsequious deference to authority spanning the political spectrum. Even some on the left have legitimized such meekness as-- you guessed it, "pragmatic" civil common-sense.
And, as with the summarily executed, the authorities always have some rationalization to justify the use of force, or explain away the lethal effect of the TASER abuse by blaming it on the victim's medical condition, contributing factors, etc.
Conversely, when the circumstances clearly show abuse, the strategy is to satisfy the credulous by blaming TASER abuse on "a few bad apples", as they've done in so many other government and military atrocities.
I don't think that product safety laws permit TASERS to be massively recalled for being "unsafe at any speed"-- and besides, defenders would assert Second Amendment rights. If TASERs are outlawed, only outlaws will have TASERs!
That leaves us with civil litigation, I guess. Perhaps a few wrongful death lawsuits will pull the plug on TASERs.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Gates was lucky that the incident occurred during the day, and not at night.
If it occurred at night, he would be dead, from a "tragic accidental" tasering.
And yes, you are correct. The problem isn't that police misuse tasers. The problem isn't that police engage in brutality. Police have always engaged in brutality whenever they could / can get away with it.
The problem is that society on a whole accepts it. As long as that police brutality is used for them, too many people have no problems with it.
Just like they accept torture, just like they accept detention without trial.
Whenever cases of police brutality are reported, too many people instinctively leap to the defense of the police. Too many people accept the assertion that the job is very dangerous and that police have to defend themselves.
I'm also from Philadelphia.
This is from my blog post today (note that 1210 AM carries, aside from baseball, Limbuagh etc. plus our local fascist broadcasters):
"Attempting to check in to a Phillies game that is actually scheduled for tomorrow night, I had the misfortune to hear some of Dom Giordano's show on Philadelphia's fascist radio station 1210 AM "The Big Talker." I had forgotten what an idiot that man is.
Ol' Dom has a boner for Lynne Abraham, the Philadelphia District Attorney who appears to be unfamilar with the Bill of Rights. She was a guest on the show, taking the Philadelphia Inquirer to task for an unusually strong editorial in which they correctly pointed out that the recent grand jury "investigation" which found Philadelphia Police not to have broken the law in beating suspects -on camera -while already subdued was the type of citizen attitude you'd expect in Nazi Germany.
Ms. Abraham, and I shit you not here, argued that the beatings were fine and dandy because videotape of the entire goddamn thing tells "only part of the narrative." We don't have, she explained, for example, *sound* of the beatings, which you know that Giordano would likely want, if for no other reason than to play in the background while he jerks off to the lingerie catalog in which he taped Frank Rizzo faces on the models.
More astounding is her claim that what didn't make the beatings criminal was that the suspects needed less than an hour of hospital treatment each. Apparently if the ER docs can patch you up in 59 minutes or less, it's not a crime in Philadelphia to fuck someone up. So says the DA.
I will keep this in mind should I be threatened in any way by Ms. Abraham in the course of doing my work. In case you find yourself in a situation in which Ms. Abraham appears to be threatening you, I suggest the following methods of subduing her while making a citizen's arrest:
- Have you considered the "pimp slap"? You want to go open hand here; she's an old lady and a fist would likely break bones or knock out teeth, and even with a DA's health plan that's no 59 minute patch job. We want bruising and not breaking here, which is, like, some ice and a $46 ibuprofen at any ER. How long could that take?
- She's a small woman and easy to wrestle to the floor. Once trussed, consider some cigarette burns on her back. The skin is thick there and infection is less likely, as are complications. Any competent hospital can git 'er done on a cigarette burn in well under an hour.
- "Sweep the leg, Johnny!"
- Whipping the soles of the feet was an old Spanish Inquistion torture method called bastinado. You know that this would be added torture for her as the damn thing is named in Spanish. That's again some ice and a $46 ibuprofen. Let's roll!
- One word: tazer.
Have you ever been so proud to be a Philadelphian?"
Also, the police fired something like 9,000 rounds of ammunition into the burning building, and tossed a concussion grenade into the house from a hole drilled in the one next to it.
