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New Hampshire Cops Use Taser On Woman Buying Too Many iPhones
turbosaab writes "A woman who said she was asked to leave New Hampshire's Pheasant Lane Mall because she wanted to buy too many iPhones was pinned down by Nashua police and zapped by a Taser (video) as she shrieked in front of crowds of shoppers Tuesday. The Chinese woman from Newton, Mass blamed a language barrier for the confrontation outside the Apple Store in the Pheasant Lane Mall Tuesday afternoon. Police say Li knew exactly what they were telling her and simply refused to comply. Police said Li had $16,000 in cash in her purse at the time of her arrest and may have been purchasing the phones for unauthorized export resale."
You mean selling her own property for a profit? God forbid.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Police are now so badly trained and so out of shape they can't even handle a 44 year-old, 80 pound Chinese woman, they have to resort to high tech weaponry.
No sig today...
These sorts of events are similar to what I would have expected in countries like China, not the United States. LEOs do not need to taser most people, especially a female who appears much less powerful than the officers holding her down in the video. The tool is used as a second-to-last resort, not as as way to make an arrest easier on the officers.
Sheesh.
It's about time we punished people for making bad decisions.
How are they supposed to make obscene profits if people 'illegally export' things?
There's an app for that.
... you mean she had enough to buy a few iPhones ?
Oh my god, arrest her, she has money, she must be doing something illegal !
New Hampshire Apple Cops, or it's all the same now?
But the lady clearly knew what was going on:
Jay said her mother bought two iPhones last Friday, and was told that was the limit. When she took video of others she claimed were buying more, the store manager asked her to leave.
And she was asked to leave and refused:
"The management of the store asked us to have her removed. The officer approached her, told her she wasn't welcome in the store, and she refused to leave," Nashua Police Capt. Bruce Hansen said.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
You can't use your money for that, sorry. I don't care what she does with those phones, she should buy as many as she has money for and that should be the end of it. If she gets caught selling them then she has broken a law, until then nothing.
There are times to use painful, potentially fatal, means of coercion. This isn't one of them.
Unfortunately, we're going to get a lot of people posting here claiming that simply because the police demanded she do something, and she didn't, that they were justified. The simple truth is, no, they weren't. You don't get to do anything you like to someone simply because you have a badge and they didn't do what you told them to.
We do not live in a police state.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Jay said her mother bought two iPhones last Friday, and was told that was the limit.
Has Samsung caused acute shortages of component supplies leading to this rationing of iThings?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
She wasn't Tazed for buying too many iphones, she was tazed for failure to comply with authorities... Whoever made the title is a simpleton. What an Idiot..
;-)
I had to say it.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
It seems the concept that violence is a last resort has disappeared from policing.. Increasingly, even quiet, cooperative people are pinned down, handcuffed and manhandled as a matter of course. Violence has become one of the "perks" of policework, and the evil cycle of abuse and intimidation means fewer and fewer people object. Can anyone see any reason whatsoever for the violent treatment of this woman, who at worst is guilty of conspiracy to illegally export some telephones?
Yes, because clearly, Apple was the sole inventor of the "Limit X per customer" method of retail sales and there is absolutely NO prior art from any other store in the history of the world. Nevermind every sale during Black Friday. It's so far-fetched for Apple to do this, because, well, they're Apple and they're bastards. Clearly.
Do you stop to read what you write, or do you just herpderp, roll your face on the keyboard, and press Submit?
Something needs to change in police training. Too often cops resort to BBQing people with 50,000 volts at the least sign of resistance, and, in some instances, no resistance at all. Yet, too often when you see a mall shooting or hostage situation, you don't see the police putting their lives on the line to save people. They often seem far too concerned with their own safety than the public's, and all these taser incidents seem like a part of that mentality. That's just my observation. I'm sure there are also plenty of good cops out there too, but the bad ones seem to make the headlines far too often.
Theres something thats not being said here. Theres no law against buying large numbers of iPhones...and she wouldn't be asked to leave for trying to buy them.. only if she didn't want to accept no for an answer... or maybe she said the word 'export'... Something doesn't add up.
Is there a way to prevent the effectiveness of a taser? i really don't know.
She wasn't tased for trying to buy too many iPhones. She was tased for resisting arrest after refusing to leave private property. I'm pretty sure "get out!" with a finger pointed to the door is near universal language. When it's suggested by men in uniforms carrying badges and guns, you'd have to be a full-on nitwit to miss the picture.
You can claim it was the result of "failure to communicate", but you can't expect officers in Nashua, NH to speak Mandarin. If you can't figure out that resisting arrest isn't a good idea, that's on you. Tasing her likely prevented further serious injury of the woman and/or the officers.
Cash transactions at banks over $10,000 are subject to special reporting requirements, thanks largely to the War on Drugs. It wouldn't surprise me if trying to make any kind of cash transaction for $16K draws unwanted attention in the current police state environment.
Obviously, she was taking the money she earned selling drugs, and laundering it by buying iPhones for cash, then reselling them. Makes perfect sense to a cop, who has been trained to assume that EVERYBODY is a criminal....
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1. Officer was on a paid police detail, so I'd assume that there is enough liability on Apple that a lawsuit and associated settlement is forthcoming.
2. Without excusing the tasering whatsoever, the woman clearly knows enough English to get from Newton, MA to Nashua, NH. Since she was alone at the time, I'm guessing that she has a driving license. I wasn't aware that MA allowed you to take the exam in Chinese.
Just wait until some police department gets sued for tasing someone with a heart condition. Tasers should be considered semi-lethal force and only be used in situations that a gun would be used in. In other words, cops are being lazy when they tase people.
