I've seen a few tasering videos recently, and there is a common thread on many of them.
Typically, even while the person (victim, possible criminal, or whatever) is being tasered, the police officer(s) are very excited; almost delirious. It gives the impression of them being extremely unprofessional.
The officers often continue to yell commands, even as the person being tasered squirms on the ground. I doubt that the person being tasered can even hear them. And even if they can, they're not exactly in a position to obey. This constant yelling-while-tasering accomplishes nothing except perhaps to build frustration on both sides.
The taserer is thinking to himself, "Why isn't he obeying me? I'm tasering him and he still won't obey. What an asshole."
The taseree is probably thinking, "How the hell do I put my arms behind my head when he's tasering me? What an asshole."
So the yelling probably leads to more aggression on both sides, and thus to multiple taserings (far too common), and thus increased risk.
So, if you're tasering someone, then why not stop all the foolish yelling?
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4 comments:
The yelling is not as haphazard as it may seem. Police are trained to continually shout verbal commands, as a way of asserting control of the situation. In practice, that means shouting commands (that can't be obeyed) provides justification for charges of resisting, and protects the police from accusations of excessive force. This has become even more important with the ubiquity of video. When a jury is presented with a low-resolution video, where the police are positioned to obscure the person they are applying force to, their main impression is of police shouting commands. To the type of people who are carefully selected to serve on that type of trial, those verbal commands reinforce the authority of that force application, which leads to police-favorable verdicts.
It would be dangerous to underestimate the courtroom and media savvy of today's police in US and Canada.
[Repost with minor corrections]
Goods points.
And you've raised an important point with "...justification for charges of resisting..."; which is the role of the public prosecutors in this whole issue. Far too often, the public prosecutors are overly friendly with the police.
There was a case where the public prosecutor used threats of piling on more charges to get the victim of taser abuse to drop all the accusations against the taser-abusing police.
What should happen in such cases is that the corrupt prosecutor should be charged and jailed for such behavior.
Thanks.
Very very true
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