I mean, really, if we hold Mehserle's conduct to the incredibly low bar of a "reasonable person" (instead of the much higher bar of "trained police officer" he should be held to), should they think that an unarmed man lying on his stomach several feet away facing away from you presents a threat?
He does.
Not much of one, and probably not one a trained police officer should bust out the Tase-e-boy on, but a threat nonetheless. Again, until he's cuffed, and preferably in the back of a police cruiser, he's a threat.
Also, assuming private citizens were held to the same use-of-force laws as police are, the "reasonable person" standard would probably have seen him walk; it's precisely the "trained police officer" standard that has him being held as criminally negligent to begin with...it doesn't elevate him to murderer.
Again, if he presents such a threat, why is the other officer getting off of him?
Seriously, the mental gymnastics you're willing to go through to give this guy his justification is ridiculous. And can someone explain to me how someone who was this stunningly incompetent gets to where he is with a clean record? Everyone keeps saying "oh, look, he didn't have a record of any of this, therefore he couldn't be malicious." He didn't have a record of fucking up to the nth degree, either, so why are we expected to presume incompetence to a ridiculous degree when malice to a minimal degree is a much better explanation?
Presumption of innocence. Malice must be proven, we don't assume it.
Malice must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt," not "beyond all possible doubt, including possibilities wherein the physical laws of the universe are broken." "A cop with training and a clean record could be the most staggeringly incompetent human being on the planet" isn't really reasonable.
They obviously don't consider taser training particularly important in the BART police, as evidenced by the fact that the department doesn't arm their officers with tasers 100% of the time. If the taser training for BART is the same as it is for security guards, then they test once every two years.
People are creatures of habit. When they reach for something, they tend to reach with the same hand, and in the same place. You've never reached for your keys in a pocket only to realize you put them in a different pocket? Now imagine if you had a friend give you his set of keys, then when you got home, you reached for those keys accidentally. Even if they weighed or jingled differently, is it not feasible you'd fidget with them for a while before realizing your mistake, due to your rush to get inside because you had to pee really bad?
Mehserle didn't always carry a taser, so he could have neglected his draw practice (something which anyone who carries a firearm will tell you is crucial). Doing so could easily lead him to draw wrong: his mind is thinking, "Draw taser and shoot," but his hands are thinking, "Draw and shoot." Such a situation is quite reasonable, and unless we have some other evidence that can rule this out, we have reasonable doubt.
EDIT: yes, he should have known better. Yes, he's received training. That's what makes it a crime, just not the one you want it to be so that you can satisfy your rage and bloodthirst.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
-Officer inexperienced in handling high-stress situations and thus mentally impaired at the time
-Suspect not yet handcuffed and therefore not yet thoroughly searched or restrained from pulling a concealed weapon
-Suspect clearly moving and resisting in a way that an aforementioned mentally impaired mind could easily take as threatening
"Mentally impaired"? I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. People who are mildly retarded are still convicted of crimes all the time, and mere stress is not by itself something that excuses otherwise criminal behavior.
Your second point makes no sense at all. Are you saying that it's OK to proactively Taser a suspect simply because you have not eliminated the possibility that they might have a weapon and might pull it out? Mehserle claimed that he thought Grant was in fact reaching for a weapon - not "well we hadn't searched him and you know maybe possibly he had a weapon in there somewhere".
mythago on
Three lines of plaintext:
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
Seriously, the mental gymnastics you're willing to go through to give this guy his justification is ridiculous. And can someone explain to me how someone who was this stunningly incompetent gets to where he is with a clean record? Everyone keeps saying "oh, look, he didn't have a record of any of this, therefore he couldn't be malicious." He didn't have a record of fucking up to the nth degree, either, so why are we expected to presume incompetence to a ridiculous degree when malice to a minimal degree is a much better explanation?
Presumption of innocence. Malice must be proven, we don't assume it.
Malice must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt," not "beyond all possible doubt, including possibilities wherein the physical laws of the universe are broken." "A cop with training and a clean record could be the most staggeringly incompetent human being on the planet" isn't really reasonable.
Ha. I have a picture in my email inbox of a trained soldier who thought it would be smart to use a .50 round and a hammer to knock a pin out while disassembling his machine gun (instead of a Gerber, or screwdriver, or whatever else you might find to use). Holding a fairly large round in his hand, whacking on the back of it with a fucking hammer.
