Proper policy is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS communication first.
Of course. I'm not saying they tase for jaywalking, I'm saying that in the event of a possible altercation, the taser is the go-to thing, before the baton, the mace and certainly before the fists and body-weight. They are trained to taze if they even suspect violence from the suspect.
Also, I didn't say they don't hurt, I said they don't hurt you. Two different things.
Thanks for the link to the info. From what I've seen in the past, it was pretty definitive, though.
I recognize that police officers have difficult jobs and that they protect us and that Canada's police force is quite an excellent one in comparison with many other police forces in the world. Many of Canada's police officers are sagacious and communicative enough to go through their entire careers without using deadly force.
But let us examine this incident taking into account police policy, the circumstances, and alternatives. Dziekanski (the individual tasered) was agitated: he had spent many hours in detention for an unknown reason (it's safe to assume he wasn't a terrorist or anything). He was vexed and agitated and was walking around the airport. This was exacerbated because he could not find his mother (whom he was supposed to meet) and that no one could verbally communicate with him.
Not only did YVR not find a Polish interpreter, they did not utilize the airport's telephone translation service. Consequently, a fair portion of the mix-up can be attributed to the incompetence of YVR staff. I don't know if the YVR staff told the police that Dziekanski was acting threateningly or that the police figured it out themselves; either way it was wrong of them to utilize a large amount of force in such a short time.
Proper police policy (not rules or laws, merely ways of appropriate policing) dictates that communication is to be tried first. It was hindered in this case and I attribute another part of this predicament to the lack of communication (which of course was partly caused by YVR staff being (1) unable to find an interpreter and (2) not utilizing the telephone translation service).
Now, here were four or five officers standing in front of Dziekanski. Apparently he had taken out a stapler or something but according to most sources, he was not acting threateningly. Merely, he was agitated and in a state of great confusion. Before they withdrew their tasers, they had two alternatives (aside from using other weapons): (1) try to communicate with him (I know this sounds silly because there wasn't an interpreter around but I believe some communication could have taken place with hand gestures telling him to sit down or something); or (2) try to take him down by force. Even if (1) had failed, they should have tried (2) because there were four of them. They either must have been intimidated by Dziekanski's stature (he stood 6'9"), improperly trained or merely lazy (all three conclusions are sensible and are not mutually exclusive) because they resorted to shocking ceaselessly him with 50,000 volts of electricity.
Police are trained in martial arts (specifically judo which allows smaller individuals to take down much larger opponents), how to appropriately react to someone who is NON-threatening, and of course alternatives. Where the fuck was this when they were dealing with Dziekanski? I mentioned he wasn't threatening and that there were other viable alternatives that the officers could have used. What do we train them for? What is the use of training if the individual will simply disregard it and opt for the easy way out of using excessive force to deal with a situation? Part of the reason that Canada is the great country that it is is that we are not a police state. Police officers have tough jobs, but that's why we pay them that much. That's why we expect them to do their jobs courteously (especially when dealing with the non-violent).
Despite the incompetence of YVR staff, the situation could still have been fixed by the RCMP. All it would have taken was to try to communicate with Dziekanski and if that didn't work, take him down physically (without weapons). It would have been justifiable to use tasers if (1) he was threatening; (2) there were no attempts made to communicate with him; and (3) efforts had been made to take him down physically and restrain him rather than incapacitate him. I don't doubt the effectiveness of tasers in some situations. But the taser should have been used rationally and with Dziekanski this was clearly not the case.
The RCMP has not only disgraced itself but all of Canada and Dziekanski's case serves as the clarion call for our officers not to overinterpret policy and for all officers to use only the appropriate amount of force.
Er.. the police should have used Judo rather than a Taser? What are you smoking?
Pretend you're the police officer. There's a large guy who has been acting violently and he's holding a metal object.
You can:
A. Try to physically restrain him. This poses a risk to you and your fellow officers of being stabbed, beaten, etc. It also poses a large risk of causing serious injury to the suspect.
B. Taser him. This poses a small risk to the suspect and no risk to the police officers.
Hmm... is Judo still looking like the best option here?
Er.. the police should have used Judo rather than a Taser? What are you smoking?
:confused:
OK
Now where did I say that judo should be used instead of tasers? Wait, I didn't. I merely said other alternatives need (and physically restraining the perpetrator being among them) to be considered before officers resort to the taser. Two properly trained officers would have sufficed but there were FOUR. They could have tried to physically take him down; if that didn't work then the tasers could have sensibly been used.