Here's a crazy idea: instead of starting to shout "private property" and having the hired guns tackle a woman and break out their weapons - just ignore her. Don't take her money, don't ring up her sale. She'll either give up and go away or try to steal the phones and then it's cut-and-dry. Plus no news stories with bad publicity during the Christmas shopping season.This would also save two Nashua cops from the public humiliation of not being able to handcuff a middle-aged asian woman (I saw the video - there's no fear that she's a kung-fu master).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Live Free or Die!" -State motto of New Hampshire. ....unless you're buying too many iPhones.
"Woman seeking to purchase many iPhones tasered when she refused to leave the store upon manager's and police requests to do so."
Right. That's just cause.
Didn't some state have that as their motto?
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Get a bit better perspective on this by watching the tazing videos on YouTube.
Basically, it seems, if you repeatedly refuse to follow a simple police command, like "get out of the vehicle" or "lay down on the ground", after 10 or 20 repetitions, the cops have the option of tazing you. Apparently this is SOP. The old-school way was to chicken choke or baton-choke you. You decide which is better.
That's what they should have done here.
such is the demand for magic beans ;-p
If you do get arrested, and the cop says "Anything you say can be held against you." DON'T say "Tits!"
That's dumb, the iPhone is MADE in China, it's also SOLD in China. There's no such export restriction and no such law (just think how dumb what you said is, in effect a product made in China can't be inside China... the mind boggles).
The rule is an Apple arbitrary sale limit rule. The article mentions Apple uses police officers to enforce it because they've had trouble in the past with people buying too many for unauthorized export. As if they get to tazer customers based on some EULA or something!
ALL SHE WANTED TO DO WAS BUY A LOT OF IPHONES AT FULL PRICE! (BTW they're the same price in China).
Right now I'm going to go to an Apple store and diss the products in front of other customers, complain they're overpriced, underpowered, not as good as the Android ones, maybe bring my Android quad core tablet and do visual compares. Until they ask me to leave. Then I'm not going to leave, I'm going to kick up one hell of a stink. Maybe do a bit of shouting about how they tazered a woman in an Apple store. f*** Apple. Really f*** em, corporate scum.
In any situation if the opponent is unarmed (or only armed with too many smart phones and a credit card), the police should apply talking first. If the person freaks out, there are plenty of options to constrain her without using a taser. I've seen those options on demonstrations in Germany, it works without any pepper spray or taser or gun or sticks of some sort. However, in a totally controlled situation like that, it would most likely have sufficed to just talk. If communication had not worked out, a translater could have been organized.
Looks like, in the USA they first shot and then ask. Just like the guy with a knife on times square followed by a dozen of policemen. The only solution to that situation was to shot him a couple of times. If shooting would have been the last option, a shoot in the knee or foot would have sufficed. Or they could have used a taser. But what shall I expect when they use a taser on a customer. Really! Get relaxed.
This wasn't the first time the woman was kicked out of the store. She's not welcome there. After being asked multiple times on multiple days to respect her trespass warnings and her refusing to leave, she was tasered.
Frankly, if I were the owner, I have pushed her out of the store and kicked her ass on the way out the second time. My store, my decision who stays. Of course, I'd be facing battery charges for that. Better to let the police tase her.
I was in the huge line at this store on iPhone 5 launch day. Multiple groups of people were line cutting in an attempt to buy as many phones as possible for the gray market. I assume these people were payed a percentage of each phone they bought.
We had the cops deal with it and except for lying right to our and the cops faces, the cutters were escorted to the back without violence or incident.
Lots of MA people come to NH for the 0% sales tax.
I was there when that happened. Man, the two of them were PISSED when they were leaving. Several people were causing drama saying there might be someone with a firearm. It was dumb. It really wasn't anything that spectacular. 5m later everything was back to normal. Never crossed my mind this would make this big of a headline. Huh, small world.
1. Come to America
2. Don't learn English
3. Do something stupid
4. Can't understand police so...
5. Tased
Seems pretty cause and effect to me. If I went to go live in France, I'd probably want to learn French so that when a pack of French police are barking something at me, I know what they're telling me to do so I don't get tased. Lesson learned? Probably not, seeing as how all evidence points to her being here in the US solely to illegally export things for a profit.
I don't understand why it would be illegal for her to buy the phones, I guess if they can prove she did this with the intention of exporting them, but I'm not sure that's possible. Also if what others have said that she paid for the phones, and it was only two phones from what I've read, and was at the store just to pick them up, it would seem that she had a right to be there, but I'm sure that all the details about this story are not being presented. The use of force by the police seems a little over the top, how hard can it be for a couple of policemen to restrain and arrest a fairly petite woman?
The policy continues, "The weapon is a level of force normally required to overcome passive, defensive, or offensive resistance that is intended as an act of overt aggression toward the officer where an individual refuses to comply with verbal instructions."
How exactly can "passive resistance" be an act of overt aggression? So basically, do whatever the cops say, or they will tase you. If you do not follow their orders, you are being "overtly aggressive" , the same as if you were throwing punches at them. Tasers being being overused in this country.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
So it seems from the article when she was told by the store manager on *Friday* to leave she understood that. Yet when she is asked by the manager on *Monday* to leave the store all of a sudden she doesn't understand english ? Pah-leese.
I hate this culture of victim-hood where instead of owing up to doing something wrong the wrong-doer becomes the focus of grievence theater and every *else* is to blame.
And yeah, unless there is a Lexus parked outside or a mortgage banker waiting for a down payment (assuming it was legal to search her purse and ask) I would be very curious to know what she was doing with 16k in her purse on a plain old monday morning when she had bought phones *online*
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
I absolutely abhor it when somebody, *ANYBODY* can somehow claim to know what another person is thinking when they have absolutely no real evidence to back up their claim beyond personal supposition.
Yeah, it's plausible that the language barrier was just a ploy, but I didn't see any obvious indication that such an issue was actually not really plausible. Just because she understood one sentence somehow means she's fluent enough in english to understand anything said to her once, without explanation?