The email was distributed as a warning to the rest of us, and came with a disclaimer, "GRAPHIC CONTENT INSIDE," because what's left of his hand (gee, hitting the back of a bullet with a hammer may make it explode?) is one of the most godawful things I've seen since I came back from the desert.
Luckily, he only fucked himself up. But that's about the same level of staggering incompetence.
Seriously, I've known some cops. Like, a bunch. Some of them are absolute fucktards.
Again, if he presents such a threat, why is the other officer getting off of him?
He doesn't present "such a threat," I explicitly stated that the threat was minimal. The other officer got off him because he's not incompetent, which is also why he's at home drinking a beer right now and not getting butt-fucked at Pelican Bay.
We do not have to prove it with certainty! Just beyond any reasonable doubt; that's not certainty. People get convicted on circumstantial evidence all the fucking time.
Yup, and I really wish that would happen less.
Mehserle didn't always carry a taser, so he could have neglected his draw practice (something which anyone who carries a firearm will tell you is crucial). Doing so could easily lead him to draw wrong: his mind is thinking, "Draw taser and shoot," but his hands are thinking, "Draw and shoot." Such a situation is quite reasonable, and unless we have some other evidence that can rule this out, we have reasonable doubt.
Also, this. I have no problem seeing as plausible the scenario that A) he was dumb enough to consider Grant a threat rather than just being a sadistic fuck and he was incompetent enough to draw the wrong weapon. Likely? Nope. But then, that's why this doesn't happen every damn day. But plausible.
mcdermott on
0
Options
WarcryI'm getting my shit pushed in here!AustraliaRegistered Userregular
If he was still such a threat, why is the officer getting off of him?
I mean, really, if we hold Mehserle's conduct to the incredibly low bar of a "reasonable person" (instead of the much higher bar of "trained police officer" he should be held to), should they think that an unarmed man lying on his stomach several feet away facing away from you presents a threat?
Thanatos.
People are not reasonable in these situations.
Especially when they are inexperienced and poorly trained for them, which this guy was.
If he was so inexperienced and poorly trained, why was he out on duty in the first place? And for christ's sake, the guy did not have a weapon. In fact, before the officers decided to shove him face first onto the filty walkway, he was sitting upright, with his hands up, clearly co-operating.
-Officer inexperienced in handling high-stress situations and thus mentally impaired at the time
-Suspect not yet handcuffed and therefore not yet thoroughly searched or restrained from pulling a concealed weapon
-Suspect clearly moving and resisting in a way that an aforementioned mentally impaired mind could easily take as threatening
"Mentally impaired"? I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. People who are mildly retarded are still convicted of crimes all the time, and mere stress is not by itself something that excuses otherwise criminal behavior.
Sadistic intent. We're not discussing whether he should be convicted of a crime, we're discussing whether he should be convicted of murder. An incompetent reaction under stress is not the same as intent to kill.
Your second point makes no sense at all. Are you saying that it's OK to proactively Taser a suspect simply because you have not eliminated the possibility that they might have a weapon and might pull it out? Mehserle claimed that he thought Grant was in fact reaching for a weapon - not "well we hadn't searched him and you know maybe possibly he had a weapon in there somewhere".
No, I'm saying that there is enough reasonable doubt about why he pulled the trigger that you can't prove he intended to kill Grant.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
If he was so inexperienced and poorly trained, why was he out on duty in the first place? And for christ's sake, the guy did not have a weapon. In fact, before the officers decided to shove him face first onto the filty walkway, he was sitting upright, with his hands up, clearly co-operating.
Possibly because of what he did or said to the officers before the video started rolling? Sure, that's conjecture, but no more than what you are using.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
We do not have to prove it with certainty! Just beyond any reasonable doubt; that's not certainty. People get convicted on circumstantial evidence all the fucking time.
Yup, and I really wish that would happen less.
Then you don't understand what "circumstantial evidence" means. It doesn't mean "shitty evidence". It means indirect evidence.
Let's say you have a four-year-old who loves Oreos. You come home to find that somebody has dragged the kitchen stepstool over to the counter. There are four-year-old-sized footprints on the rungs. The cookie jar has been tipped over and two dozen Oreos are missing. You follow a trail of Oreo crumbs to your four-year-old's room and find him lying on the bed moaning and holding his tummy. He says that he isn't hungry for dinner and no, he didn't eat the cookies, space aliens beamed into the kitchen and stole all the Oreos.