Ether;17706 said:
Pretend you're the police officer. There's a large guy who has been acting violently and he's holding a metal object.
1. He wasn't acting violently, he was merely agitated. He didn't harm anyone.
2. That metal object was a stapler which was clearly visible. He didn't attempt to hurt anyone with the stapler. His hands were at his sides and he wasn't making any rapid jerking movements.
Ether;17706 said:
You can:
A. Try to physically restrain him. This poses a risk to you and your fellow officers of being stabbed, beaten, etc. It also poses a large risk of causing serious injury to the suspect.
B. Taser him. This poses a small risk to the suspect and no risk to the police officers.
Hmm... is Judo still looking like the best option here?
You leave me with a false set of options since Dziekanski wasn't acting violently. As such, there was minimal risk if the officers had tried to physically restrain him (or use judo). THERE WERE FOUR COPS AND NONE OF THEM CONSIDERED EVEN TRYING TO RESTRAIN HIM? Also, did the cops think the stapler was a knife? Do we taxpayers pay cops $65,000 a year for them not to be able to tell the fucking difference between a knife and a stapler?
Again, I'm not against the use of tasers; I'm against the excessive and insensible use of tasers. Using the taser on Dziekanski was clearly excessive (he was already on the ground) and insensible (he was screaming in pain).
Ether;17706 said:
B. Taser him. This poses a small risk to the suspect and no risk to the police officers.
Read my earlier post about the number of taser-related deaths and you'll see exactly how "small" this risk is.
Insatiable, you honestly believe that 16 deaths since 2003 means that there is a "fair chance" that tazers can be lethal? Again, I'd never say they pose no threat. What I've said numerous times, though, is that they pose a significantly SMALLER threat than batons and physical wrestling, and are far more effective than mace. I don't have a link handy, but I can tell you that the number of people killed in an average 4 year period prior to 2003 from having police officers tackle them to the ground was FAR higher than 16. Especially if you include heart attacks induced by the arrest as part of the death toll, as the tazer numbers do.
And as I said above, mace is what it is, but it's not a particularly effective stopper on a large and hardened criminal. Plus, and this is just a fact, it's far more painful and long-lasting than a tazer shock.
Nobody's ever argued that tazers are safe. They're not. What they are is a hell of a lot SAFER than the other options out there, both for the cops and also, especially, for the arestees.
I am going to have to back up Ether here. A police (one, four, or a hundred, it does not matter how many there are), see an agitated man (which is a threat no matter how small it may be) sees him pull out a metal object and in this situation you do not have the time to decipher what this object is, it is a weapon no matter what it is. The police have this split second to decide what to do and for the police to have tazered him was a good idea.
Ultimately, no one knows fully what happened, the media is throwing this entire charade way out of proportion and these police officers did not do anything criminally wrong.
Insatiable, you honestly believe that 16 deaths since 2003 means that there is a "fair chance" that tazers can be lethal? Again, I'd never say they pose no threat. What I've said numerous times, though, is that they pose a significantly SMALLER threat than batons and physical wrestling, and are far more effective than mace. I don't have a link handy, but I can tell you that the number of people killed in an average 4 year period prior to 2003 from having police officers tackle them to the ground was FAR higher than 16. Especially if you include heart attacks induced by the arrest as part of the death toll, as the tazer numbers do.
And as I said above, mace is what it is, but it's not a particularly effective stopper on a large and hardened criminal. Plus, and this is just a fact, it's far more painful and long-lasting than a tazer shock.
Nobody's ever argued that tazers are safe. They're not. What they are is a hell of a lot SAFER than the other options out there, both for the cops and also, especially, for the arestees.
I'm not against tasers Morro. They can be used sensibly by properly trained individuals to reduce the risk of injury or harm. It is quite painful and usually the individual ends up receiving injuries from falling after the shock simply because the shock is just so great. Technically, the fall isn't caused by the taser's electricity damaging the body; it is often an overlooked result of a taser's use.
The website where I got the sixteen deaths statistic from sees sixteen deaths as no laughing matter. However, I believe that the injuries from both the use of tasers and physical force can be greatly reduced if each is used sensibly and appropriately. A complying (or non-resisting) individual only needs a bit of force to be taken down. When there's someone showing violent intentions, instability, and threatening behaviour, the taser is an appropriate tool.