The followup line also got me a bit hot under the collar:
No... what happened is that the officer didn't think for a second.
Tasers should not *EVER* be used by the police as a means of forcing compliance unless the police officer has some real cause to assume that the situation is about to escalate to physical violence. What indication did the officer have that she was going to assault anyone? Hmmm?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
O, the irony. On so many levels.
Truly the right hand knows not what the left one does. Even in plain sight.
Oh oh ya... I guess tasing would be better than accessing a google site from an Apple store. Good grief.
For the record: Yes, failing to follow the orders of police in the US is a good way to come in close contact with a taser or baton, fact of life. Whether or not Ms. Li knew enough English to know what her situation was will without a doubt become clear.
As for the Apple Store, here's the deal: if you, the customer, makes it clear that you're buying electronics to export, the retailer is potentially on the hook with the Federal Government for aiding unlicensed exports of technology. Yes, I'm aware that much of the technology in question was manufactured overseas. The fact remains that this isn't the first, and won't be the last time someone innocently mentions export, and is shown the door.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Remember tasers were sold to the public as an "alternative to deadly force." So the cops could use tasers instead of shooting people. Am I to believe the cops would of shot this women, in the mall, for refusing to leave the Apple store?
Heh. That will even the playing field out... :-)
Whether she'll be exporting them to restricted locations, we don't know...
Let me spell this out for people who can't seem to understand:
-The US has export regulations.
-These regulations come with heavy fines and usually termination of employees found violation them.
-Whether the violation was willful or ignorant is moot.
-A single person wanting to purchase $16000 worth of iPhones is most likely re-selling them.
-If the iPhones end up some place where their export is restricted, Apple faces fines, and the store manager would most likely be terminated.
-It doesn't matter if the store manager claims he did not know that the iPhones will end up in a export restricted location, he will be terminated. $16000 worth of iPhone purchases from a single person, in the view of any export auditors, should be raising alarms for the seller. In such cases, these large orders would have to be handled through another channel with proper documentation and NOT a retail store...
-The store manager did what any sane/adequately trained store manager would do and stop selling to the lady as soon as he noticed something suspicious.
-The lady refused to leave the store after already coming back several times. She continued to refuse to leave after Police arrived and requested her to leave.
-The fine details of what happend after police arrived isn't stated.
-What on earth makes you think that they didn't try to remove her from the store by other means before tasing her?
But hey... this is /.
It's cool to jump on the police-hating bandwagon and stick it to the man!
Apple mis-treating Chinese people isn't news.
Why isn't anyone outraged about this corporation's behavior?
They are the 1984 Big Brother they warned you about in their ads.
I'm trying to imagine how these cops' wives are able to sleep with them after an event like this.
And you think the local police patrolling the mall are up on all that?
It may come as a surprise to some, but the introduction of tasers in US police inventories has offered officers a humane alternative to previous practice, which often involved a baton chokehold, or a firearm. It may or may not be double-plus-bad that US officers aren't as sweet as they are in Canada or the UK, preferring compliance with orders now, discussion later, but it is what it is, and it may be a bit naive to be unaware of that.
Luke, help me take this mask off
= Slashdot Field Day
It was as if a million freetards suddenly had nerdgasms, and were frothing at the mouth. I fear something overdramatic and theatrical has happened.
Look, if a cop feels scared, then he should be able to use a TASER without fear of prosecution.
But the problem is we appear to have a bunch of cowardly cops. There are certain situations where a cop should be fired for being scared.
This appears to be one of them. Any cop that is scared of this woman should be fired. He quite obviously in unsuited for his job.
The Unions however fight to protect cowardly cops.
Guess not... so the purchases MUST have been for illegal export... lol
"Failure to comply" is no reason to use a taser. A taser should only be used when an immediate threat requiring non-lethal force is present. Using it as a cattle prod on the sheeple is abusive and places the lives of the victims of this abuse at risk. Certain drugs and medical conditions can make people susceptible to seizures or heart failure when exposed to so much current.
The gross misuse of tasers needs to stop.
Of course the cops feared for their lives. You'd have to be insane to buy that many iphones. Deadly force would be warranted.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
How exactly can "passive resistance" be an act of overt aggression? So basically, do whatever the cops say, or they will tase you. If you do not follow their orders, you are being "overtly aggressive" , the same as if you were throwing punches at them. Tasers being being overused in this country.
Yes or haven't you heard? cops no longer need brains now, basically they can show up zap you, process you, then you appear in court where a slightly more intelligent person looks you over and will instantly convict you unless you have a couple of grand in your back pocket for a defence attorney.
She is sending them home, where they originally immigrated from. Darn Chineese phones taking calls away from American phones.
We didn't see what Ms. Li was up to prior to being dropped to the floor. She may or may not have proved a handful, and if she wasn't following directions to get out of the store, it was going to end badly however you sliced it: the cops weren't going to just leave, and they aren't encouraged to grapple - handguns can get loose. So, prior to tasers, they'd have used any of a number of take-downs involving batons.... eg. she'd have gotten clubbed.
Having said that, I realize that many officers have a tendency to quickly get physical just because josephine public fails the attitude test.
Luke, help me take this mask off
TO assult someone if you think they might be committing a crime?
Glad to see the police are allowed to just assult people at random out of spite. Because if two big cops cant handle a little lady without drastic escalation, they need to be fired right away.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Live Free and Buy Less iPhones or Die!"
This is a win for anti-apple people.. GO COPS!!!
So basically, do whatever the cops say, or they will tase you. If you do not follow their orders, you are being "overtly aggressive" , the same as if you were throwing punches at them. Tasers being being overused in this country.