We do not have to prove it with certainty! Just beyond any reasonable doubt; that's not certainty. People get convicted on circumstantial evidence all the fucking time.
Yup, and I really wish that would happen less.
Then you don't understand what "circumstantial evidence" means. It doesn't mean "shitty evidence". It means indirect evidence.
Let's say you have a four-year-old who loves Oreos. You come home to find that somebody has dragged the kitchen stepstool over to the counter. There are four-year-old-sized footprints on the rungs. The cookie jar has been tipped over and two dozen Oreos are missing. You follow a trail of Oreo crumbs to your four-year-old's room and find him lying on the bed moaning and holding his tummy. He says that he isn't hungry for dinner and no, he didn't eat the cookies, space aliens beamed into the kitchen and stole all the Oreos.
To be fair, there is good circumstantial evidence and shitty circumstantial evidence, and shitty circumstantial evidence can lead and has led to unjust convictions.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Then you don't understand what "circumstantial evidence" means. It doesn't mean "shitty evidence". It means indirect evidence.
Let's say you have a four-year-old who loves Oreos. You come home to find that somebody has dragged the kitchen stepstool over to the counter. There are four-year-old-sized footprints on the rungs. The cookie jar has been tipped over and two dozen Oreos are missing. You follow a trail of Oreo crumbs to your four-year-old's room and find him lying on the bed moaning and holding his tummy. He says that he isn't hungry for dinner and no, he didn't eat the cookies, space aliens beamed into the kitchen and stole all the Oreos.
And even though there is less evidence that your four-year-old ate those Oreos than there is that Mehserle murdered a dude, we let Mehserle walk away with a slap on the wrist.
Then you don't understand what "circumstantial evidence" means. It doesn't mean "shitty evidence". It means indirect evidence.
Let's say you have a four-year-old who loves Oreos. You come home to find that somebody has dragged the kitchen stepstool over to the counter. There are four-year-old-sized footprints on the rungs. The cookie jar has been tipped over and two dozen Oreos are missing. You follow a trail of Oreo crumbs to your four-year-old's room and find him lying on the bed moaning and holding his tummy. He says that he isn't hungry for dinner and no, he didn't eat the cookies, space aliens beamed into the kitchen and stole all the Oreos.
And even though there is less evidence that your four-year-old ate those Oreos than there is that Mehserle murdered a dude, we let Mehserle walk away with a slap on the wrist.
In your opinion. Take off the blinders, man. We can see where you're coming from, but you refuse to see where we're coming from.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Then you don't understand what "circumstantial evidence" means. It doesn't mean "shitty evidence". It means indirect evidence.
Let's say you have a four-year-old who loves Oreos. You come home to find that somebody has dragged the kitchen stepstool over to the counter. There are four-year-old-sized footprints on the rungs. The cookie jar has been tipped over and two dozen Oreos are missing. You follow a trail of Oreo crumbs to your four-year-old's room and find him lying on the bed moaning and holding his tummy. He says that he isn't hungry for dinner and no, he didn't eat the cookies, space aliens beamed into the kitchen and stole all the Oreos.
Oh, I get the concept. I didn't say it shouldn't happen at all. I'd prefer some non-circumstantial evidence to go along with it, and it seems (to me, from my limited reading) like many cases that later turn out to be wrongful convictions rely heavily on it.
Say the four-year-old isn't holding his tummy. But he has a six-year-old brother. He says he didn't eat the cookies. He doesn't have cookie breath, and I have no other proof. How do I know his brother didn't set him up, using his shoes to make the footprints?
Should I ground him for 25 to life?
Like I said, it should happen less. I stand by it.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Thanatos, when you were going off on your cop hating rant in the whining forum, I pointed out that the community, cops, and civic government were all to blame for the current state of policing in the US.
All you did was handwave and go off some more about "police unions". I don't think you're interested in debating as much as you are having a soapbox to let everyone know that yes, you dislike police.
Then you don't understand what "circumstantial evidence" means. It doesn't mean "shitty evidence". It means indirect evidence.
Let's say you have a four-year-old who loves Oreos. You come home to find that somebody has dragged the kitchen stepstool over to the counter. There are four-year-old-sized footprints on the rungs. The cookie jar has been tipped over and two dozen Oreos are missing. You follow a trail of Oreo crumbs to your four-year-old's room and find him lying on the bed moaning and holding his tummy. He says that he isn't hungry for dinner and no, he didn't eat the cookies, space aliens beamed into the kitchen and stole all the Oreos.
