granny gets tasered. when will people learn?

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I think the essential question here is "was the tazering a use of excessive force." As it should be. And the answer in this one is "we don't have enough information." For goodness sake, there's not even sound on the video! The video starts with the officer having the tazer already in hand, which means we get to pick up the story in mid-stream. It makes me wonder what happened to the tape before what we saw. Where's the rest of it? You can't believe that the recorder only picked up what was played. Methinks that was editted to only show what we saw.

Now, I realize many of you will be loathe to do this, but let's try anyway. YOU are the police officer. YOU have to arrest this woman, presumably for domestic violence (state law says that someone has to go to jail in these cases). YOU go to arrest her and she resists. (at this time it only looks like she simply won't let the officer grab her wrist). You still have to arrest her. So let's look at your options (no, letting her go is not an option. she's under arrest for domestic violence against her own grandchild)
1. attempt to control her hand/arm/wrist via physical force.
2. pepper spray, then control and cuff.
3. tazer, then control and cuff.
4. baton, control and cuff.
5. shoot her.

I don't think there would be any argument that 4 and 5 are out. So that leaves 1-3. Since she's not going to stand up, turn around and place her hands behind her back, you've got to choose one. So what are the potential hazards to 1-3?
1. Turns into a wrestling match in which the grandma gets taken down to the ground hard and possibly breaks something. Officer "risks" injury from fight.
2. ever been sprayed with pepper spray? It's not fun, and I would fight that much harder. not to mention that indoors, you risk contaminating others and also yourself. It is very hard to do your job of arresting someone when you've been sprayed with pepper spray (btdt).
3. A tazer is designed to cause muscles to tighten up and not function for a second or two in order to immobilize the suspect. Woman could fall and break something. Slight possibility of electric shock upsetting something (this is very slight, look up how many people have been killed by tazing vs. how many have not.) Officer probably will not be injured.

I would have probably tried a small amount of "pain compliance" which basically involves pressure points and joint locks. I would not have used the spray because I don't want to get hit with it, (and seriously, I might prefer to be shot rather than being sprayed again). I would not have used the tazer yet, because I am very confident in my abilities to control through joint manipulation and am willing to risk getting my face scratched up. Which one would you have done?
 
You say, "not without my lawyer." Then if they proceed, you make sure they do it in f

"When a cop tells you to do something, you'd better do it???" For goodness sake. A thirty year old "trained" professional cannot handle an unarmed Grandmother, without using a Tazer Gun on her?

This reminds me of "...You vil do as you are ordered......You vil comply, und you vil like it!...Und, you vil like, liking it! If not, it is the shocking for you!"
 
First, Out with the retarded air, in with the good air. Repeat.

Personally, I would not have dealt with the old lady like that. But what I would do and what HE did are only different in personal feelings. If his department's force continuum allows the use of a tazer to a non-compliant person, then he acted within policy. That may not be how you or I would have done it, but it doesn't mean it was unlawful.
Example: BG pulls out a pistol: Officer X draws and fires on BG. Officer Y wrestles the gun away (both officers acted within policy, however only one fealt like HE didn't want to shoot someone. Both actions are waranted on the force continuum scale for that threat, however whichever particular force the officer wants to use is up to him and him alone as long as it is within policy).
 
I would have probably tried a small amount of "pain compliance" which basically involves pressure points and joint locks.
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From your lips to God's Ear, jc. And it may be that this officer did attempt a more appropriate choice from the force continuum at first. It may be that he had reasonable belief that Granny would do a Summo number on him. We'll hopefully learn this.

But what we have today from the film and the officer's statements, fails to answer these questions. Thus the story remains one worth following.

The idea of prudent use of Taser to avoid greater violence to LEO or Suspect is a laudable one. Unfortunately, that attitude is being replaced in the minds of many with the concept that the Taser is to be used to end ALL POTENTIALLY violent situations. As such, it's place on the Force Continuum is way too low, IMHO.

This case does not necessarily reflect that error; but it does point up how many of our own Members feel the Taser is a "no big deal" tool of everyday compliance; replacing all other physical restraint tactics short of firearms.

This is a scary thought. I still have yet to hear from one LEO as to what they're reaction would be if I tortured my dog in the park, with a training collar on high for 20 seconds because he refused to "obey" my command. Not many are gonna stand up and claim they'd be fine with that.