This was probably retaliation for the '79 (I believe) shootout with MOVE in which one cop was killed.
Servant,
Thanks. Excellent comment.
Even some baord members in my local "peace and justice center", in a certain Pennsylvania city, have taken this "obsequious deference to authority" regarding the police. All it took was an incident where NRA-crazed right-wing kook killed four policemen. One of the policemen lived on my street and is suspected to have spied on me and my brothers's peace-flag flying homes in recent years when this same "peace and justice center" was still organizing large protests.
All I want to see is a single Powelton Avenue or Osage Avenue resident saying that MOVE were not asshole neighbors.
So you want to prove a negative...?
Time to revisit logic 101...!
By ALL accounts that I have read...
The Africa family were loved and respected by their neighbors...
They provided FREE childcare, FREE food they grew themselves...
And were actually making the neighborhood safer with their community organizing...
This posed a threat to the existing power structure... Who didn't appreciate how they were a living example of how we don't need fascist banks, racist police, corporate food, or costly daycare...
THAT is why they were firebombed, killing women and children, and the surviving adults were arrested...
To make them out as an example to everyone else... Don't mess with the existing power structure...!!!
Either you are an ignorant jerk... Or a paid troll...
Either way... Your question exposes you as someone who lacks compassion or humanity...
Why assume the cops were right...?
And even if the MOVE movement were a bunch of jerks... Which they weren't...
Does that justify burning down an entire block of neighbors in order to "smoke 'em out"...?
Believe me... The neighbors definitely didn't side with the cops after their own homes were allowed to burn to the ground...
"So you want to prove a negative...?"
Nice catch dude.
"The Africa family were loved and respected by their neighbors..."
Total BS. I would like for you to show just one example of what you claim. I followed the stories carefully, living a few miles away, at both addresses. They let their trash pile up in the yard, and they broadcast loud political diatribes that could be heard for blocks at all hours. For this they were not "loved and respected " by anyone that I ever heard. As things came to a head there were many stories including frustrated neighbors at their wits end lamenting these horrible people and their antisocial behaviour. MOVE sucked big time.
How very "libertarian" of you.
Since when was being an asshole neighbour illegal? Since when was being an asshole neighbour justification to having an explosive device dropped by the police on one's property?
Where is the concern for individual liberty and individual property?
Allowing trash and feces, both human and animal to pile up in the yard is illegal. Broadcasting tirades that include obscenities over a PA at all hours is illegal.
You would have to check with an actual Libertarian, but I am sure they would agree that one's right to move one's fist through the air stops where another's face happens to be. Wise up.
You ain't seen NOTHIN' yet...
----------------------------
Microwave weapon will rain pain from the sky
July 2009
THE Pentagon's enthusiasm for non-lethal crowd-control weapons appears to have stepped up a gear with its decision to develop a microwave pain-infliction system that can be fired from an aircraft.
The device is an extension of its controversial Active Denial System, which uses microwaves to heat the surface of the skin, creating a painful sensation without burning that strongly motivates the target to flee. The ADS was unveiled in 2001, but it has not been deployed owing to legal issues and safety fears.
(...snip...)
The transmitting antenna on the current system is 2 metres across, produces a single beam of similar width and is steered mechanically, making it cumbersome. At the heart of the new weapon will be a compact airborne antenna, which will be steered electronically and be capable of generating multiple beams, each of which can be aimed while on the move.
The ADS has been dogged by controversy. Jürgen Altmann, a physicist at Dortmund University in Germany, showed that the microwave beams can cause serious burns at levels not far above those required to repel people. This was verified when a US airman was hospitalised with second-degree burns during testing in April 2007.
Full article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327185.600
-microwave-weapon-will-rain-pain-from-the-sky.html
Cygnus,
You stole my thunder.
And just when did crowd control become the mission of the Pentagon anyway? I guess this is just kinder, gentler, version of Napalm or a more usable form of Willie Peat.
And ya'gotta know that the second generation version of this weapon will have a higher setting that...
And just when did crowd control become the mission of the Pentagon anyway?
---------------------
They're thinking at least three steps ahead...