And even though there is less evidence that your four-year-old ate those Oreos than there is that Mehserle killed a dude, we let Mehserle walk away with a slap on the wrist.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
They provide a tool for taking down a resisting suspect without beating them or shooting them. That the tool may not be used in the way it should doesn't mean it is a bad tool.
The government could use the same logic to declare it illegal for you and I to own firearms, under the presumption that some people use them illegally.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
To be fair, there is good circumstantial evidence and shitty circumstantial evidence, and shitty circumstantial evidence can lead and has led to unjust convictions.
To be fair, there is good direct evidence and shitty direct evidence, and shitty direct evidence can lead and has led to unjust convictions.
Like witnesses threatened by the cops with jail time or losing their children if they didn't give the "correct" testimony. Like 'eyewitnesses' who give perjured testimony because it got them off the hook, or reward money, or revenge, or more work as a police informant. Like well-meaning victims who think they identified the right guy out of a carefully-arranged lineup where the police show them only one picture, or ask them "are you SURE it's him?" to shape their testimony.
Unjust convictions don't happen because the evidence is 'circumstantial'; they happen because providing an adequate defense to poor people is not a priority, particularly in broke-ass states where an awful lot of poor people are minorities, so they get assigned defense attorneys who are criminally overworked at best or incompetent at worse. And they happen because corrupt crime lab technicians and abusive police officers and "testilying" experts who pull "science" out of their asses get away with it.
mythago on
Three lines of plaintext:
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
In theory they're great. They give officers a fantastic option in the force continuum for subduing resistive subjects that don't necessarily pose a deadly threat...they're generally less risky to both the officer and the suspect than something like a nightstick or even manual grappling, and certainly preferable to a firearm for moderate ranges for a "non-deadly" (and statistically they're relatively safe) option.
The problem, obviously, is two-fold. One, they got billed at some point to officers as a "win button," which means they get used in a lot of situations where neither the nightstick nor gun would ever have been considered. Because they're, in many cases, the lazy man's option. Two, they're a great way to cause pain with minimal lasting damage to the suspect, which appeals to some of the sadistic fucks that do populate our police forces (which Mehserle may have been one of...I just don't buy that it was proven).
So you get lippy college kids in libraries and middle-aged ladies driving home with their groceries getting Tased left and right. And, assuming Mehserle was at least telling the truth about his intent to use the Taser, you get Oscar Grant dead. Plus more than a few others dead from the actual Taser...the more you use it, the more bodies you get, it's just numbers.
I think I came up with a good counter-balance to allowing the use of tasers by police officers. Every time an officer tazers someone, they should be tazered themselves within a reasonable period of time. Say some officer tazers three people in one month, then they should submit to three rounds of tazering by the end of the next month. It would be nice to remove some air of triviality that many police seem to have for their tazers. If they really are that safe and non-damaging, then police should have no objection to such a policy.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
Maybe people shouldn't attack police officers?
Do you have any proof for your grand and bold declarations, or are you just posting from Assumption Island?
I think I came up with a good counter-balance to allowing the use of tasers by police officers. Every time an officer tazers someone, they should be tazered themselves within a reasonable period of time. Say some officer tazers three people in one month, then they should submit to three rounds of tazering by the end of the next month. It would be nice to remove some air of triviality that many police seem to have for their tazers. If they really are that safe and non-damaging, then police should have no objection to such a policy.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
Maybe people shouldn't attack police officers?
Do you have any proof for your grand and bold declarations, or are you just posting from Assumption Island?
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
The electricity isn't lethal (the current may be if it hit the heart, but it's confined to the skin so really it isn't). I'm pretty sure that 99% of Taser deaths (which are a stunningly small percentage of Taser usages, though enough to warrant scrutiny) aren't from the electricity. They're either from aggravating other medical conditions, or somebody dropping to the ground unassisted and breaking their damn head open, or other various causes.
However, I agree that there's probably no amount of training that will give the average officer the maturity and discretion needed to carry the damn things responsibly. I think the percieved potential for injury (to the suspect, and perhaps the officer) is useful to prevent the use of force where otherwise it wouldn't be considered.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
Maybe people shouldn't attack police officers?
Do you have any proof for your grand and bold declarations, or are you just posting from Assumption Island?
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
I was talking more about your "people will always use that force" and "people suck and like lording power over others" statements.