Breacher-
The fact that something is "Policy" does not make it right. That's where so many people miss the point of Freedom. If we're to accept every bad Gun Law and every ATF Abuse of Policy as "OK" simply because they're codified, we might as well turn the lights off in the L&P Forum for the duration. Only Public outrage changes Bad Policy.
Rich
 
Rich, I'll bite :)

But can I change one thing to make it closer to the situation? Change the 20 second shock to 3-4 seconds, repeated each time your dog did not obey or whatever. You were correct in your original assessment at least as it applies to me. i would definitely "extend the interview." I'm going on a hypothetical here because I've never had to do this scenario. If you were in the process of training your dog, and I thought that you were not being malicious and mean, I'd probably walk away (partially because my step father trains animals) and let you train how you saw fit. It's really about attitude for me. If I thought you were being cruel on purpose instead of trying to train, we'd probably take a ride for some further interviewing. I would not personally train my dock with a shock collar, but again, we do have some personal liberty.

Now, I don't think this applies directly to someone being under arrest and refusing to cooperate, but it's close enough when talking about a tazer I guess.

I also run a risk if I choose to put hands on this woman. She can fight back with any number of strikes if she chooses. I also run the risk of breaking something on her in this type of confrontation. I can understand how some officers would choose the tazer as it is considered non-lethal and actually below the baton on the force continuum (for my dept). Here's another bit of fodder for the cop-haters. We spent ONE WEEK on defensive tactics, which is hand to hand combat, handcuffing, and baton use. I have extensively more experience than that, so I'm comfortable in those situations with a lower use of force (which really translates to the fact that my use of soft hands techniques is equal on the continuum to others' use of pepper spray if that makes any sense).

Let me try another approach. For those of you who have any martial arts experience. Who is more likely to make a mistake during training? The guy with one week's training, or the guy with 2 years' training? Who is more likely to hurt you because they have less ability to control their techniques. Now, take that over to the LEO field. You(for the sake of argument) are under arrest. Would you rather the officer with one week's training in arm bars and wrist locks try and go hand to hand with you, or taze you?

Again, this looks bad, but we only have about 7 seconds of a what 30? second (at least) scenario?
 
jcoiii-
Stick around. I'm liking you more by the minute, for your honesty and thought process.

As to the dog scenario, I grant your edit; but you make my point. In context, once all the facts are in, you might not like it, but would let it go. On the face of it, however, you're understandably uncomfortable and demand to know the context and the facts. Were I wearing a Humane Society uniform, I'd venture to say your reactions would be exactly the same as you've stated. And so it is with many of us...on the face of it, we're uncomfortable and demand to know more. Hopefully the courts will provide that and no-one (on either side) will grouse that they're just being PC or Cronyish.

Now to the use of purely physical restraint. I don't expect every cop to be Bruce Lee. Nor do I accept any who's only physical skills are a neck-choke or baton. I expect carpenters to know various ways to hang wall board, electricians to know various ways to bypass a short, nurses to know various ways to take a pulse and LEO's to know various ways to gain compliance. Such are not universally required prior to Taser, but they definitely should be in one's tool bag.

This goes triple when we have a huge size, age, weight and gender difference; when the officer is not an officer at all but a Lieutenant, responsible for setting example and the event takes place in a Police Station. Again, I don't know if the LT. attempted calm verbal engagement, followed by a simple wrist lock, only to disengage upon recognizing that the hold would require more pain than he was willing to inflict; thus requiring the Taser.

But I do know this:
When officers assume that every attempt to cuff a recalcitrant suspect, no matter what the physical disparity, will require an arm bar, head butt, clothes line, pile driver and ground crash, they fail to meet my requirements for appropriate skill set for the job....mental or physical.
Rich
 
That is not the point

Quote
"Would you rather the officer with one week's training in arm bars and wrist locks try and go hand to hand with you, or taze you?"

You miss the point. That questions is like asking, "what train car would you rather be forced into, the cattle car, or the box car?

The point is not to determine the level of insipid, ludicrous treatment that should be accepted when dealing with a 68 year old granny. The point is, it is unreasonable to use an electric shock device on a 68 year old woman, or to use "arm bars or wrist locks" on a 68 year old granny, just because she has the audacity to use her vocal chords.

It is ludicrous to continue to employ someone in the capacity of a law enforcment officer who is incapable of handling a 68 year old grandma without shocking her with a Tazer. He knew she was unarmed, and at least three times older than him! He can't handle a 68 year old lady without a Tazer Gun, wrist locks, or arm bars???

Jesus. How about just wailing on the old biddy with a riding crop?
 
Indeed, it is the point. She is under arrest, 68 year old grandma or not. She will be arrested, unless you'd make the argument that she should not be arrested because she didn't want to be. This is not an incident in a vacuum. The officer did not just run up to some old woman and say she was under arrest. She was under arrest for domestic violence against her grand-daughter. But I guess since she's 68, she should get a pass and not be arrested.

Again, I put it to you. How would you have arrested her?
 
Well obviously I would have arrested her without utilizing an electronic shock device that has an approximate 50/50 chance of killing her via siezure, or heart failure!