Everyone knows that passive resistance is a threat to the aura of authority that police try to project. A taser is a perfectly reasonably way to deal with such a passively hostile person. In the case of a real physical threat, like punching or a high speed auto chase, a balanced police response requires multiple police to use tasers, sticks, and their boots to beat the perpetrator unconscious. Broken bones are allowable because they ensure the perpetrator will not start fighting again when he wakes in the hospital.
I feel safer already.
I see a lot of people commenting how two cops should be able to handle an 80-lb woman... when was the last time you tried to apprehend anyone who wants to get away? Seriously. Ever watch the show COPS and see one crazy crackhead squirm and fight with like 6 cops? It's not that these cops can't beat this lady in arm wrestling contest, it's just that it's REALLY hard to get someone under control who doesn't want to be.
Is 'unauthorized export resale' really a thing in the US?
Does that seriously mean that people can't sell, and by extension never own, physical objects they buy?
They DO have the patent on "Limit 4 rounded corners per customer."
"Live Free or Die!" -State motto of New Hampshire. ....unless you're buying too many iPhones.
"Live Free and Die!" sounds more like it now.
I am not a crackpot.
I shop there, not at the apple store, but at the mall where this happened. I rarely find anyone who can't speak English in NH. and i am sure she could understand a finger pointed to the door. although the Nashua cops have a history of being shady, I don't think anything will come of this as far as excessive force charges. And why does iPhone have export restrictions, especially when she was going to send them back to the country that manufactured them?
When being asked "Leave!" and you say "What about the phones I ordered?" and the only response you get is "LEAVE!!!!", you are insisting that despite being the victim of fraud by the shop, you have to just leave or be tazered????
If our dear leader would just invite them both to the White House to have a beer and talk, maybe this whole thing will blow over. Although, if she's not a drinker, it might have to be sodas.
I recommend Jolt.
I have no sympathy for entitled morons who refuse to obey the orders of police.
They endanger the rest of us. Tase 'em, bro!
Please tell me this is a Poe.
violence is only moral when used to prevent violence.
The police used violence without that threat and are in the wrong.
You forget that they can order you to do something illegal and then tase you either way. Either for not following orders or doing the illegal thing. And it probably won't sound illegal before the prosecutor turns up and explains you're getting infinity years in jail either.
otherwise why are the police afraid of a woman with cell phones ?
And make no mistake, they were _afraid_. Either that or they're sadistic bastards who enjoy tasering people, which is entirely possible.
I for one do not welcome our para-military police overlords.
Absolute statements are never true
Apple sucks. Asians deserve better than awful Apple garbage. White people can buy more than 2 iphones. Asians will just buy Androids and Windows. Screw Apple
The police tastered this person because she did something perfectly legal, which is to say, buy iPhones. She may or may not have had an intent to later export them, which would be illegal-- but this is no excuse for their actions.
Having intent to export is illegal. Having a plausible reason to believe that someone is disturbing the peace (which she did) or having a plausible reason to believe she intended to export (which she admitted) are both illegal and subjects you to arrest. Furthermore not calling the police when you have a suspicion that someone is purchasing a regulated item for export makes you an accomplice in the crime itself should it be committed. The Apple personnel did exactly what the law requires them to. The police did exactly as the law requires them to.
As far as resisting arrest- I am a man, if I made it out without broken bones and several felonies tacked on I would be grateful.
FYI. New Hampshire has no sales tax, so many New-Englanders go to Portsmouth for their major purchases. On $16,000, that could be ~$1000, ... more than worth it, but not if you are going to be tazed.
If you watch every season of Cops within a reasonably short period of time (say over a month or two) you can clearly see the shift in police procedures and attitudes spreading across the country. (It started before Tasers by the way.)
The earliest seasons have old-fashioned policing, where cops talk to irate people and calm them down, as long as the person doesn't get violent. If the suspects put their hands up, the cops just handcuff them standing up, no degrading "get on the ground" treatment, no crushing the suspect's neck with their knees, no body-slamming people to the ground, then while resting on top of them screaming "stop resisting!"
By the mid-90s seasons you see this wave of assaults and violence spread across the police forces. People put their hands up, the cops have no reason to suspect any violence, but they body-slam them to the ground anyway. Many times you see 5-9 cops on top of one person, often standing on the person's arms while multiple people scream "put your hands behind your back!" (Which they physically cannot do) and "stop resisting!" In other cases they demand people get down on the ground, just to humiliate them.
The Taser is just another in a line of police battery tactics, designed to humiliate, degrade, and torture suspects, but without leaving any permanent marks that you can sue over.
It bears repeating: don't talk to these thugs for any reason. Never answer their questions and comply with all orders, no matter how degrading. Never consent to a search of your person or car if asked. If they search anyway, say nothing and talk to your lawyer. Don't bring up video evidence or violations or they'll destroy evidence to cover their tracks, do not rely on honesty - police will always cover for themselves, no matter how heinous the crime, and the police union will get them reinstated with back pay after the public stops caring about the story. You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride.
We live in a police state, same as China or Soviet Russia. Deal with it.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
This country has gotten to the point where if a cop demands sex with you, not giving it to him is justification for him to assault you. Oh, sure, his superiors would argue after the fact that it was wrong and illegal and whatever. (But I'll bet money he wouldn't lose his job.) But if a woman's response is to run, or reach for HER pepper spray or taser, she'll be lucky to come out of it alive.
But not illegal.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
So... let me get this straight.
Some protester is sitting on the ground, blocking traffic, and police demand him to get up and leave. Protester refuses, and simply sits there, doing nothing. Police decide to taze him, hoping it'll get him to stand up and leave.
Mmm... something doesn't seem right there. I thought tazing was meant to make people passive actually.
...they were filming a movie.
Coming in 2013, Judge Dredd: Mall Cop.
shopped til she dropped!