Yes, people do die from being tazed. That's why I said poor training on how to use a tazer and the appropriate circumstances to use it isn't a good reason to villify the tool itself.
EDIT: And yeah, there's information in your link but its being presented through an extremely slanted lens.
It links to the names and races (in bold!) of the people who died, not the circumstances, BTW.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
Maybe people shouldn't attack police officers?
Do you have any proof for your grand and bold declarations, or are you just posting from Assumption Island?
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
Do you think there's any possibility that widespread use of Tasers prevented/avoided more than 83 fatal shootings in that same time period?
I wish we'd just hurry up and invent better, less dangerous, and less painful non-lethal weapons (which are cheap enough to mass produce). That's one reason I'm not overly concerned with arguing about the whole tazer issue; I think it's going to solve itself before too long.
In the meantime, I wouldn't be opposed to removing them from police use, but I don't have strong feelings either way, because I have no way to weigh how many lives they've saved versus how much harm they've done.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I think I came up with a good counter-balance to allowing the use of tasers by police officers. Every time an officer tazers someone, they should be tazered themselves within a reasonable period of time. Say some officer tazers three people in one month, then they should submit to three rounds of tazering by the end of the next month. It would be nice to remove some air of triviality that many police seem to have for their tazers. If they really are that safe and non-damaging, then police should have no objection to such a policy.
That is pretty silly for all sorts of reasons.
Are you really serious?
Absolutely serious. Maybe not use a barbed projectile though, they could subsitute a plain needle variant for the sake of not scarring the officers too much. What's your objection?
Personally I think it'd be a very healthy reminder to respect what they are actually subjecting people to.
There's a much simpler issue here: why are tasers being issued to cops in the first place? There's a surprisingly deadly non-lethal weapon that by being marketed as non-lethal lessens the compunctions against using them for cops. Assuming we take this guy at his word that he was going for his taser, he's still committing a heinous crime. Ugh. I hate tasers.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
Maybe people shouldn't attack police officers?
Do you have any proof for your grand and bold declarations, or are you just posting from Assumption Island?
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
I was talking more about your "people will always use that force" and "people suck and like lording power over others" statements.
Yes, people do die from being tazed. That's why I said poor training on how to use a tazer and the appropriate circumstances to use it isn't a good reason to villify the tool itself.
History, any number of psychological experiments. This kind of thing has been repeated over and over, in various forms for at least 50 years.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Say the four-year-old isn't holding his tummy. But he has a six-year-old brother. He says he didn't eat the cookies. He doesn't have cookie breath, and I have no other proof. How do I know his brother didn't set him up, using his shoes to make the footprints?
Your six-year-old says "I saw him eat the cookies, Daddy. I watched him pull out the stepstool, climb on the counter and eat all the Oreos. Then he went into his room and lay down and said his tummy hurt and he wished he hadn't eaten all the cookies."
Voila! Non-circumstantial evidence! You have direct, detailed, eyewitness testimony that your four-year-old ate the cookies. Oh, but wait! It gets better! Your four-year-old says that yes, in fact he ate the Oreos. A confession: the gold standard!
Now, you're going to feel bad later when you realize that your six-year-old is the one who ate the Oreos and is lying his ass off, and that the real reason your four-year-old "confessed" is that his brother punched him in the stomach and said he'd get worse if he didn't "confess" to doing it. You're also going to feel pretty silly for thinking 'but he COULD have gone through an elaborate scenario of forging his brother's footprints!' and completely overlooking the much easier expediency of just telling a lie (albeit a much more believable one than the aliens story).
As for "How do I know"? Well, you sit down and figure out what the evidence actually is, and what makes the most sense. And since you've been a parent for a few years, you're not such a silly goose that you automatically believe everything your kids tell you. Right?
Like I said, it should happen less. I stand by it.
If by "it" you mean unjust convictions, I couldn't agree more. If by "it" you mean "circumstantial evidence", then what you're standing by is your own ignorance of what evidence is and how it's used in trials.
mythago on
Three lines of plaintext:
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
And how many times have tasers been employed in those 18 months?
