Are Tasers being used to Torture Innocent People?

A very interesting dialogue has been taking place in the comments section on one of my older posts, ThorShield Can Make You Taser Proof!

While researching for articles on the Taser, I have seen numerous comments by citizens who are afraid that Tasers may be used to torture innocent people.  As an officer, I just cannot relate to this point of view.  One of our readers shares these concerns and voiced his opinion to me.  It is important to be able to effectively communicate with these citizens, to hopefully alleviate some of their fears and assure them that law enforcement officers are responsible, ethical people.    

Since this post had aged before the dialogue got started, many of you may not have seen the comments.  In the interest of sharing it with all of you, we decided to publish the conversation in a stand alone post.  I hope the comments shared below help guide us as officers and administrators on how to properly respond to this misperception.  

Spartan Cops is written for a law enforcement audience and we strive for a professional atmosphere that encourages debate as a productive method for improving our profession without deteriorating into rants and personal attacks. So far we have never censored a comment on our blog but reserve the right to delete or censor one that is blatantly obscene or offensive. The comments posted below are an excellent example of how opposing view points can be respectful of each other while debating an issue.

I encourage all of you to share your own comments on this subject.

 

Shawnotron 04.27.09 at 10:27 am 
I think it is interesting that your article suggests that anyone who isn’t a cop, yet wants taser-proof clothing, is a criminal. I myself and not a cop or a criminal, but I desire this clothing to protect myself. You see, to many honest citizens of this country it has become clear that police don’t work for us anymore. We know your main purpose is “collecting” money for the state. We know that although the taser was issued to cops as an alternative to the gun it is now used to torture people into compliance, as the first option. When a device gives such powers of control to such power hungry people as yourselves than my first thought is to protect myself from it.

 

Matt 04.27.09 at 8:02 pm 
Shawnotron,

I don’t know of any agency that allows officers to use the Taser as a first level of force. Practically every agency does a use of force review any time that an intermediate weapon is used, which helps keep officers in line with department policy.

I have personally volunteered to take a “hit” from the Taser X-26, and while it was not pleasant, it was certainly not torture. I found it much more tolerable than being pepper sprayed, which causes pain and suffering for 30-45 minutes. I don’t recall a large public outcry about pepper spray, so I am not sure why you have such negative feelings about the Taser.

The Taser is just another tool in our arsenal for overcoming resistance. The Taser can fail without a criminal wearing ThorShield, so we have to be prepared to transition to more politically acceptable less-lethal weapons (like a baton or pepper spray).

I have been in law enforcement for over 15 years, so I am guessing that the change in the who the police now work for occurred during my watch. I must have been on RDO’s when the memo came out about us collecting money for the state, so I can’t help you with that.

Thanks for reading our blog!
Matt

 

Shawnotron 05.01.09 at 6:39 pm
@Matt
I understand that there are no agencies that “allow” the taser as the first level of force, and I know all about the force continuum and how you are supposed to act. A quick search on YouTube (or any video site) shows a different story though. Even watching ‘Cops’ a show made by, for, and to represent cops shows the reality of the situation. Police do very little arguing these days before resorting to the taser. Time after time when a person yells ‘I’m not resisting’ they will get tased again and again until they comply to the demands of the officer without the officer having to break a sweat. I just don’t think it should be so easy to force others to submit to your will.

I understand you probably got tased in training, and maybe you think it wasn’t so bad, but don’t tell me you don’t think it would be different to be getting tased in in an uncontrolled environment by a stranger relentlessly. What did you get, 5 maybe 10 seconds ‘riding the lightning’ as you folks like to say? Try 20 or 30 seconds over and over again from an authority figure and tell me how preferable it is to the spray or that baton then.

15 years on the force is a long time, and I have no idea what RDO’s might be, but I imagine you would have a hard time denying that you spend most of everyday collecting fines. Put your sarcasm aside a moment and tell me that you really believe the majority of the public is OK with everything you do. That the public is happy to be taxed additionally by men with guns. Tell me it’s normal for honest, average citizens to shake with fear when they get pulled over.

