Signal 46

I find it disparaging how the usage of Tasers is coming under scrutiny lately. Such a weapon is a great tool for an LEO, whether the public believes it or not. Several of the officers where I work have told me that often times just pulling out the Taser and putting the red dot on someone is enough to calm a situation. The P&C published an article today that is very informative; detailing the usage of Tasers and some of the reactions to those who use the Taser, and those who’ve been on the recieving end.

When the suspect burst through the front door, Pontieri yelled, ‘Get on the ground!’ The guy kept running. Pontieri pulled the trigger on his Taser. Pop. Two barbed needles flew toward the man and hit him in the chest. Fifty thousand volts coursed through the Taser’s wires into the needles, and the suspect hit the ground. Pontieri cuffed him. Chase over. No injuries, no gunfire.

No injuries. No gunfire. That right there is probably one of, if not the most important reason that Tasers are so effective. The benefits of the Taser dramatically outweigh any of the bad aspects. If handguns were used in place of the Taser, there’d be a drastic difference in the outcomes of many police cases. NCPD has used the Tasers 201 times in an 18-month period – this may seem extreme, but NCPD is a large agency with a large ‘high-rent district’ (AKA ghetto/high-crime/whatever you wanna call it) throughout most of its jurisdiction.

Despite all these stuns, few people were harmed, and most injuries were related to the barbs digging into people’s bodies, according to the department’s [North Charleston PD] reports.

And I’d be willing to bet that EMS was dispatched to the scene and checked the victims out to make sure that they were okay.

Some argue that police are too quick to use them, especially in situations that aren’t life-threatening.

And how many of these people were there, and experienced what the officer was observing? How many of these people would put themselves in that position? You also have to figure that if the Taser wasn’t available for use…consider the alternatives – a handgun or an asp – both of which offer greater risk for injury (and death as well) to both the officers and the suspects.

‘I haven’t used it in a while,’ he [Sgt. Pontieri - NCPD] said. ‘What happens now is that 99 percent of the time, people give up when they see it, or when they see the red dot (from the Taser’s laser) on them. The officers don’t get hurt, they don’t get hurt and the public doesn’t get hurt. They end up on the car with handcuffs and that’s it.’

Exactly. Need we say more? The article goes on, and even mentions the race card that community ‘leaders’ always seem to throw into the mix. People are forgetting the recial breakdown in an area of course plays into the breakdown of those who commt, and are subsequently arrested for, crimes. If Charleston had a 80% polka-dot population and a 20% striped population, then reason stands to say that there would be more polka-dots getting arrested than striped. Logic, eh? Maybe not:

The newspaper’s analysis also showed that 72 percent of the Taser stun reports involved black people. (In Charleston County, 71 percent involved black people.) Zumalt said he didn’t see ‘a profiling issue’ in those numbers, and pointed to statistics showing that between 1992 and 2002, 72 percent of those arrested in the city for violent assaults were black, and that 70 percent arrested on murder charges were black.

Two different agencies in the same demographical area (same county even!) and the statistics are similar. I’d have to say that the profiling argument just doesn’t hold water in the light of those numbers. Especially when you look at the demographics for the arrests, it’s logical to state that a majority of the Taser usage would be used on those that tend to be the majority who are arrested. Duh.

Before they [NCPD] began carrying Tasers, officers were injured 27.5 percent of the time in cases involving violent conflicts. Now, officers are injured about 7 percent of the time in such situations.

That’s a dramatic drop. More officers uninjured = more officers on the street doing what they’re supposed to do. Next up is some of the victim’s stories on the usage of the Taser. Of course, what most of the criminals don’t seem to realize is that they brought it upon themselves…officers don’t go around Tasing people just for the hell of it, if that was the case I’m certain that there’d be some press on that.

Alana Lord knows what it feels like to be hit with a Taser. On the morning of July 1, 2005, a North Charleston police officer stopped her after she dropped her children off at day care. In his report, the officer said he thought she might have been driving with a suspended license. Lord said when the officer told her she was under arrest, she panicked and ran.