I've never heard of this happening to someone buying an Android phone.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
To anyone that still believes all that "Protect and Serve" shit, tasers are primarily and overwhelmingly used by LEOs as punishment. They are not used to protect anyone. If you do not do exactly as the officer says, no matter how unfair it may seem, you will be tasered. It is immediate punishment administered without judicial review. Plus, it relieves a lot of frustration for the cop.
So let's all stop pretending now that use of a taser is anything legal or moral, it's a circumvention of judicial review, denial of individual rights and a travesty of justice. Tasers should be outlawed or their use outside of life threatening situations should be cause for immediate dismissal of the offending officer. Any other course of action is merely inviting a Judge Dredd type of future.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
I wasn't at the mall, I'm not claiming to be an expert on Police policy, and I have no connections to LE. However what this comes down to is that this woman was tresspassing on a premise she was asked to leave on more than one occasion. We take property rights very seriously here, this was a long drawn out incedent with someone from Massholechusetts who thought that they didn't have to follow the rules. She didn't get asked to leave for the first time then tased 30 seconds later. There is no freedom to not listen to cops, we're a reasonable state and you're ordered to leave you should listen. Language barrier is being falsely injected into this story, it's not like it's hard to pantomime telling someone to GFTO.
She had a chance to listen with the request to leave, and chose not too. It's her personal responsibilty to comply with the law, if this were on someones private property they would have had the right to brandish(but not fire) a gun. We don't baby people up here like a lot of the other states, she screwed up and payed the price. Live Free or Die doesn't mean you have the freedom to ignore the law.
New Hampshire is a unique place compared to most other states especially in this part of the country. While we may be ranked #1 in beer consumption we're ranked dead last in poverty even though our social services are minimal. We expect people to be responsible for their actions and the vast majority of people are. I can walk into a store an buy a long gun just my showing my license to prove I'm over 18, no permit, registration, fingerprints needed yet we're 47th for gun violence.
Have gnu, will travel.
If the officers didn't have Tasers, would they have pulled their gun and shot her instead?
No? Then they shouldn't have used a Taser - no exceptions.
I can't believe that this isn't the law. They have no way of knowing, if the target is going to die as a result of the Tasering. What happens if the current runs across a pace maker? Insulin pump? Other life saving medical equipment?
Pepper spray has similar issues, but at a slightly less violent level. In my opinion pepper spray should only be used, if the officers would have used a night stick if they didn't have the spray. I.e. not on non-violent protesters sitting in the street rtc.
Again, I really don't understand why this is not the law already.
Seems to me they could have cleared up any communication issue with the very device the customer was buying.
"Officers used a “dry force” taser, said Hansen, which is less painful than the type of taser that shoots electrodes at the target to deliver the shock. A dry force taser has no probes, and is instead pressed directly to the skin."
From the boston.com article
Not saying I agree that this was a shining moment in the history of the Nashua Police, but lets get the facts straight.
Before I knew about this story, in a cab this evening I was asked by a European what I thought about the U.S. I said there is something wrong with it, something fundamentally morally wrong. I mentioned how strident and militaristic the country has become over the past 20 years, how the media is complicit, how nobody ever mentions what seem to be huge numbers of civilians killed in the Iraq war, which in another country would be grounds for a war crimes trial.. and how students get tazed.
I said I thought something has gone wrong, that there is a big moral dilemma. I see this being an American who has lived outside the U.S. for a while. He seemed relieved saying he totally agreed. Then I come home and read about a tasing in an Apple Store.
Casual tazing and ultra-cynical liars in office and on the TV really worries me, the more I think about it the more it worries me. It isn't about export or not. Listen. There is a deep disease in the moral fiber or psychological constitution or socialized norms, whatever you call it, that reflects a ruinous self-negation in the U.S.A., that counterbalances all the wonderful things like slashdot and makers and late night comedians exposing hypocrisy, and summer barbecues and bookstores, oh lots of things. If people had their heads screwed on right the extreme prejudice of cops like this would cause them to be immediately kicked out and hounded mercilessly by the masses who are reading about it online right now. This does not happen because the actions of these officers is an organic result of a major imbalance that is unchecked.
My first idea is that the imbalance is fueled by a power-hungry elite, by a cynical military-industrial-financial complex but to tell you the truth that is bullshit. It is because everyone, all of you, and me, and your families and friends, are all self satisfied consumers of information who, once satisfied in an ADHD kind of sense with having taken in the information, ignores it and will not act on it, because of being media saturated and socialized. People often joke about how far off the conservative edge are both conservatives and liberals in the U.S. but that is because THE NORM IS OFF-BALANCE AND SLIDING. I do not have an answer but I urge you to think about what you can do to find one.
So many seem to be thinking that Tazers are harmless.
I suggest to check the record!
Yes, because clearly, Apple was the sole inventor of the "Limit X per customer" method of retail sales and there is absolutely NO prior art from any other store in the history of the world
No, Apple invented the "Violent attack limit X per customer" method.
It's a special blend of the conventional "sell people everything you can" and the muggers "Give me your wallet or I'll smash you teeth in" methods of acquiring money..
I used to live in Nashua and I found that the times I had to interact with the Nashua police, it might as well have been the Nazi SS. Not all cops are bad, but the Nashua PD clearly has an issue with hiring/promoting scumbags and it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the batch.
Why would burly police men ever have to escalate violence against somebody just trying to buy some christmas presents? Sure, they asked her to leave, and when they ask you to leave and you don't its trespassing so they were right to call the police. But the reaction by the police was completely overbearing.
For added lulz, google "Nashua Gannon wire tapping". The officer who was harassing this guy at his own house late at night was the guy I had the pleasure of dealing with the time I got a speeding ticket. Its never pleasant getting a ticket, but he was like interrogating me about why i was going so fast and why I thought I could do that and etc - never mind the detail that he wrote me up for doing 50 in a 30 when the speed limit was actually 40 where I was driving. Got it dropped in court no problem, but if you're gonna do you your job as a police officer, don't get the facts wrong.
