Cop tasers 72 year old - Page 2

Would you like me to point you to videos where this exact sort of situation ended with the police officer shot, or the violator and/or the police officer being hit by passing cars?

She was resisting.. she was warned.. and she continued resisting. This is a lose-lose situation.. if he had physically subdued her she may have been injured. Most officers who use tasers have had to experience that for themselves and the process he has to go through after deploying the taser is going to be extremely lengthy. If she didn't want to get tased, she should not have resisted and should not have attempted to flee. Officer safety comes before that of a known-resister. She was not a weakling, she was not frail.. she's only 72 for heaven's sake! The video speaks for itself.

Tasers are supposed to be used only if the officer feels his life is in imminent danger.
I understand what officers put up with, but her symptoms were the same as someone suffering from severe sugar imbalance. I have read too many reports of local officers tasering people in the back. We have a client who was tasered in his own home; he's also in his '70s - the deputies showed up at his home & demanded he come out and talk to him about the complaints on his dogs. Trouble was, he has no dogs - they wanted to search his home & when he refused, they came into his house & he became argumentative, trying to tell them to get out & they tasered him And then took him overnight to jail for interfering with a peace officer.
Turns out the deputies had the wrong address!!! Our office is waiting for the police report.....

Actually, she gets out of the car & tells him to give her the "f...ing thing & I'll sign it!", signalling her willingness to comply...but instead of diffusing the situation, he continues it. And then after he pushes her, she loses her balance and his training should have allowed him to place her into custody. To top it off, and remember, he's aware that he's being recorded...he's yelling her to get on the ground, get on the ground - No, duh, sherlock....she's just been tasered!!! And then he IMMEDIATELY yells for her to put her hands behind her back as she is fully in the state of just having been tasered....proper training would have him realize that she has been "stunned" by a "stun gun"! Plus, he's obviously enraged.....time for some Anger Management......

By reading this thread, it seems there are more than 1 video of this event, some folks are seeing one thing and some are seeing something else. I wonder which video is the real one.

I personally have a problem with anyone who treats another (cop, civilian, whatever) with a total lack of respect but expects that person to be respectful to them. If she had treated that officer with respect none of that would have happened IMO. Why does she feel that because she is 72 she can do or say whatever she wants. Age doesn't give us extra rights. Just get on a bus and see if anyone actually bothers getting up to give an older person a seat if you want proof of lack of respect. Some women just might, but few men will - I know this for a fact as I travelled public transit for many years in the Toronto area.

I've also encountered older people who felt they had the right to say and do whatever they wanted to because of their age. Respect and manners are still necessary at any age.

I watched it and it was obvious she was resisting. Could it have been handled different.. perhaps. Fact remains she was resisting and she became aggressive. She was warned.. and she didn't comply.

Here's another incident of tasering...on an Arizona pastor:
http://www.truveo.com/play-him-off-k.../id/3213476638
I found it among the "play him off, keyboard cat" videos - I don't think it's funny at all, but many of the other videos are worth a good chuckle, esp. after seeing this disturbing one

The thing about tasers is that they're supposed to be used like less lethal guns. Basically a tazer should never be used in a situation where a police officer would not have used their firearm and shot if they didn't have the taser.

Tasers are lethal some of the time, they do kill people. So basically they should never be used unless the taser actually killing the person is an acceptable (if regrettable) outcome. I.e. when the person getting tasered poses a direct and immediate threat to themselves, others or the police officers.

Getting tasered because you're being non compliant is complete nonesense and shouldn't happen.

But yeah, tasers aren't non-lethal weapons. They are just a lot less lethal than guns but should be used as gun replacements not as an arbitrary threat to non compliant people. However the police is getting more and more complacent about their taser use and have started to use them in completely inappropriate situations and people have died completely needlessly.

That is a Good point.