Most think that police tools fall along a spectrum from, say, lethal to non-lethal or something like that. This is not a fair way of looking at it. Each police tool does a job; neither is really superior to the other. Sometimes the gun is more effective than mace; other times a few compelling words can save much effort and potentially many lives. Each police tool is a means towards an end (most of the ends are more or less the same) and I emphasize that they don't run along a hierarchy but are actually equal to one another.
Getting back to the taser, if there have been sixteen deaths since 2003, then perhaps we're not properly training our police. Maybe the officers should have stopped zapping Dziekanski when he was on the ground and screaming. Officers need to realize that as much punishment as some people take, a human life can be quite fragile and is immeasurably delicate. Each tool should be used soberly, sensibly, and only in the proper set of circumstances for which it was designed.
The website where I got the sixteen deaths statistic from sees sixteen deaths as no laughing matter.
Right, but neither is MORE than 16 deaths, you see what I'm saying? It's one thing to say that you're not against tazers, but that seems disingenuous is a thread where your main argument is against an example of tazer use.
Getting back to the taser, if there have been sixteen deaths since 2003, then perhaps we're not properly training our police.
Or perhaps some amount of tragedy and accident is 100% unavoidable, always, end of story? I mean, the GOAL is always to have zero casualties, but that doesn't mean that if you haven't totally reached that plateau you therefor declare the tactic flawed. The fact that there's been only 16, to me, speaks very well to the safeness of tazers.
As to him being tazed again after he first hit the ground, on that point I am more ambivalent. I'll leave that discussion to those who know more about police prodedure than I. I'll say that it seems viscerally distasteful to me, but perhaps it's procedure, and perhaps there are good reasons for it to be procedure. In that case, I just don't know.
Essentially, what we must ask ourselves is this: was everything possible done to ensure proper police procedure was followed? Were the officers competent and properly trained?
Comments
Also, I didn't say they don't hurt, I said they don't hurt you. Two different things.
Thanks for the link to the info. From what I've seen in the past, it was pretty definitive, though.
But let us examine this incident taking into account police policy, the circumstances, and alternatives. Dziekanski (the individual tasered) was agitated: he had spent many hours in detention for an unknown reason (it's safe to assume he wasn't a terrorist or anything). He was vexed and agitated and was walking around the airport. This was exacerbated because he could not find his mother (whom he was supposed to meet) and that no one could verbally communicate with him.
Not only did YVR not find a Polish interpreter, they did not utilize the airport's telephone translation service. Consequently, a fair portion of the mix-up can be attributed to the incompetence of YVR staff. I don't know if the YVR staff told the police that Dziekanski was acting threateningly or that the police figured it out themselves; either way it was wrong of them to utilize a large amount of force in such a short time.
Proper police policy (not rules or laws, merely ways of appropriate policing) dictates that communication is to be tried first. It was hindered in this case and I attribute another part of this predicament to the lack of communication (which of course was partly caused by YVR staff being (1) unable to find an interpreter and (2) not utilizing the telephone translation service).
Now, here were four or five officers standing in front of Dziekanski. Apparently he had taken out a stapler or something but according to most sources, he was not acting threateningly. Merely, he was agitated and in a state of great confusion. Before they withdrew their tasers, they had two alternatives (aside from using other weapons): (1) try to communicate with him (I know this sounds silly because there wasn't an interpreter around but I believe some communication could have taken place with hand gestures telling him to sit down or something); or (2) try to take him down by force. Even if (1) had failed, they should have tried (2) because there were four of them. They either must have been intimidated by Dziekanski's stature (he stood 6'9"), improperly trained or merely lazy (all three conclusions are sensible and are not mutually exclusive) because they resorted to shocking ceaselessly him with 50,000 volts of electricity.
Police are trained in martial arts (specifically judo which allows smaller individuals to take down much larger opponents), how to appropriately react to someone who is NON-threatening, and of course alternatives. Where the fuck was this when they were dealing with Dziekanski? I mentioned he wasn't threatening and that there were other viable alternatives that the officers could have used. What do we train them for? What is the use of training if the individual will simply disregard it and opt for the easy way out of using excessive force to deal with a situation? Part of the reason that Canada is the great country that it is is that we are not a police state. Police officers have tough jobs, but that's why we pay them that much. That's why we expect them to do their jobs courteously (especially when dealing with the non-violent).