...They know they're going to need it.
Crowd control has been the primary mission of the Pentagon since inception.
Recall how many wars have been fought between the US and other colonial powers, and how many have been fought by the US against its economic colonies for "American interests abroad."
The latter is always population control at one level or another, and control of members of the population as they gather is one aspect of that: crowd control.
And if you use another bandwidth of the electro-magnetic spectrum...
You can turn glass, steel, and concrete into dust...
And mounted it on an orbitally fixed satellite platform, and increase the amps...
And coincide the timing with a controlled demolition using nano-thermite...
You can dissolve most of the material of two skyscrapers within minutes...
Hmmm. Very interesting.
And what bandwidth would that be?
My guess is in the gamma ray range. X-ray, UV, visible and IR are all more energetic than radar, but they don't seem to do that.
I have been wondering about all the oddly destroyed vehicles 9 blocks from ground zero while tons of paper are not even singed. Maybe that is it.
Exactly...
There has been extensive research done by various engineers and scientists making a correlation between HAARP technology developed by the DOD and military contractors... And the false-flag event of 9-11...
There were also dozens of cars and trucks with their engine blocks and frames dissolved into rust near the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota as well...
This technology has been around since Tesla invented it... And it has been weaponized since the sixties...
With advances in the technology during the seventies and eighties in Alaska under the HAARP program...
In the videos of the twin towers collapsing, there are a few steel & concrete side columns that still jutted up a dozen stories immediately after the controlled demolitions... That literally dissolved into dust and drifted away...
There are a lot of "plants" who pretend to be part of the 9-11 truth movement that intentionally muddy the waters with a variety of contradictory claims... with the intent of discrediting those genuinely seeking the truth of the 9-11 psy-ops event in the eyes of those who haven't done their own research... Just as there are "scientists" who debunk the outrageous claims of the fake-truthers... While largely ignoring the various logical gaps and omissions in the 9-11 commission report...
As Edward Abbey once said: "There is no situation so bad that the cops can't make it worse." A taser is a lethal weapon that our sadists in blue are allowed to use with impunity. It is nothing more than a remote-control cattle prod, and we know where the cops, like Bull Conner, liked to use those.
Stay in the United States and fight for what? Sorry, this country's too far gone.
An excellent article.
This country's moral compass is spinning wildly.
I'm probably going to be perceived as the bad guy for this but in this situation; which is getting worse; I would like to see some payback, like an eye for eye or quid pro quo..
This from another article.. Chris Hedges:"Nader Was Right"..
"We must become as militant as those who are seeking our enslavement."
We may be coming to this.. I'm just sayin'..
There are obviously good cops and bad cops which makes the decision to hit back extremely difficult.
I would appreciate some accountability and justice served up. On some police cars you see the words "to protect and serve" and I would like to see some more of that but at this point kind of seems cliche.
Police action can be exacerbated by stupid cops who lack good judgment and the jack booted para-military psycho cops who employ the most over the top responses that result in injury and death and often of innocent people. There have too many stories about cops showing up at the wrong address, shooting the wrong person or their dog as they try to defend their rights and property.
This has evolved into what was supposed to be employing a more passive approach with tasers but that has also gone horribly wrong.
Most of our leaders in government are corrupted and the legal system is broken. What kind of jurisprudence is employed when someone serves 10 years for dope and another gets off after 3-4 years for armed assault or rape?
Anyway it would just seem more palatable if we could see some taser victims get some tit for tat...
Anyone who is foolish enough to try to fight back with physical violence when tasered is going to die, with the kinds of weapons that the police have at their disposals nowadays. "Accidentally".
I suggest that instead, everyone should carry the means to make video recordings, via handphones, dedicated cameras etc, at all times. See an incidence of police brutality, record it. See an incidence of police breaking the law, record it.
Only when society ceases to accept police brutality will police brutality stop. Recording such instances, and then posting them so that the whole world sees such instances might get society to stop accepting police brutality.
Revenge is a dish best served cold...
Why can't law enforcement come up with tranquilizer darts instead of sadistic tasers?