Cry me a river. Long story short, our ‘innocent’ citizen ran, was sideswiped by a car and Tased. She questions the use of the Taser. Okay, so they Tased her – fine. If she had gotten back up after being sideswiped (which probably means barely grazed), and continued to run into traffic, she could have been killed, the officer could have been killed, or drivers attempting to avoid striking either could have been injured and killed. Never mind that had she complied, it’s likely she would have just been given a traffic ticket and been unable to drive (most people seem to forget that you technically cannot drive on a suspended license). The P&C fails to advise if she was actually driving on a suspended license. Either way, she ran, so she was going to go to jail either way most likely. If you’re not guilty, don’t run! Duh.

We have another fine, upstanding citizen here who states:

‘I was just getting off work, and they stopped me outside my house. There were a bunch of lights on and everyone started pointing guns.’ He said the Asberry Wylder shooting flashed through his mind. ‘So I started to run into my house.’ That’s when the Taser hit.

Mmkay. So let me get this straight. You’ve been stopped by the police. A recent police incident involving a shooting flashes through your mind. That incident in your mind involved someone who didn’t cooperate with the police. So you run (AKA not cooperating with the police). To me, this is like saying I turned the stove on and it was hot. I remember my friend burned his hand on the stove. So I put my hand on the stove and I was surprised I was burned. Duh. Duh. Duh. The use of the Taser prevented that subject from getting into his residence. Had he gone inside the residence and failed to come out to meet with the officers and barricated himself inside the house, results would have been very different, and perhaps not in a good way. Once again, the P&C failed to advise why this person was initially stopped, so we do not know any other underlying circumstances as to why he ran and failed to stop (was he being stopped for a felony? misdemeanor? traffic offense?) and why the police acted in the way they did.

The article is slanted towards the whiners, as there is only a three-line paragraph that denotes some people say they deserved it (IMHO I’d bet 99% of them deserved it). The article does not state the percentage of people they contacted who stated they deserved it, so we really only have the reactions of those who felt they didn’t deserve it. You know, similar to how everyone in jail is innocent, right?

But the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International say Tasers are far from benign and should be used only when there is an imminent threat to human life.

‘In some departments,’ Amnesty International said in a report last year, ‘Tasers have become the most prevalent force tool. They have been used against unruly schoolchildren; unarmed mentally disturbed or intoxicated individuals; suspects fleeing minor crime scenes and people who argue with police or fail to comply immediately with a command.’

The same people that would bitch if handguns were pulled in place of a Taser. They’ve been used against unruly schoolchildren. Yes, in this age of children bringing weapons to school and hosing their classmates with bullets, a Taser is certainly a bad option (rolls eyes). Unarmed mentally disturbed and/or intoxicated persons can be just as deadly, if not moreso due to their altered state.

I’d love to see Amnesty International’s reaction if the subjects were Tased once or twice and then when it didn’t work, the police just pulled out their service pistol and shot them. Oh God! Hell no! An injustice. STFU. I hate organizations like that…the NAACP comes to mind.

Mentioned in the article is a few remarks about how some of the subjects were high on crack. No where do they mention the stats on how many of the subjects who died after being Tased were on illegal narcotics. It’s important to know that those who died or suffered after-effects often had exacerbating circumstances (narcotics, health conditions, etc).

The article also has a nice section detailing how many Tasers each local department has and some other statistics. My agency apparently has 50. I didn’t even know CCSO had that many officers to have 315 Tasers.

The public is failing to realize how the Taser prevents often already violent situations from becoming deadly. A small percentage of Tasings end in injury or death, while I’d be willing to bet that if handguns were used that percentage would be dramatically higher. Tasers are non-lethal. You find me a handgun that’s marketed as ‘non-lethal.’ Today’s society has become increasingly more violent, and increasingly less likely to accept responsibility for themselves. People run from the authorities for such minor offenses as expired license tags and end up in jail for something a $232.50 ticket would normally be issued.

Banning the use of Tasers, in my opinion, would endanger communities. Without Tasers criminals would know that they could run and likely get away scot-free. Without Tasers situations that are already dangerous would escalate towards possibly deadly situations. Without Tasers criminals are likely to escape. Without Tasers, people can get hurt. It’s a no-brainer – Tasers are effective. Tasers work. If they didn’t – then there’d be no article, no dispute, no controversy over their usage. Tasers work. Period. Dot. End of story.