I can handle an unarmed, Depends wearing ARRP Member without the aide of batons, arm bars, phone cranks, or a cat o' nine tails. etc, because I have no fear of being gummed to death by a 68 year old grandmother.

She was not any physical threat to that officer, and the use of a Tazer was dangerous, unnecessary, cruel, stupid, and at best, a poor decision.

If he thinks an unarmed 68 year old grandma who is already inside a police station full of cops was a threat to his safety, then he needs to go work in a day care center somewhere, so the five year olds won't scare him.

No amount of "what if" or "have you ever" will change the fact that an unarmed, 68 year old grandma does not need to be popped with a Tazer gun for 20 seconds.
 
Gary-
In fairness, there are definitely times that physical restraint would simply not work, given the two people in this scenario. Anyone who has ever been around mentally unstable individuals knows, no matter the size, the last thing you want to do is go hands on.

So, I'm just not willing to call the facts "in" on this case. Here's what we do know:
- The news reports do no look good to the Police.
- The news reports, including the film clip are obviously "filtered"; this is usually done to make the LEOs look bad.
Rich
 
Anyone who has ever been around mentally unstable individuals knows,

Rich:
Well said. Now we just need to see a little more, to be sure which one is definitely the mentally unstable one.

I am betting it comes in "Tazer Guy."

Because the only threat I see Granny doing, is sitting down on the bench, and pulling her hand away when he grabs her wrist. (Maybe that sitting down action on her part, is a dangerous martial arts move I am unfamiliar with)
 
Well obviously I would have arrested her without utilizing an electronic shock device that has an approximate 50/50 chance of killing her via siezure, or heart failure!
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:rolleyes: 50/50 huh? Just a quick bit of looking and I discovered that since 2001 there have been 70 deaths related to tazers (from amnesty intl). I could not find in a quick search the number of tazings per year, but if we average these deaths, that's 14 deaths per year related to tazings. That would require 28 tazings per year to be a 50/50. So, let's try a little harder please.

Also, she was not tazed for 20 seconds. She was tazed ove 20 seconds. You can see on the video that he tazes her for a couple of seconds, and then she falls over. As he is approaching her, he would not be tazing her due to the fact that if he touched her, he would get the same effect. One of the articles did say that he tazed her three times after what we see on the video. But when you taze someone, you zap them for a couple of seconds, then let off. So it was not a consistent 20 seconds worth of shock to her body.

Now, I entirely agree that if I were the officer, the tazing would have been unnecessary. But, it is possible that the officer was acting within his company policy. As such, he as an individual is not in trouble. If it was within department policy, and the court decides it was an unnecessary use of force, then the department will be held responsible. If it was beyond department policy, then the officer will be hung out to dry.

Either way, I think we can all agree that if the officer felt the need to taze this woman because he was worried about being unable to control her, he at the very least needs a lot more training. Do I think it's ridiculous for him to have tazed her? Yes, actually. Based on the facts as given, I wouldn't have done the same thing. Neither would anyone here if I am reading correctly. That does not correlate to this officer's actions being illegal or even immoral. But you are entitled to your opinion as well.
 
Either way, I think we can all agree that if the officer felt the need to taze this woman because he was worried about being unable to control her, he at the very least needs a lot more training.
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NO, he needs to find another line of work, maybe gardening. Being his size, and age, if he was worried about keeping an elderly woman under control, he is in the wrong line of work.
 
70 deaths related to tazers

Quote "Just a quick bit of looking and I discovered that since 2001 there have been 70 deaths related to tazers"


Well, of the people tazed in your study, how may of those individuals were sixty eight year old females?

Try again on the research of deaths of the tazed.

The odds, I still contend, are if you take a 68 year old grandmother, and pop her with a Tazer, you have a 50/50 chance she will die on you.

(I wouldn't want to bet on my granny's survival at those odds)

Regardless, with her sitting down, inside a lock up, totally unarmed, there is one percentage I am absolutely certain of, as are apparantly you. There was ZERO percent of physical threat or physical harm, to him, from a 90 pound granny.
 
There was ZERO percent of physical threat or physical harm, to him, from a 90 pound granny.
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I'm biting down hard as I say this, but it doesn make much never-mind if a 22 year old woman claws for your eyes with her fingernails, or a 68-year old.

The documentary evidence doesn't show any such assault - but it doesn't show a hell of a lot either.

If I was sat on a jury, and this video was all that was available (and I hope to hades it wouldn't be!) then I'd still have to say "Insufficient data for meaningful answer".

Lt. Bowling looks like a big feller, to be sure. But it also looks like a lot of that bigness isn't muscle-mass. I haven't got enough information to be sure if this was a Good Tase or a Bad Tase, so I cannot pass judgement on this case with the data provided.