Because the out of-shape cop would then have to carry the victim to the paddy wagon.
This is specifically why tazers are used againt nonviolent sit-in proteststers. Dragging the passive protestor is a lot of work. But by using the tazer, they can be forced to walk themselves to the paddy wagon. Also, in conjunction with the lack of media attention to such incidents, an appropriate lesson in the futility of nonviolent dissent can be taught.
Darts would be worse. A lot worse.
You pick your poison, I'll pick mine. Frankly I would rather be shot up with demerol than being electrocuted.
Except with darts it would need to be strong enough to incapacitate a person in a fraction of a second. Know any toxin that could do that that could also be delivered in an accurate dose to all persons of all sizes at the drop of a hat?
An effective dart would kill many more than tazers.
The people are cattle, and the tazer is the cattle prod of people ranchers.
I'd still rather get tasered than shot though.
Comment withdrawn.
And I'd rather be run over by a motorcycle than a bus.
So there's that.
· Yr Obd't Servant
"And I'd rather be run over by a motorcycle than a bus."
More like a bicycle than a motorcycle.
Excellent article.
It is indeed very rare that the Tazer has been used as weapon of ligitimate self-defense against an genuine threat or still many non-threats if the victim is black. They still use their guns for that. Instead, most tazer incidents are simply a labor saving device for out-of-shape cops, and a major escalation of police authoritarianism.
Anyone find it odd that there hasn't been a single tazering of any of the disruptive right wing thugs in those "town hall meetings" yet? This is, of course a rhetorical question - anyone who has had to face a cop at a antiwar or ant-racism demonstration knows the answer.
Sioux Rose
PJD: Interesting observation. Right wing authoritarians apparently stick up for each other. The "code of blue" extends to them.
This shit has really got to stop. When does Barack have a beer summit about this outrageous abuse of police power? Surely an electric conversation. Send these video clip links to everyone you know. Let them see how our brothers are being (and sisters) treated. I remember drunk guys like that at ballgames... so what. Obnoxious? Yeah. But, poor guy... and the OLD man was SITTING down. I guess they didn't like him thumbing his nose at them. 2nd amendment RIP.
There's a commercial, marketing, and privitization aspect to this, too. It's getting to the point of desperate insanity fueled by sales reps, trade shows, glitter, and "cutting edge". "Professionals" don't want to think about what the society is and where it is going, so they hunker down into their little niches and take the easy way out and don't think much at all. Worried about real, messy death? Use drones. Too much trouble to count the votes? Let a vote counting corporation do it for you. (Have we got a deal for you.) Too much trouble to consider the facts of each case and the civil liberties of citizens? Taser 'em. (Take a look at this baby.) Crowd control? Yeah, from the air. (Crowds are elemental. They don't belong in the corporate cocoon.)
I'm sure others can give more examples because it permeates the entire sector that used to be considered "public". The loss of true public professionals (when you find one it's like finding gold these days) is a very significant indicator, IMO, of a general acceptance of an element leading to fascism and, as such, is very troubling.
Right, there's an essential and elemental detachment of the body politic from the authorities that originally emerged from that body. Is it our own projections of fear and loss of control? Whatever the root we need to claim our real power back and transform these "outer representations" of it. Something's gotta give. It's like we see it but can't name the monster. Obama needs to show real and true brilliance on such issues as these and we "hoped" he would--this is exactly what I thought someone like him--who promised so much--would address. Alas I think he hasn't got that illumination; or perhaps the will to transform.
Sioux Rose
As per Digby stating that "America's torture problem is much bigger than Gitmo," I'd like to speak to that point.
Rape is a very typical occurrence in American prisons, and I'm speaking both of male on male rape, and male guards raping female prisoners. In my mind, that qualifies as torture; and with 2.2 million incarcerated, the numbers are not quaint.
The # 1 reason women go to the emergency room stems from abuse from male partners, husbands or boyfriends. That constitutes, shall we say, torture-lite.