EDIT: also, on average, there are ten times more deaths caused by accidental firearm discharge each year. That means NOT SHOOTING YOUR GUN is ten times more lethal than shooting your taser.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
The research examined nearly 1,000 cases of Taser use, and found 99.7 per cent of them had either no injuries, or only mild injuries such as "scrapes and bruises". In 0.3 per cent of the cases (3 people) the injuries were serious enough to require hospital admission. Two had head injuries sustained during falls after the Taser was used and the third was hospitalized two days after arrest with a condition "of unclear relationship to the Taser" said the researchers in a prepared statement.
Early results of the study (covering nearly 600 cases of Taser use) were published in a paper last year, in the September issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
I'm just saying, that link seems a little more even handed than the one screaming about "the murderous police torture killings of innocent African American youth" in bolded font.
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
Do you think there's any possibility that widespread use of Tasers prevented/avoided more than 83 fatal shootings in that same time period?
I regard it as slim, as officers remain armed with actual firearms, so in situations where shooting deaths are likely, they'd be pulling those. And I suspect that the situations tasers are used in are less likely to be situations that without tasers, guns would be pulled. Though that's purely anecdotal and I have no hard proof of it. So there's a chance.
I also suspect there's a larger number than 83. And that's only deaths where the victim was actually tased, as opposed to situations like the one that led to this particular court case.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I think I came up with a good counter-balance to allowing the use of tasers by police officers. Every time an officer tazers someone, they should be tazered themselves within a reasonable period of time. Say some officer tazers three people in one month, then they should submit to three rounds of tazering by the end of the next month. It would be nice to remove some air of triviality that many police seem to have for their tazers. If they really are that safe and non-damaging, then police should have no objection to such a policy.
That is pretty silly for all sorts of reasons.
Are you really serious?
Absolutely serious. Maybe not use a barbed projectile though, they could subsitute a plain needle variant for the sake of not scarring the officers too much. What's your objection?
Personally I think it'd be a very healthy reminder to respect what they are actually subjecting people to.
Because its pretty silly to punish people for doing their jobs. What's next? "We know you shot that guy who was robbing the store, so now we have to shoot you?"
Better training in use and application of tazers, as well as communications training would go a lot further than your weird ass revenge fantasy.
Posts
You do realize you're coming across as having a kind of psychosis when it comes to cops, eh?
If I judged black people like you judged cops, then perhaps.
Since I don't, no.
But please, continue to rage against the machine some more.
They obviously don't consider taser training particularly important in the BART police, as evidenced by the fact that the department doesn't arm their officers with tasers 100% of the time. If the taser training for BART is the same as it is for security guards, then they test once every two years.
People are creatures of habit. When they reach for something, they tend to reach with the same hand, and in the same place. You've never reached for your keys in a pocket only to realize you put them in a different pocket? Now imagine if you had a friend give you his set of keys, then when you got home, you reached for those keys accidentally. Even if they weighed or jingled differently, is it not feasible you'd fidget with them for a while before realizing your mistake, due to your rush to get inside because you had to pee really bad?
Mehserle didn't always carry a taser, so he could have neglected his draw practice (something which anyone who carries a firearm will tell you is crucial). Doing so could easily lead him to draw wrong: his mind is thinking, "Draw taser and shoot," but his hands are thinking, "Draw and shoot." Such a situation is quite reasonable, and unless we have some other evidence that can rule this out, we have reasonable doubt.
EDIT: yes, he should have known better. Yes, he's received training. That's what makes it a crime, just not the one you want it to be so that you can satisfy your rage and bloodthirst.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
"Mentally impaired"? I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. People who are mildly retarded are still convicted of crimes all the time, and mere stress is not by itself something that excuses otherwise criminal behavior.
Your second point makes no sense at all. Are you saying that it's OK to proactively Taser a suspect simply because you have not eliminated the possibility that they might have a weapon and might pull it out? Mehserle claimed that he thought Grant was in fact reaching for a weapon - not "well we hadn't searched him and you know maybe possibly he had a weapon in there somewhere".
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
Ha. I have a picture in my email inbox of a trained soldier who thought it would be smart to use a .50 round and a hammer to knock a pin out while disassembling his machine gun (instead of a Gerber, or screwdriver, or whatever else you might find to use). Holding a fairly large round in his hand, whacking on the back of it with a fucking hammer.
The email was distributed as a warning to the rest of us, and came with a disclaimer, "GRAPHIC CONTENT INSIDE," because what's left of his hand (gee, hitting the back of a bullet with a hammer may make it explode?) is one of the most godawful things I've seen since I came back from the desert.
Luckily, he only fucked himself up. But that's about the same level of staggering incompetence.
