That's not the point. I'm just saying that there was no point in grappling the guy down to the floor and eventually tasering him in front of all those people when there was more than enough cops to overpower him and put him in the back of a police car.
He would have continued to try and wrestle his way out which could have hurt somebody (maybe even himself). Tasers are meant to immobilize people... not kill them. People keep taking the handful of taser misuses or deaths and using that info as if it's the gospel truth. Dozens of newscasters have been shot with tasers in demonstration clips on the news. The chances of getting seriously hurt by a taser (while possible) are very slim.
You've probably got that right. Regardless, he was threatened with the punishment and he refused to comply, so he got what he deserved.
The official police report cites injuries to the security personnel involved. Shall this be true, the kid crossed the line from being a nuisance to a physical threat and totally deserved any form of 'severe' punishment he received. Injuries = resisting arrest with violence and thus the kid's charges were justified.
The staff coulve just let him ask the question. How many times does something like that happen? They coulve just lift the guy up, and throw him outside instead of lying him on the ground and give him a taser.
It just saddens me that this is getting so much press. Especially when there are more pressing issues at the moment (Iraq war and the Jena Six come to mind).
If they threatened to shoot him in the head and he refused to comply, would he have still gotten what he deserved? People can't get away with anything just because they warned them first, I don't think. If I told you that, if you replied to this message, I'd track you down and kill you, then did so I doubt everyone would say "He was warned so he got what he deserved". The guy should not have asked so many questions, and should have been told to leave. However, Kerry told them to let him continue, so I don't see why they didn't listen to him. Kerry probably knew that dragging him out like they did would just cause a scene and that it was easier to just let him talk. I am not sure why the police seemed so determined to let him be some sort of martyr. It isn't tough to see that that is what he was aiming for and by tasering him they let him acheive that. In short, I don't see why you should tackle, arrest, and taser a guy because he wanted to ask a question to the speaker that the speaker openly said was an important question and worthy of answering.
He wasn't tasered because he wanted to ask a question, he was tasered for struggling with the security guards. People are blowing the effects of the taser way out of proportion. The reason this seems so brutal is because of how he screams. I've seen many people (on video and on the news) getting tasered and none of them screamed that loud or that long. He was obviously trying to make them look bad and he succeeded. A taser isn't some handheld death-device. It's a (relatively) safe measure to incapacitate someone from hurting themselves or somebody else. Nobody was seriously injured (except maybe that guys pride), and things could have been much worse.
Even though I don't 100% agree with you on this situation, I have to say that sounds like a line from a song/poem. It's a very powerful statement.
That's an extreme way of putting things, and completely irrelevant to this situation. Tasers are used to subdue people, guns are used to kill people. The only time guns are used by the police are when someone is at risk of killing a police officer. What kind of asinine comparison is this? Of course they can't, but do you not understand the situation? The guy was being physically abusive of the police and showing increased signs of agitation and aggression. He was told to comply with the police officers and allow them to escort him out of the building, but he tried to break free and started shoving at and resisting the police officers. I'm not sure if you're completely aware of standard police procedure, but tazing is used after repeated attempts to try and make a suspect comply with police orders are refused and hostility increases. Tazing happens in other situations when people won't get out of their cars after getting pulled over, or in other situations where aggression seems to be on the rise. Kerry obviously thought the question was a half-baked question (who wouldn't think that about some conspiracy theory about his involvement in a secret society?), but wanted to save face by showing he could calmly answer the belligerent idiot's question. They tazed him because he refused to comply with their orders that he allow them to remove him from the room. He was threatened with the tazing (which in many cases is not announced) after he refused to comply. He had what was coming to him, and he wanted it. I wish they hadn't tazed this idiot so he wouldn't of gotten the attention he's getting.
i heard kerry trying to keep the forum going and trying to divert attention and avoid the whole fiasco. he didn't try that hard. ha.
Your comparing subduing to killing a person? you tackle, arrest and taster a guy when they are being physically abusive, repeatedly swearing and shouting at the police, screaming and shouting for attention and resisting arrest after numerous times of trying to get him to co-oporate. The fact is, they tasered him to subdue him to get him outside, if they had lifted him, he would have kicked and screamed.
Sorry but I've seen one cop in this country deal with a worse situation without the use of any weapon. There are 7 or 8 of them in this instance.
Yeah but this isn't our police force. Also i've seen worse incidents too, without the use of a weapon, but that still doesn't mean the force used by the American campus police was wrong in anyway.
Key-word: cop. These aren't cops, they're campus security guards, their training borders on non-existent. I have stated this before ad nauseum. You've got to step into their shoes for a moment. You could a) try to drag some flailing guy to your car and risk getting kicked or scratched. Or you could b) safely (I cannot stress this word enough) incapacitate him with a tool that is made to SAFELY incapacitate someone. A lot of you have made these HANDFUL of taser-related deaths go to your head to the point where you are blowing this way out of proportion. Lots of people have died in swimming pools... does that mean they're floating-coffins of death? Absolutely not. It's just circumstance.
I completly overlook the fact that they're campus security simply because of the number of them there were. If they worked as a team then half the shit that went down probably wouldn't have. There's strength in numbers. Of course the only time they demonstrated that was when they were holding the guy down. And I can emphasise with the security personnel but in the heat of the moment they need to be thinking tacticly and professionally and they didn't demonstrate either.
I guess you just don't understand standard police procedure. They were trained to do this. The fact of the matter is that despite there being 6 to 7 campus security trying to get control of him, he was still wriggling around and trying to get away, despite acknowledging that he could hear and understand their orders. They were having a tough time keeping him still so they could cuff him. In times like this, where the suspect is out of control, belligerent, abusive, and just plain disorderly, tazing is the safe mode of getting control over the person, and is the taught way to handle a suspect by the police academy.