In short, I will definitely never, ever, ever be going back to Nashua NH.
In China, people get in heated arguments with the police all the time, and its considered accepted. Assaulting an officer there is barely illegal, and the police are barely allowed to fight back. Assaulting an officer in the US might get you killed.
Its alarming that you assume anyone here is laughing. All I see is a lot of outrage that rather than use other methods of pain compliance that result in physical damage to the suspect including torn ligaments, broken bones, bruised windpipes, etc on a suspect that was actively resisting arrest, they chose to use a method that quickly causes compliance and is relatively without lasting harm.
Try this some time: You and 2 partners pick one of you to be the suspect. The other two of you try to use any pain compliance holds you know to force the suspect to stop fighting. See what kind of damage you do when you find out that 1 person chose an arm lock in direction A while the other person chose a wrist lock in direction B and your suspect was put in far more pain than either person intended and was unable to stop struggling due to his body being forced in 2 directions by massive amounts of pain.
This is what you are all advocating, using physical force in a fight to make this woman comply rather than use a quick, effective, and easily communicated method to force her to comply. If you think that because she was female it makes a difference in how she should be treated, you are a chauvinist pig. If you think her being only 88lbs makes a difference in how she should have been treated, i'll let you see what rail-thin meth addicts do to cops that try to take them on physically while they are in withdrawals. If you think her being mid-Forties means she should have been treated like she's elderly and invalid you're just crazy, that's prime of life.
If you are basing your opinion on the obviously clipped video shown in the news segment, I'll remind you of the Rodney King video wherein the media cut off the first part showing he was in fact resisting arrest. There is likely more to the story than what you saw. (and I bring that up simply because its a good example of the media cutting things to show what they want you to see, the police were genuinely excessive even with that extra video shown).
To the person below who replies that giving police tasers was to protect them from violent criminals without using guns, you fall afoul of this too. You call a 44 year old woman old, and you miss the point entirely about what tasers are for. They are a compliance tool. They are not meant to replace a gun, they are another step to use before you get to using a gun. That is what this is all about. Using the tools you have to prevent harm to yourselves, the public and the suspect. You'd rather she was pepper sprayed and forced to sit in the back of a police car suffering chemical burning and pain all the way to the local jail where only then she will be treated and have the spray cleaned off her? Or as in my paragraphs above maybe you'd rather they used more physical violence on her and perhaps broken her arms, dislocated her shoulder, or other injury? Oh wait, they should have magically used their special Police Powers to make her just give up and go along peacefully...yeah that didn't happen so they had to do something else. In this case they chose to taser her. Until police gain magical suspect coercing powers to make people behave and come along meekly the police can and will have to use the tools at their disposal to insure compliance with arrests.
If a small unarmed woman was being ordered off the premises for any reason, there is no reason for any police officer to taser her to force her to comply. Hell, they could have picked her up by the shoulders and carried her out without risk to themselves or her. As far as I'm concerned, the arresting officers are a couple of bumbling incompetents who should be fired for poor judgment.
I am sure there is way more involved then "she just wanted to buy too many iPhones and got tased" even without RTFA.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Going to do the same thing at another store tomorrow. I didn't get tazered, I got bored. After about 30 minutes with no response from staff I realized they're not going to challenge a white middle-class muscular man. Not even verbally.
I guess tazering is only for small Chinese women.
Did manage to convince two people to buy an Android tablet instead, by my estimate she could buy 30 tablets at that price, so I think I still have 28 more customers to turn away from Apple to re-balance the world.
She was both Chinese and female. Genetics tell me they could just carry her out of the store.
While not entirely germaine to this discussion of quantity limits, exporting iPhones, presumed innocence, and iElectricity I hadn't seen this part mentioned yet.
There is only one reason to skip most of the apple stores near or around Newton, MA. It's to avoid the Massachusetts sales tax, as New Hampshire has no sales tax. She was reportedly carrying $16k in cash so without paying sales tax, she would be able to purchases potentially 2-4 additional iPhones.
I think she knows a bit more English and "how things work" than her story would otherwise have us believe.
I wasn't at the mall, I'm not claiming to be an expert on Police policy, and I have no connections to LE. However what this comes down to is that this woman was tresspassing on a premise she was asked to leave on more than one occasion. We take property rights very seriously here, this was a long drawn out incedent with someone from Massholechusetts who thought that they didn't have to follow the rules. She didn't get asked to leave for the first time then tased 30 seconds later. There is no freedom to not listen to cops, we're a reasonable state and you're ordered to leave you should listen. Language barrier is being falsely injected into this story, it's not like it's hard to pantomime telling someone to GFTO.
She had a chance to listen with the request to leave, and chose not too. It's her personal responsibilty to comply with the law, if this were on someones private property they would have had the right to brandish(but not fire) a gun. We don't baby people up here like a lot of the other states, she screwed up and payed the price. Live Free or Die doesn't mean you have the freedom to ignore the law.
New Hampshire is a unique place compared to most other states especially in this part of the country. While we may be ranked #1 in beer consumption we're ranked dead last in poverty even though our social services are minimal. We expect people to be responsible for their actions and the vast majority of people are. I can walk into a store an buy a long gun just my showing my license to prove I'm over 18, no permit, registration, fingerprints needed yet we're 47th for gun violence.
This sort of sums out the New Hampshire way, the rights of the property owner to have a tresspassor removed come before the rights of the tresspassor to keep being an asshole. If you watch the youtube video it's not as bad as TFA makes it seem, she didn't get shot with a taser it was a handheld one to get her to hold still so she could be cuffed. There's also a funny part where a random bystander walks over and stands right over the two cops trying to cuff her and just watches them.