Seriously, I've known some cops. Like, a bunch. Some of them are absolute fucktards.
He doesn't present "such a threat," I explicitly stated that the threat was minimal. The other officer got off him because he's not incompetent, which is also why he's at home drinking a beer right now and not getting butt-fucked at Pelican Bay.
Yup, and I really wish that would happen less.
Also, this. I have no problem seeing as plausible the scenario that A) he was dumb enough to consider Grant a threat rather than just being a sadistic fuck and
If he was so inexperienced and poorly trained, why was he out on duty in the first place? And for christ's sake, the guy did not have a weapon. In fact, before the officers decided to shove him face first onto the filty walkway, he was sitting upright, with his hands up, clearly co-operating.
Sadistic intent. We're not discussing whether he should be convicted of a crime, we're discussing whether he should be convicted of murder. An incompetent reaction under stress is not the same as intent to kill.
No, I'm saying that there is enough reasonable doubt about why he pulled the trigger that you can't prove he intended to kill Grant.
Possibly because of what he did or said to the officers before the video started rolling? Sure, that's conjecture, but no more than what you are using.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Definitely a subject that should be formally investigated, but not relevant to whether he intended to kill the victim.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
To be fair, there is good circumstantial evidence and shitty circumstantial evidence, and shitty circumstantial evidence can lead and has led to unjust convictions.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
In your opinion. Take off the blinders, man. We can see where you're coming from, but you refuse to see where we're coming from.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Oh, I get the concept. I didn't say it shouldn't happen at all. I'd prefer some non-circumstantial evidence to go along with it, and it seems (to me, from my limited reading) like many cases that later turn out to be wrongful convictions rely heavily on it.
Say the four-year-old isn't holding his tummy. But he has a six-year-old brother. He says he didn't eat the cookies. He doesn't have cookie breath, and I have no other proof. How do I know his brother didn't set him up, using his shoes to make the footprints?
Should I ground him for 25 to life?
Like I said, it should happen less. I stand by it.
All you did was handwave and go off some more about "police unions". I don't think you're interested in debating as much as you are having a soapbox to let everyone know that yes, you dislike police.
Fixed, el-oh-el.
Because a taser will drop a 300 pound dude who becomes assaultive rather quickly.
Poor training doesn't mean tasers don't have a place in policing.
They provide a tool for taking down a resisting suspect without beating them or shooting them. That the tool may not be used in the way it should doesn't mean it is a bad tool.
The government could use the same logic to declare it illegal for you and I to own firearms, under the presumption that some people use them illegally.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
So that justifies shooting a lethal amount of electricity through people. I have a serious problem with this. Especially because people will always use that force if given the chance. People suck and like lording power over others.
To be fair, there is good direct evidence and shitty direct evidence, and shitty direct evidence can lead and has led to unjust convictions.
Like witnesses threatened by the cops with jail time or losing their children if they didn't give the "correct" testimony. Like 'eyewitnesses' who give perjured testimony because it got them off the hook, or reward money, or revenge, or more work as a police informant. Like well-meaning victims who think they identified the right guy out of a carefully-arranged lineup where the police show them only one picture, or ask them "are you SURE it's him?" to shape their testimony.
Unjust convictions don't happen because the evidence is 'circumstantial'; they happen because providing an adequate defense to poor people is not a priority, particularly in broke-ass states where an awful lot of poor people are minorities, so they get assigned defense attorneys who are criminally overworked at best or incompetent at worse. And they happen because corrupt crime lab technicians and abusive police officers and "testilying" experts who pull "science" out of their asses get away with it.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
In theory they're great. They give officers a fantastic option in the force continuum for subduing resistive subjects that don't necessarily pose a deadly threat...they're generally less risky to both the officer and the suspect than something like a nightstick or even manual grappling, and certainly preferable to a firearm for moderate ranges for a "non-deadly" (and statistically they're relatively safe) option.
The problem, obviously, is two-fold. One, they got billed at some point to officers as a "win button," which means they get used in a lot of situations where neither the nightstick nor gun would ever have been considered. Because they're, in many cases, the lazy man's option. Two, they're a great way to cause pain with minimal lasting damage to the suspect, which appeals to some of the sadistic fucks that do populate our police forces (which Mehserle may have been one of...I just don't buy that it was proven).