Maybe I'm naive, but I honest-to-goodness do not think ANY cop harrasses ANY citizen that is not giving them lip, doing something they shouldn't be doing or being in a place they shouldn't be in. I just cannot believe cops randomly shoot/taser "innocent", respectful, law-abiding citizens.

I get so miffed when I read that shite! We had an instance a few years back where a girl was shot while her boyfriend was trying to outrun the police in a stolen car. There was this big public outcry that she was an innocent victim. I'm sorry, but if she was with a car thief and it was her boyfriend so I'm assuming she already knew he was bad news, and she was in a stolen car trying to outrun the police, I cannot for the life of me consider her an innocent victim. People do reap what they sow.

I can shed some light here.
My ex husband was a very bad guy, a very violent guy, but I never knew it until a few years in.
He frequently outran the police if they got behind us, and would turn on me if I so much as questioned him about it.
Often, there are women completely kept in the dark as to what their other half does.
Often they only have girlfriends/wives as a cover, the women usually completely unsuspecting until something happens.

On your other point:
Cops FREQUENTLY in the US develop a jaded perspective and end up channeling that into the civilians they interact with on a day to day basis.
Cops are seen by shrinks as a part of their job because of it.
You can become so jaded by what you see and experience every day that you begin to see everyone as a suspect.
It happens, quite often too.

I see what you are saying but I also have to say that I have had friends who were cops, been at parties where cops were called for noise, been stopped for speeding, been stopped for emission issue with my old car, have lived in and around the large city of Toronto for almost 50 years and I have yet to see a police officer harass an innocent person. I'm certainly aware that they treat suspicious characters differently than they do me and I'm aware that there are people that are known to the police and would not receive the same treatment as me, but I still do not believe they are so jaded they would zap an old lady for no reason.

As you your ex-husband, you say he frequently outran the police with you in the car - he would only try to outrun the police with me in the car once and I would be gone so he wouldn't have another opportunity to put my life in jeopardy again.

The woman was definitely wrong, but I hate the taser. I think it is a very scary and dangerous weapon, only to be used in extreme situations. At the jail where I used to work, the officers didn't carry the taser with them into the cell blocks, and it was used maybe a few times a year. Where was that cop's pepper spray?

I have followed this thread, and while I do not agree that tazers should be used in all cases, the old woman had been warned, more than a few times, and should have just shut up and had the situation handled at the police station, with legal counsel present. At her age, she should have known that you are not going to win a battle of wills with a police officer if you get loud and rude with them. She just seemed like a mean old woman that WAS going to do or say whatever she wanted.
As for the pastor, he seemed to want to irritate the officer, but breaking is window was out of line on the officer's part. I certainly do not believe there was a point at which he closed his eyes and never opened them again. In that case of the drug sniffing dog, he REALLY should have let himself be taken in to custody and had it straightened out with legal counsel present. That could be a serious charge that should be handled by a lawyer, not by being a smart mouth idiot to a tazer wielding cop. I am not saying the cop was right, but I feel that he would have arrested the man, and they could have straightened it out later.
I am saying this from personal experience in a case of mistaken identity where I was identified as someone that had robbed a local hotel. They had worn a wig with my hair color and driven a similar car. My car was located a few blocks away. The officers grabbed me, handcuffed me, and questioned me there on the spot. I was respectful to them, knowing I had not done anything, and they began investigating right away, beginning with my car that they realized could was too cool to have been driven in several hours. I allowed myself to be placed face to face with the person that had been robbed, and she said it was not me. Just a little respect and cooperation got me released and put them on the track of catching the real robber just a little while later. I doubt they would have helped me if I had gotten lippy with them. They would have at least arrested me before sorting things out.

I agree. There's no question that this woman's actions were unwise, but in my opinion, that doesn't justify the use of such a dangerous weapon. From what I can see in the tape, there's no evidence that she was armed with anything other than a bad temper and sharp tongue.

As for the policeman involved, I'm sure his job isn't easy, and to be fair, the video doesn't cover what sort of training in the use of tasers he may or may not have received.