Despite the incompetence of YVR staff, the situation could still have been fixed by the RCMP. All it would have taken was to try to communicate with Dziekanski and if that didn't work, take him down physically (without weapons). It would have been justifiable to use tasers if (1) he was threatening; (2) there were no attempts made to communicate with him; and (3) efforts had been made to take him down physically and restrain him rather than incapacitate him. I don't doubt the effectiveness of tasers in some situations. But the taser should have been used rationally and with Dziekanski this was clearly not the case.
The RCMP has not only disgraced itself but all of Canada and Dziekanski's case serves as the clarion call for our officers not to overinterpret policy and for all officers to use only the appropriate amount of force.
Pretend you're the police officer. There's a large guy who has been acting violently and he's holding a metal object.
You can:
A. Try to physically restrain him. This poses a risk to you and your fellow officers of being stabbed, beaten, etc. It also poses a large risk of causing serious injury to the suspect.
B. Taser him. This poses a small risk to the suspect and no risk to the police officers.
Hmm... is Judo still looking like the best option here?
OK
Now where did I say that judo should be used instead of tasers? Wait, I didn't. I merely said other alternatives need (and physically restraining the perpetrator being among them) to be considered before officers resort to the taser. Two properly trained officers would have sufficed but there were FOUR. They could have tried to physically take him down; if that didn't work then the tasers could have sensibly been used. 1. He wasn't acting violently, he was merely agitated. He didn't harm anyone.
2. That metal object was a stapler which was clearly visible. He didn't attempt to hurt anyone with the stapler. His hands were at his sides and he wasn't making any rapid jerking movements. You leave me with a false set of options since Dziekanski wasn't acting violently. As such, there was minimal risk if the officers had tried to physically restrain him (or use judo). THERE WERE FOUR COPS AND NONE OF THEM CONSIDERED EVEN TRYING TO RESTRAIN HIM? Also, did the cops think the stapler was a knife? Do we taxpayers pay cops $65,000 a year for them not to be able to tell the fucking difference between a knife and a stapler?
Again, I'm not against the use of tasers; I'm against the excessive and insensible use of tasers. Using the taser on Dziekanski was clearly excessive (he was already on the ground) and insensible (he was screaming in pain). Read my earlier post about the number of taser-related deaths and you'll see exactly how "small" this risk is.
And as I said above, mace is what it is, but it's not a particularly effective stopper on a large and hardened criminal. Plus, and this is just a fact, it's far more painful and long-lasting than a tazer shock.
Nobody's ever argued that tazers are safe. They're not. What they are is a hell of a lot SAFER than the other options out there, both for the cops and also, especially, for the arestees.
Ultimately, no one knows fully what happened, the media is throwing this entire charade way out of proportion and these police officers did not do anything criminally wrong.
The website where I got the sixteen deaths statistic from sees sixteen deaths as no laughing matter. However, I believe that the injuries from both the use of tasers and physical force can be greatly reduced if each is used sensibly and appropriately. A complying (or non-resisting) individual only needs a bit of force to be taken down. When there's someone showing violent intentions, instability, and threatening behaviour, the taser is an appropriate tool.
Most think that police tools fall along a spectrum from, say, lethal to non-lethal or something like that. This is not a fair way of looking at it. Each police tool does a job; neither is really superior to the other. Sometimes the gun is more effective than mace; other times a few compelling words can save much effort and potentially many lives. Each police tool is a means towards an end (most of the ends are more or less the same) and I emphasize that they don't run along a hierarchy but are actually equal to one another.
Getting back to the taser, if there have been sixteen deaths since 2003, then perhaps we're not properly training our police. Maybe the officers should have stopped zapping Dziekanski when he was on the ground and screaming. Officers need to realize that as much punishment as some people take, a human life can be quite fragile and is immeasurably delicate. Each tool should be used soberly, sensibly, and only in the proper set of circumstances for which it was designed.
As to him being tazed again after he first hit the ground, on that point I am more ambivalent. I'll leave that discussion to those who know more about police prodedure than I. I'll say that it seems viscerally distasteful to me, but perhaps it's procedure, and perhaps there are good reasons for it to be procedure. In that case, I just don't know.