Taserboy

You would think that the citizens of a country that invented free speech would have some understanding of what that means. Basically it means Congress will not pass any law, like McCain Feingold, that infringes on your right to speak or express your opinion, especially about your Government. It doesn’t mean you can hijack an event by making an ass out of yourself. Should I walk into Denny’s and start screaming out posts from my blog the owners have every right to throw my but out and that is in no way an infringement of my First Amendment rights. Nevertheless a lot of Americans think that way, like when John Rocker was chastised by the Braves. Tell your customers at Baskin Robbins how fat they are and see how long you work there. Free speech doesn't work like that.

I feel more sorry for the cops than Taserboy; he set them up following in this UCLA student’s footsteps. This is so easy to do that if I had less scruples I could make a comfortable living for myself. I wouldn’t have had any ethical misgivings setting up O.J., talk about easy! I wonder what Tom Riccio got for the tape? We in corrections try and have a camera going when there is any kind of incident or even when it looks like there might be an incident. That’s because we expect to get set up, expect to get sued, and expect to go to court. A camera can be your best friend and witness. The most vital policy in the prison was the Use of Force policy, we devote an eight-hour course to train all new staff followed up by a two-hour refresher course annually. Knowing policy can save your assets and even keep you out of jail. It can save your life or cost you the life of a fellow officer.

The safety of the officers is the highest priority in a prison. Our Use of Force policy allows the use of chemical agents and electronic shock when anyone’s safety is in jeopardy. Case in point, an inmate who refuses to leave his cell can be mased rather than risk injury to the officers and the inmate. Injury is likely when six officers try to forcibly remove someone from a small concrete cell filled with metal bunks and desks. We also have a device called the Bandit that delivers a taser-like eight-second shock that immobilizes the person it is strapped to. We use this on high-risk inmates that are going to court. Many judges will order you to remove an inmate’s restraints so as not to prejudice a jury. The bandit can be worn under the clothes. Any threatening behavior including standing up and screaming will result in a ride on the Bandit.

Some idiot on Fox is calling it deadly force! Deadly force means death is a likely result, such as with firearms. Tasers are less than lethal, although rare accidents can occur they don't often result in injury. We have to be gassed, maced, and take a ride on the Bandit as part of our training in those devices. I guess I should count myself lucky they don’t require us to be shot as part of our firearms training. The ACLU, and you’ll be hearing them weigh in on Taserboy, considers the Bandit to be a torture device. I actually rode it twice and while it hurts like hell it ain’t that bad. We have elderly female officers that took it stoically while Taserboy screamed like a little girl. Of course he was playing for the camera. As soon as he was warned that he would be tasered if he failed to quit resisting he began to scream “Don’t taser me! Don’t taser me!” He knew he had them.

I don’t presume to know these guys Use of Force policy but I hope they were following it. The guy was obviously resisting arrest but I can’t say if he was a threat to the officers or himself. That is the officer’s call. I do know that they were about to go down some stairs and that can be very dangerous with an unrestrained unwilling prisoner. He was not restrained when tasered, near as I can tell, he would not consent to restraints. Were the officers supposed to roll around on the floor with him until he gave up? We use chemical agents and tasers as tools that gives us an alternative to more dangerous use of force. When we think of five or six officers on a person we assume they should easily get control of that person. Try it sometime. We would do it a lot during drills and it can be really difficult. It’s not like a six on one fight; the officers don’t get to knock the snot out of the person. The mission is to get him restrained without injury to anyone. Even in drills where we were trying to be careful this resulted in a fair share of minor injuries. Getting tased hurts but does not result in injury. Now if he was restrained as I heard one witness say then these officers are in trouble.

A side note, what I find hilarious about this besides the obvious comedic effect of seeing Taserboy get tasered, is it happened to Kerry. The left loves to do disgusting things in the name of free speech, loves civil disobedience, confrontation with cops, screaming, shouting, etc. You don’t see conservatives do this so the left seldom gets a taste of it’s own medicine. But then of course Kerry took Taserboy’s side.