So, if I come to your house, you ask me to leave and I do not, you call the police and they tell me to leave and I do not, then you're just screwed and there is nothing you can do to remove me?
They actually do get to do something to you if they give you a lawful order and you fail to comply with it. its called placing you under arrest. Which they did. She again refused to comply with their lawful orders once they decided to detain her. So they attempted to force her to comply, at first with physical force, then via the use of a tool. If you know another way to make an adult human being comply with your orders when they are actively refusing to do so that results in: no danger to the officers, no danger to the bystanders, and little danger to the detainee I am certain the police would love to hear about it.
You do know the police by and large are not a bunch of power drunk assholes? You do realize they put their lives on the line every single time they go into a confrontation with someone who is suspected of refusing to adhere to the laws their society passed? That every confrontation might be the one they do not go home from? And yet you think this just a couple of adult males pushing someone around to make themselves look big? Think about the whole situation before you open your mouth to comment on it.
Its guys like you that would have officers out there with nothing but guns on their hips and the option to kill or fail at their duty. Maybe you like the idea of Judge Dredd as your reality but if my family member was resisting arrest, I'd much rather like to call them a dumbass later than sit at their graveside.
It is property open to the public.
You can refuse to let niggers and rednecks into your living room, but you can't do that if you are a mall or a store.
And do you get the police to come round when you want a guest to leave? No. You remove them yourself. So why do these "private people" get to get free aid from the government?
arrested for criminal trespass (refusing to leave private property) and applied with nonlethal force for resisting arrest. You'll find the outcome is roughly the same in nearly every country in the world
Good people go to bed earlier.
The Apple Store refused to sell a Chinese woman more than 2 phones. She was taking pictures of them selling more than 2 phones to white people so they banned her from the store. When she returned they called the police who typically tased one of the sheep when they refused immediate compliance from representatives of the state. The police cannot be touched but it sounds like the Apple Store could face a racial discrimination lawsuit.
That's just because the bad cops stories sell more papers/get more hits. That's it. Evil is more entertaining. You could be the best cop on earth, super-cop if you will, and you'll still not make headlines as often as bad cop stories.
People like to be the underdog and root for the underdog. People like to see others fighting oppression, even if there is no oppression really going on.
Something needs to change in journalistic training. Something needs to change in editorial training. Yes the darkness needs to be exposed, but you paint the world as this massively bleak place and make it easier for those who would oppress others to do so by training them to think its already happening and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.
Just be glad they didn't have pepper spray. They might have bathed her in it while she lay on the ground. It's apparently a popular compliance technique with the overweight law enforcement crowd.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Live Free Or Die.
It's not a motto, it's an enforced regulation.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Stop trolling us! We get it, you have a mandatory minimum of apple shit you have to shove down our throats to get us going, but seriously?
This is just another random tasering story for the odd news . . . this has nothing to do with technology.
It's a power-crazed trigger-happy authoritarian police problem.
Would they have used a gun against this woman before tazers were introduced? I doubt it.
Damn terrorists...
a leather jacket or any thick clothing would be enough. A taser has to attach the prongs to you so anything that prevents contact and does not conduct electricity would work.
Nope. A police taser has two barbs that go through your clothing and into your skin. Then a current is passed between the two barbs. A leather jacket will not protect you.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I'm torn on this. There was a case in Finland where a DUI suspect tried to run away and a police officer tased her. She fell down a staircase and suffered a fractured skull and brain damage. The court ruled the police officer used excessive force on an unarmed suspect who wasn't threatening anyone.
On the other hand, scuffles can be unpredictable and dangerous to all parties as well (another suspect in Finland recently bit a police officer's testicles and was beaten in the head with a baton by a fellow officer). I don't think police officers should risk their well-being if there's a reasonable way so incapacitate the perp. It might be a good principle for everybody to understand that if you resist police officers, you will be tasered on the spot (the easy way/hard way logic) with little risk to the officer.
I personally know a police officer. If there's any way to reduce the extreme stress they face constantly from the field (a couple of weeks ago a Finnish officer's home was destroyed in an explosion by a disgruntled customer), I'm very sympathetic to the cause.
I'm seeing this assertion all over this thread, but a dearth of sources. I recall a few anecdotes myself, from other Slashdot articles. But I get the impression that it's only because tasers are still regarded as "techy", and make the news, while plain old beatings don't.
Has anybody got any data on whether tasers are actually being used increasingly, and aren't just a substitution for the kind of brutality that leaves incriminating bruises? I assume that the incidence is increasing as more and more officers have them, but is this additional violence, or are the tasers making formerly non-violent officers violent?
I'll still never understand people that choose to come here but refuse to learn even some basic English language skills. Like "No" or "leave", etc. Why do you intentionally make life more difficult for yourself?
Although I suspect she is playing up the "I no speak English" bit to make it seem like she wasn't really trespassing or resisting arrest.
And what the hell was up with her doing the interview from her bed? Is she trying to act like she has been crippled by the taser or something?
That poor, old, Asia, woman gets beat up by a big, strong, young, (not sure what color), man. Who stole her chance to get on the police force and and voted some cracker named Kennedy into office to steal her identity and social security check. Not wonder she is forced into a life of crime of buying IPhones to make the rich Apple corp. even richer.
It is a true shame!
Now all you hate mongers are going to vote this post down.
Pheasant Lane Mall is also just over the border from Massachusetts and is a popular shopping destination in New England, especially for out-of-state shoppers because New Hampshire is free of sales tax.
I'm reminded of that case of the UK police tasing a man who had fallen into a diabetic coma because he was unconscious and did not follow their instructions.
Cops don't have brains, anyone with brains would not do that job. It does attract psychopaths with a craving for power though.