So you get lippy college kids in libraries and middle-aged ladies driving home with their groceries getting Tased left and right. And, assuming Mehserle was at least telling the truth about his intent to use the Taser, you get Oscar Grant dead. Plus more than a few others dead from the actual Taser...the more you use it, the more bodies you get, it's just numbers.
Maybe people shouldn't attack police officers?
Do you have any proof for your grand and bold declarations, or are you just posting from Assumption Island?
That is pretty silly for all sorts of reasons.
Are you really serious?
At least 83 reported deaths in the last 18 months. Helpfully with links to each death!
The electricity isn't lethal (the current may be if it hit the heart, but it's confined to the skin so really it isn't). I'm pretty sure that 99% of Taser deaths (which are a stunningly small percentage of Taser usages, though enough to warrant scrutiny) aren't from the electricity. They're either from aggravating other medical conditions, or somebody dropping to the ground unassisted and breaking their damn head open, or other various causes.
However, I agree that there's probably no amount of training that will give the average officer the maturity and discretion needed to carry the damn things responsibly. I think the percieved potential for injury (to the suspect, and perhaps the officer) is useful to prevent the use of force where otherwise it wouldn't be considered.
I was talking more about your "people will always use that force" and "people suck and like lording power over others" statements.
Yes, people do die from being tazed. That's why I said poor training on how to use a tazer and the appropriate circumstances to use it isn't a good reason to villify the tool itself.
EDIT: And yeah, there's information in your link but its being presented through an extremely slanted lens.
It links to the names and races (in bold!) of the people who died, not the circumstances, BTW.
Do you think there's any possibility that widespread use of Tasers prevented/avoided more than 83 fatal shootings in that same time period?
In the meantime, I wouldn't be opposed to removing them from police use, but I don't have strong feelings either way, because I have no way to weigh how many lives they've saved versus how much harm they've done.
Absolutely serious. Maybe not use a barbed projectile though, they could subsitute a plain needle variant for the sake of not scarring the officers too much. What's your objection?
Personally I think it'd be a very healthy reminder to respect what they are actually subjecting people to.
History, any number of psychological experiments. This kind of thing has been repeated over and over, in various forms for at least 50 years.
Your six-year-old says "I saw him eat the cookies, Daddy. I watched him pull out the stepstool, climb on the counter and eat all the Oreos. Then he went into his room and lay down and said his tummy hurt and he wished he hadn't eaten all the cookies."
Voila! Non-circumstantial evidence! You have direct, detailed, eyewitness testimony that your four-year-old ate the cookies. Oh, but wait! It gets better! Your four-year-old says that yes, in fact he ate the Oreos. A confession: the gold standard!
Now, you're going to feel bad later when you realize that your six-year-old is the one who ate the Oreos and is lying his ass off, and that the real reason your four-year-old "confessed" is that his brother punched him in the stomach and said he'd get worse if he didn't "confess" to doing it. You're also going to feel pretty silly for thinking 'but he COULD have gone through an elaborate scenario of forging his brother's footprints!' and completely overlooking the much easier expediency of just telling a lie (albeit a much more believable one than the aliens story).
As for "How do I know"? Well, you sit down and figure out what the evidence actually is, and what makes the most sense. And since you've been a parent for a few years, you're not such a silly goose that you automatically believe everything your kids tell you. Right?
If by "it" you mean unjust convictions, I couldn't agree more. If by "it" you mean "circumstantial evidence", then what you're standing by is your own ignorance of what evidence is and how it's used in trials.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
And how many times have tasers been employed in those 18 months?
EDIT: also, on average, there are ten times more deaths caused by accidental firearm discharge each year. That means NOT SHOOTING YOUR GUN is ten times more lethal than shooting your taser.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
I'm just saying, that link seems a little more even handed than the one screaming about "the murderous police torture killings of innocent African American youth" in bolded font.
I regard it as slim, as officers remain armed with actual firearms, so in situations where shooting deaths are likely, they'd be pulling those. And I suspect that the situations tasers are used in are less likely to be situations that without tasers, guns would be pulled. Though that's purely anecdotal and I have no hard proof of it. So there's a chance.
I also suspect there's a larger number than 83. And that's only deaths where the victim was actually tased, as opposed to situations like the one that led to this particular court case.
Because its pretty silly to punish people for doing their jobs. What's next? "We know you shot that guy who was robbing the store, so now we have to shoot you?"
Better training in use and application of tazers, as well as communications training would go a lot further than your weird ass revenge fantasy.