 

Matt 05.02.09 at 3:47 pm 
Shawnotron,

Sorry about the sarcasm, but when you come onto a predominantly police related blog and make some inflamatory statements attacking the ethical character of the men and women who put their lives on the line every day, prepare yourself for some type of retort. However, I do value your opinion and I am glad to give you my perspective on this subject.

Since you know all about the force continuum but aren’t familiar with the term “RDO’s” (regular days off in police jargon), I will assume you are not and have never been a police officer. This is important to note, because there is a vast difference between theoretical and practical knowledge of use of force and force continuums. This is not meant to insult you, but I teach use of force to our police recruits who have no practical knowledge of use of force at that point in the careers. They all have an above average interest in law enforcement, so they have seen virtually all of the videos and TV shows that you have mentioned. We teach them as much about use of force and force continuums as we possibly can in the classroom, and their theoretical knowledge at that point is well established. We then put these well versed use of force experts through a series of very simple scenarios based on events that they are likely to come across while working patrol. The results consistently show that even under the small amount of stress created in a training environment, humans have a difficult time applying this “book knowledge” to a real world scenario. It just takes time and experience to condition the recruit to operate and make appropriate decisions.

As a side note, the TV show “Cops” is not made by police officers for police officers. When you work full-time as an officer, that show loses some of its appeal.

As for someone yelling “I’m not resisting”, actions speak louder than words. When actions and words don’t match, we must give more weight to the actions. I have experienced numerous arrest situations where a suspect is yelling about how they are not resisting, but they are fighting the entire time. Video is two dimensional and does not accurately show everything that is happening. A simple example is a TV show or movie. In an intimate scene between two people apparently alone on screen, there is actually a large number of people present with a ton of lighting and sound equipment in the same room. Video can’t capture the feel of a suspect tensing up or the view that an officer has from his perspective.

As for the Taser making it much too easy to control a person against their will, I myself am still adjusting to this. I am still partial to the old physical version of overcoming a resisting subject. However, it is highly probable that either I or the subject will get injured during this fight. The longer a physical altercation between an officer and suspect goes on, the higher the possibility that the situation will escalate to higher levels of force. This raises the chances of me being severely injured or killed. The Taser allows me to potentially avoid being injured or killed. The suspect can go to jail injury free as well, if he just chooses to peacefully surrender. The suspect controls his own destiny and the officer merely responds to the suspect’s chosen course of action.

When I was hit with the Taser in training, it was for one cycle (5 seconds). It is so effective, that I did not want to continue resisting after that first cycle. I know from personal experience that a person who chooses to continue struggling (no matter what they may be yelling), after one full cycle on the Taser, has a high level of committment to fighting the police. If I were to go “hands on” with this person, there is a very high likelihood that the situation will escalate to a much higher level of force. Some people say that it is my job to get hurt fighting with suspects, which is not true any more than saying it is the bank teller’s job to get robbed. I still have a life outside of work and my kid’s would have a hard time understanding why daddy couldn’t play with them or coach their team because he got needlessly injured at work.

When we review uses of the Taser by officers, we especially scrutinize any time that the Taser is deployed for multiple cycles. We want to make sure that our officers are acting appropriately. No matter what “police bashers” write or say, the law enforcement profession is based on ethics and responsible decision making.

As for collecting fines from the citizens, I assume you are talking about writing citations. Issuing citations is not something new, so I find it hard to believe this is the new trend that you have referred to. Typically, the vast majority of officers in an agency are assigned to the patrol division. The patrol officers’ job is to respond to emergency calls for service. They have very little time or interest in writing traffic citations. Most departments do have Traffic units, whose main job is responding to accidents and enforcing the traffic laws to reduce the number of accidents. They typically target areas where there has been a large number of accidents or where citizens have complained of unsafe driving.

I will admit that people are not overjoyed when they get pulled over by a police officer. I even get a little nervous when I get pulled over, but it is not because I fear that the officer is going to hurt me. It is just like getting sent to the principal’s office as a kid or getting called to your boss’ office at work. We all have some type of authority to answer to and it can be emotionally unpleasant.

