A Stitch in Haste

To review: I consider Taser use to be acceptable only as alternative to the use of deadly force, not as an alternative to mere exertion by a law enforcement officer, and certainly not as an alternative to calling for backup. The Taser is meant to save lives, not to save overtime charges and certainly not to empower jackboots.

Let us proceed —

ITEM: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are continuing to review and revise their policies regarding Taser use in the wake of the widely condemned death, at the Vancouver airport in October 2007 and captured on video, of a Polish immigrant who was repeatedly Tasered after only a 24-second confrontation with Mounties. The latest update:

RCMP officials relied too heavily on information provided by manufacturers when they developed their own stun gun policies and training programs, an independent review concludes.
…
The review was finished in June, but only made public on Friday.
…
The review, done by a group of independent consultants, concludes that the RCMP did an “inadequate” review of the literature available on Tasers and had an “overreliance” on anecdotal information.
…
The review, which questions the safety of stun guns — especially when used on pregnant women, drug users or people with medical conditions — argues that there should be national standards to guide Taser use by police forces across the country.

MY TAKE: Here’s a possible “national standard” — you are not authorized to deploy the Taser unless you would also be authorized to use your firearm. With such a standard, I doubt anyone would look back and criticize the Taser itself. The officer’s judgment, perhaps, but not the Taser. (Via Boing Boing.)

—

ITEM: A federal appellate court, meanwhile, moves in the opposite direction —

A divided federal appellate panel has ruled that a Florida deputy did not use excessive force when he shocked a motorist three times with a Taser after the man refused to sign a traffic citation and then sat on the ground crying rather than enter the patrol car.

In an unpublished opinion released Sept. 9, the split panel reversed the lower court ruling of a Florida district judge and remanded the case for dismissal. In the panel’s majority opinion, J.L. Edmondson, chief judge of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, held that Deputy Jonathan Rackard’s repeated use of a Taser on a handcuffed Jesse Daniel Buckley was not an unconstitutionally excessive use of force.

MY TAKE: Read that again. An already-handcuffed man, mentally distraught but not belligerent, sitting on the ground crying, is tasered three times for refusing to sign his speeding ticket. And this court dares to conclude not only that the officer is entitled to qualified immunity (i.e., made an honest mistake), but in fact made no mistake at all, since his actions were not unconstitutional. The thought that maybe, just maybe, the officer could simply have called for backup and a paddy wagon rather than tase the motorist three times (did I mention that he was already handcuffed and sitting on the ground crying?) never occurred to either the officer, his supervisors who craft Taser policy, or this court. Now that’s “stunning.” (A post script: The dissenting judge, besides writing an unassailable response to the majority opinion, also notes that the incident was captured on police video and calls for it to be made part of the court record, just as the Supreme Court did in Scott v. Harris, 127 S. Ct. 1769 (2007). I concur wholeheartedly. More on that here. Warning: The video, especially the audio, is in my opinion very disturbing.) The case is Buckley v. Haddock, No. 07-10988 (11th Cir., September 9, 2008, unpublished) (PDF – 38 pages)

—

ITEM: Another example of the Taser as a substitute not for a firearm but merely for backup —

A 40-year-old man walking his dog in the nude Friday night in northwest Tallahassee was Tasered by police when he became belligerent and refused to follow an officer’s commands.
…
When asked what he was doing, the man told the officer, “Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog,” McCranie said.

“He was obviously having some sort of emotional distress,” he said. “It was unfortunate we had to use the Taser. … It was the only way we could subdue him without having to hurt him.”

MY TAKE: Actually I’ll just use Howling Point’s take —

So, exactly how do you Taser someone without “hurting” them? Sad to see such a pretty language being tortured like that.

And I don’t even have to get into the appropriateness and necessity of subduing a naked man walking his dog on Allah’s command just because he got belligerent.

Indeed. Note that we also don’t know how the officer defines “belligerent,” or what size dog it was.

Previously:
–What is the Proper Role for Tasers?
–Tasers: “Authorized” is Not Synonymous with “Reasonable”
–Taser Thug Quote of the Day
–Another “Jackboot + Taser” Travesty

Filed under: Fourth Amendment, Law Enforcement Abuses, Updates