I would add that the intense scenes of knife wounds, gun shot wounds, and physical force that's become something virtually idolized on screen (in movies), plays a role in the covert desensitization of this nation's population. Our nation's Spirit has been denuded, along with its pocketbook. All this is the karmic net effect of policies that empower the armed forces, while denying a great many forms of care and those activities that grow a nation and its citizens in healthy life-affirming ways.
And the proliferation of a form of porn that turns the female body into a garbage disposal unit USED by MANY males in acts that are about defiling and denigrating, also play into a mindset of abuse, frequently aided and assisted by violence.
This is a SICK society and getting sicker due to these (as well as other) cultural factors. Even the food that's eaten barely qualifies as food. The absence of healthy NURTURE and NOURISHMENT definitely factor into a collective mental state that is unhinged from the remotest form of balance.
I feel like Francis of Assissi living with animals and plants to be around peace and kindness. Yes, it still exists in many thank the Goddess, but it's becoming more rare. The economics that have so many living in fear, and well-armed to boot, are like throwing matches at an already dry, dry socio-economic terrain.
Well said as usual Madam. Ironic too, that the form we're taking this issue in is the Visual--through camera, video clip. Maybe that's why we're not outraged enough to really demand this STOP-- we're too desensitized from so much on-screen violence we've taken in through our lives. Sure, that's part of the script, such infusion of "pretend" violence, as if since it's not real it's okay to witness and that it won't really affect the inner life.
Those cops at the ballpark look like machines. Not men. Something is missing from them.
The female part of all of us and in all things needs to be reclaimed, respected, and allowed to be creative. We can't punish the Earth and expect to regard women--and the feminine within men--to be acknowledged and cared for.
Excellent posts... SR & Watcher...!!!
The same goes with Sports... Like cage fighting & Ultimate fighting...
Folks pay $$$ for this shit...! In person and PayPerView...!
Once one has "under"come their innate aversion to violence...
Then they are no longer "desensitized" to it... They get off on it..!
Then there are the "fake" violence and torture being re-enacted on shows like "24" and numerous video games...
These also contribute to the blurring of reality & fantasy... And allows a certain "normalcy" to violence & torture....
So now when people are polled (if you believe in the accuracy of polling)...
Half of Americans actually "support" the use of torture by our own government...!
Mainstream America is being brainwashed to accept torture and violence as a normal part of life...
And most people accept it as "entertainment"... How sad...
The sudden shock of a Taser obviously kills struggling young males. I think this often happens to any struggling young animal. Zoo trappers always check the heart rates of just captured specimens and let them go if it's too rapid or they will die. Of course wild animals are treated much better than an American citizen. As for rape,,,geldings don't have that problem,,,make more.
I am glad this article is in CommonDreams today. My own mother was wrongfully arrested this past weekend after informing the police that this is America, she has rights, and they had no right to arrest her if she was not breaking the law. She is very angry about what happened to her. I would like to suggest an organization for her to join. Any suggestions? I'm just thankful they didn't tase her!
Fascists Without Borders...?
But seriously... How about the ACLU or GreyPanthers...?
Seems not many people agree with the use of torture on Americans. How about the fact that the military are arming, and training the "civilian" police force. The police now use the same weapons that are used for killing enemy combatants, on American civilians,to enforce the "law". Tasers,dogs,gas,assault weapons,"immunity laws",prison overcrowding, corrupt government, FEMA camps, the boarder war, the "patriot act,1 and 2,HR1955,government control over the banks, the auto industry, health care,chipping,chipping with GPS,chipping with cyanide ampules (German patent).
Next stop........... The Twilight Zone.................
If a country trains hundreds of thousands of men, year after year, to use deadly force and at the same time desensitizes them to the killing of other people what will the results be? If over a million of those trained killers (vets) are arrested each year and as a result receive no treatment what will the results be? If the number of murders in Chicago in 2008 was greater than the number of US soldier deaths in Iraq what will the results be? If the number of violent crimes in a country are over 7 million a year what will the results be? If more than two thirds of all households in a country have guns what will the results be? If there are more guns than people in a country what will the result be? If your constitution does not contain any provision for equality between men and women what will the results be? Etc. etc. USA #1!!