I doubt I'd have ever found it necessary to tase this woman, but I'm six-foot-four and routinely forget that I'm carrying 15 kilos of tech on my back 'cause I don't notice the weight. *shrugs*

I can, however, envisage a situation in which I would find it preferable to shock a 68-year-old woman than to engage her in any other manner.

My core objection - that anyone who doesn't comply with Legally Mandated Authority is "asking for it" - stands.
 
but it doesn make much never-mind if a 22 year old woman claws for your eyes with her

How bout a white bunny, with nasty, pointy teeth? :)
 
We do know that she could assault her grand-daughter.

I brought my little bit of research. Rather than asking me to look up info for your case, how bout you do it yourself? Your 50/50 assessment is wrong. Rather than base statements with percentages on your feelings, I would suggest finding those percentages first. I will try and look up those numbers. However, i will post them after you do, to ensure that you do indeed look them up. However, I doubt you'll let any facts get in the way of that 50/50 statement.
 
You need research to figure this?

Quote:
I brought my little bit of research. Rather than asking me to look up info for your case, how bout you do it yourself? Your 50/50 assessment is wrong. Rather than base statements with percentages on your feelings, I would suggest finding those percentages first. I will try and look up those numbers. However, i will post them after you do, to ensure that you do indeed look them up. However, I doubt you'll let any facts get in the way of that 50/50 statement."


Sir:

I don't need a research study to inherently know, that tazing the crap out of an elderly woman would give me about a 50/50 chance of having to call her next of kin. Here's why.

If you meet an elderly person, there is no way on god's green earth without knowing her medical history, if she has a pacemaker or not. Therefore, it is a toss up on her survivability if you pop her with a Tazer. She may live, and she may die. So therefore, it is inarguably, a 50/50 chance, in my untrained mind.

When you say as you did on the first response, "only 70 people since 2001 have died" from this supposedly non-lethal method, that statement alone pretty much makes the point that they should not be used unless the assailant/granny is armed. And since she is sitting down on a bench, and all she did was pull her arm back when he clenched it, she is in no way a threat to the guy at that point.

Ain't no "feelings" to it. It is just called common sense.

(PS We do not "Know" she assaulted anyone. We only know there is an allegation she did so. But we do know he popped an old woman with a Tazer, that was sitting on a bench. I don't think it can be justified to taze someone because of an allegation. You can only justify it if the person is a threat, in my opinion) Additionally, you left out the following portions from your Amnesty International report research. I have cut and pasted it for you.

"Amnesty International is calling on the manufacturers of electroshock weapons to warn police departments not to use TASERs on vulnerable, nonviolent populations, as even a consultant for the largest supplier of TASERs to law enforcement admits risk. According to Dr. Anthony Bleetman, who consults for Taser International, Inc., "Elderly subjects and those with pre-existing heart disease are perhaps at an increased risk of cardiac complications and death following exposure to large quantities of electrical energy."(note 1) Although Dr. Bleetman maintains that TASERs are safe, in the same report he also stated, "The risk of harm might well be higher for using these devices on patients with pre-existing heart and neurological diseases."(note 2)
 
Well, here's some more information that will more likely than not not change your views, but others might care.

I found only a couple of incidences online with actual yearly stats for agencies that carry a taser and use them. One set of stats is from the FBI, found here http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2005/mar2005/march05leb.htm
They show that from 2001 to 2003, in the Orange Co. Sheriffs Office in FL, the LEOs used a taser and average of 424 times per year.
This website http://www.wcpo.com/news/2004/local/11/15/tasers.html shows the Cincinatti PDs usage for 9 months in 2004 at 447 uses. Now, from the FBI website, over 5400 LEAs use the taser. I think we can grant that many will not use the taser nearly this much. So I suggest an average of say 200 tasings per dept per year (just to be on the low side).
Therefore with these modest averages , each year, there are 1,080,000 tasings. Since 2001 through say 2004, there have therefore been 4,320,000 tazings. In that same time period (plus the statistics from this year, there have been 70 deaths with the taser being a factor in death (not the cause, necessarily, just a factor). So that means that the amount of people that have died with the taser as a factor in their death is the following percentage.

.0000162= .00162% if I remember my decimals from high school. That further means that 99.99838% of tasings did not result in the death of the subjects being tased.

I realize that this does not equate to "this cop should have tased this woman." Nor do I think I would have done it. But I will not base my decision on my own feelings about how this looked. By the way, several have mentioned that this lady was unarmed. Was that established anywhere? (and no, being in a police station does not guarantee that she was unarmed. you do not necessarily pass through a metal detector when you enter the waiting area of all police stations)

And one other thing I don't understand. According to law, what does the fact that a person resisting arrest is 68 and female?
 
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