Long overdue, if you ask a liberal like me....
The 9th Circuit Court has ruled on police taser use.
Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can't use their stun gun simply because the person is disobeying orders or acting erratically, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Monday.
This is potentially huge.
Up until now it seemed pretty clear that the Taser was PERFECT for dealing with people who did not agree with a police officer - or anybody else who happened to have a taser.
But this ruling seems to suggest that jolting people with powerful electronic dart just because they disagree with you, may not be a good policy.
Of course, few people will hold their breath on this sort of ruling making much of a dent in what I see as rampant abuse of the taser, but I suppose the court gets a point for meaning well:
Though stun guns may offer a valuable, nonlethal alternative to deadly force in defusing dangerous situations, Wardlaw said, they inflict a "painful and frightening blow" and must be used only when substantial force is necessary and other options are unavailable.
The article cites an example of a man who was tasered (for his own good) for not wearing a seat belt.
Ok. Seat belts ARE the law, but using a taser on a person for not wearing one? I got cited for not wearing a seat belt once. 3 cops showed up to enforce the seat belt rule and search my car - I suppose for MORE evidence that I was not wearing a seat belt. I paid $15 to the local government for my transgression, but I never got tased - I even acted up and the cops didn't tase me.
The lawsuit from whence this ruling springs involved a man who was stopped for not wearing his seat belt. He was unhappy about being stopped and the officer took this as a reason to tase the man, who fell to the ground, knocking out 4 front teeth ans requiring emergency surgery to remove the taser dart. This suit was not dismissed and that's how it ended up in from of the 9th Circuit Court.
I don't really need to go and fetch a bushel of links or videos of taser-happy cops brutalizing people for no apparent reason because there are so many incidents like this the ongoing efforts to explain away each incident of brutality have worn thin.
Disorderly person? Tase 'em.
Funny-looking? Tase 'em.
Old Woman disoriented in a parking lot? Tase her.
Disagreement of any sort? You guessed it: zzzzzap!
Seriously, Taser has lost at least one lawsuit alleging wrongful death
Taser International Inc. lost its first case on June 6, 2008 when a jury awarded damages of more than $6 million in the wrongful death lawsuit of a California man. Robert Heston was intoxicated with methamphetamine when he was struck by police officers three times with a Taser stun gun: the lawsuit claimed the shocks, combined with his intoxication caused his death.
The Taser also led to the death of a man when a cop elected to jolt the guy 9 friggin' times while still subdued in the back of a cop car:
Another wrongful death lawsuit was filed in August of 2008 when a former police officer was accused of shocking a handcuffed man nine times with a Taser stun gun: A coroner ruled the death was a homicide.
More than 59 wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against the company since the Taser went on the market. Up until June 2008, Taser International never lost a product-liability suit. In October 2005 the family of 24-year-old Keith Graff who died after being shocked with a Taser by Arizona police officers filed a suit claiming Taser misrepresented its weapons as far as safety issues were concerned. It alleged the company disregarded safety warnings and data from researchers and examiners that had looked into the effects and possible effects of Taser use.
I suppose in fairness to Taser (as a Democrat I am expected to suck up to big corporations like this, even though I despise them) cops abuse the things like they have never been given the first warning about the things.
D'oh!!... that's not what I meant...
This is a video of training police to understand the power of the taser.
See? Good clean fun.
It's crap like this that prompts cops to abuse the things. A corn-fed Marine can take it and it's all laughs and giggles.
But tasers hurt many other people needlessly due to police insensitivity.
I hope the 9th Circuit ruling will help deter some of the more egregious police brutality that accompanies their unthinking use of this thing.