|
lazarus1983 -> RE: Man Dies After Pa. Police Use Taser on Him (11/10/2010 2:43:20 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Edwynn
quote:
ORIGINAL: EternalHoH
Tasers and mace should not be standard issue police tools.
The generations of cops that walked a beat before today's breed had but a nitestick, a gun, and their BRAINS to diffuse a situation. Once you introduced these new suspect-immobilizing tools, the cops operating them became DUMBER. They no longer HAD to use their brains.
Indeed.
During a good bit of my upbringing I lived in a pretty decent neighborhood but in walking to the store I traveled through poorer areas and witnessed incidents such as these on a somewhat regular basis.
One or several persons in such situations might be in any sort of inebriated and/or uncooperative state, but never once did I see even a night stick used. The cops knew this neighborhood and were well experienced in these situations. Sometimes they just kept a distance at first and talked the guy down or let him wear himself out for a couple of minutes, other times they might take him down almost right away and cuff him. They used the tools of discretion, tact, forceful demand, judgment, alertness to when quick assertive action was needed to prevent further escalation, etc.
Lack of brains or not, are we to believe now that things are such that two or more supposedly healthy young cops can not subdue an inebriated 61 yr. old man with out resorting to mace and taser gun immediately?
Do they even make them do a few push-ups in police training anymore?
Put yourself in the shoes of the police officers. What would you rather do? Putting hands on any person opens yourself up to being hurt yourself. A 61 year old man with liquid courage can still be hell on wheels. And you can't ascertain until after a search what that individual might have on them to use as a weapon. What if that individual decides to start biting? What if they have some disease? What if, what if, what if.
Any law enforcement officer is taught to play the "what if..." game. And in almost any situation, the safest answer for the police officer in any what if scenario is the use of intermediate weapons. OC, tasers, etc.
Now perhaps if you had police officers that were better talkers, the situation MIGHT be different. The problem is, you can't teach being personable to someone who just plain isn't.
|
|
|
|