I do believe that the public supports law enforcement in the United States. This thought is reaffirmed every day through my contacts with citizens. If it ever gets to the point that the citizens don’t support us, I will look for a new line of work. No offense, but I do not think that you are an accurate representation of the general public.

Thanks for the interesting conversation,
Matt

 

Shawnotron 05.02.09 at 6:37 pm 
As much as I don’t seem like an accurate representation of the general public, I don’t think you are an accurate representation of the general police officer. I say this because you actually take the time you respond, thoughtfully, to my statements rather than just delivering the ‘F-you’ and censoring my post, which is the normal response I receive. I really do appreciate this, and have added your blog to my feed reader. I agree with your assessment that I am not the average citizen, but I don’t think I have to be in order to be right.

I know that many people probably yell ‘I’m not resisting..’ when they are, but it is believable to me that they are not resisting when they never resisted in the first place. I routinely watch dashcam videos on the net and the show cops and read/watch the news, and I know that these videos can never give a full representation of the events. I often ask myself how I would act, as the officer, and the citizen, and on many occasions I agree that the officer has made the right choice. I am, however, quite disturbed far too often by the choices made.

As far as citations go. It may be different where you are, but here in NH when the state is hard up for funds it gets more dangerous to drive. These days, as an example, people are regularly getting stopped and fined for as little as 5 over. That is crazy in itself, but there is also the issue that speed limits have been the same for 40 years despite the increase in vehicle performance and safety which make it far safer to drive at higher speeds than it was to drive at the speed limit so many years ago. At the risk of sounding ‘tinhat’ I will admit that I think this lack of change is due to the fact that people are more likely to speed unknowingly when limits are intentionally kept lower than what is safe and comfortable; and that this generates more revenue.

I understand that the men and women of law enforcement do put their lives on the line daily and, to the extent that you do that in an effort to protect us, I am very grateful for it. Yet, if you value your life so highly than I must wonder why you and so many others put it on the line to enforce laws against victimless crimes. Surely you can’t think it’s worth risking your life to stop a person from doing something that doesn’t hurt anyone.

 

Matt 05.03.09 at 2:39 pm 
Shawnotron,

This has turned out to be a very interesting conversation and I thank you for engaging in a dialogue about these subjects. Here at Spartan Cops, we have discussed whether or not to censor some of the comments in an attempt to shield our readers from the usual rants that seem to occur on blogs that are open to the public. Your posts have been rational and articulate, just from a different perspective. I am glad that we decided not to censor your comment and you have added a unique point of view to our discussion.

When watching police videos, I appreciate the fact that you place yourself in the officer’s position and wonder how you would handle a situation. As a police supervisor, I have to do the same thing. There is an inherent problem with this though, and that is that we have the benefit of knowing the outcome and all of the details about the incident by the time we watch the video. Many times that puts the situation in a very different perspective from what the officer experienced on the street. We have to be conscious that the officer, at the time that he made his choices, was acting without knowing all of the info. The courts have acknowledged that officer’s are required to make split second decisions in situations that are rapidly changing and under extreme stress. We are supposed to review their decisions based on what the officer knew or believed to be true at the instant he made the decision, without the benefit of hindsight. Using this technique helps us understand why an officer reacted the way he did.

As for speed limits, I concede your point that cars have much better handling and performance capabilities now. Some states are definitely behind the curve on increasing the speed limits on interstates. In residential and surrounding areas, I don’t think we will see speed limits increase. This is to protect kids and other pedestrians. After working a ton of fatality accidents, I can deal with slower speed limits in these areas. I will admit that I tend to have a heavy foot and drive faster than I should. The fear of getting pulled over and possibly getting a ticket helps keep me hovering close to the speed limit.

When I was sworn in as an officer, I agreed to enforce the laws of the state and uphold the U. S. Constitution. Traffic laws are designed primarily to keep the streets safe. More officers and citizens are killed in traffic accidents than by homicide, which validates the importance of enforcing these laws.

Once again, thanks for an excellent discussion!
Matt

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