Or maybe she'll pull out a gun and start shooting. Don't you watch the news man? People get shot just for going to the movies or school nowadays!
You have a large number of misconceptions.
No one shouted private property.
You have the right to have someone removed from your property if they refuse to leave when you tell them. Or can we come over and sit in your house and laugh when you tell us to leave? Hell no you'll call the police and expect them to do something about it!
This is a business. They advised her of their policies. They told her to leave. At that point she is no longer a customer and has no business on their property AND is committing a criminal act by refusing to leave. No need to wait for her to steal phones OR try to run your other customers off. She is already a criminal.
Lack of martial training is actually of benefit...to the criminal. There are no tells to let the police know what she intends. Ask any martial artist (and I do not mean eastern martial arts...ANY martial art will reply the same.) They will tell you that fighting someone untrained is always worse than fighting trained opponents, because you have no idea what they are going to do.
She is a woman and therefor weaker and less dangerous than a man. Firstly you're being exceedingly condescending and chauvinistic for someone I am betting has never even been in a fight before. Secondly, in a physical confrontation, women have far fewer taboos than men. They claw, they kick, they bite, they pull hair, they go for the groin, they spit, they do pretty much anything a cornered animal can do to get away or hurt you until you stop struggling.
Seriously, what were they supposed to do? Slap her on the wrist, smack her on the bottom and send her on her way? She was placed under arrest for trespassing after she refused to leave the store....in front of one of the the officers in question who was already in the store. She refused to comply. At that point they tried to make her comply, they went to the floor and rather than struggle and possibly cause injury to themselves or the woman, they tasered her to force her compliance. And it worked. No one else was harmed and she became complaint afterwards. This is about the clearest case FOR the use of a taser I think I have ever seen. She was indeed resisting arrest and struggling, refusing to do what they told her, and rather than drag it out until someone got hurt, they tased her. She is not dead. She's not even in the hospital! She was booked and made bail and went home!
Score one for society when a law breakers biggest complain is being forced to let the cops arrest them.
They had her pinned down, they used a Taser on her while she was pinned down. Tasers have killed 532 people in the US alone (and that figure is only up to 2009):
http://electronicvillage.blogspot.com/2009/05/taser-related-deaths-in-united-states.html
They could have killed her. All she wanted to do was buy a few iPhones, nothing special, just BUY the thing Apple SELLS in the store it SELLS THEM at the price it SELLS THEM.
And they treated her like that, and you Apple fanbois try to defend that? Seriously?
If they'd killed her, would you be defending Apple then?
... that anyone buying an iPhone should be tazed?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The taser was used AFTER it had escalated to physical violence. They attempted to arrest her and she resisted. Rather than continue to struggle with her once it became clear she would not comply, they tasered her.
Also this...
"No... what happened is that the officer didn't think for a second. " ...is you claiming to know what another person is thinking when you have no evidence to support your claim beyond personal supposition.
It's just they're there to protect and serve the state, not the people.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The same people complaining about her being tazed are the same people that would complain if her arm was broken because she was fighting with them while they were trying to handcuff her. A Taser isn't "the last step before using a gun" the are another step to keep from physically injuring a person.. Yeah I could jump on you grab you arm and wrench it the opposite way that you are trying to make it go and then do damage , Or I could after you start fighting zap you and try again.
So she could have tasered them back
Gently reply
You might call me old fashioned or sexist here, but where I'm from we get taught not to use violence against women.
Ok, you are old fashioned and sexist. How about not using violence against anyone? You're basically implying that it is acceptable to use violence against men but not women. Gender should play NO role in this discussion whatsoever. Men are no more deserving of violence than women.
I'm not saying the police were entirely wrong in this instance with the taiser but as a former resident of Nashua I've also had unpleasant run-ins with the Nashua Police that don't show exemplary behavior on their part. About ten years ago, they were ready to break down the door to my apartment at 1am. Apparently they had an arrest warrant for the former resident and leasee but their police records were at least one year out-of-date. The police made NO apologies or explanations...They just walked off after realizing their mistake. I had to piece together what happened, myself. Needless to say, its alarming when you are woken out of a sound sleep on a work night by yelling and banging at your door.
Kung-Fu master, afraid they might get their asses kicked by a girl?
Who knows, maybe they were right, maybe her Kung Fu is the best!
Cops like their tasers way too much. Over here in Vermont they tasered a man to death who was no threat. Of course, they also use machine guns for that purpose too in other cases here in Vermont so it isn't just tasers it is the attitude of the cops. Our beloved government then defends the cops and lets them off scott free. We've had six cases like this in the last couple of years - that's a lot for such a small state with such a peaceful population. The problem with the tasers is the cops view them as 'non-lethal' when in fact they're killing people with them.
If a policeman has nothing but his own physical strength, handcuffs (for non-lethal force) and a gun (for lethal) there is no tempting grey area to use these less-lethal abominations on the public.
Give law enforcement more tools, and you have given them more temptation to abuse. The same goes for drones, cameras, and any other gadgets.
where Apple is clearly sending paid shills onto /. to make arguments on their behalf in perfect lockstep with each other. Do you folks go to a website to get your marching orders each morning, or are they delivered directly to your iPhones?
The lady was probably used to getting away with shit and beint a nasty bitch; managing to get away with it: "Wo is me, I no speak english; I is not big".
And she was obviously trying to start something, otherwise she wouldn't keep buying from a store that had previously kicked her ass out.
I don't see what the issue is. If she wants to spend that much money on iPhones, let her.
Maybe we should just Taser everyone who doesn't speak English (with Double volts to Grammar Nazis).
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
'Minimal personal consequences' for the officers. If another perp happens to suffer from 'excited delirium'(probably because of drugs, if we can find any), well, maybe some paid leave will be in order...
as the ultimate universal translator. She's lucky to be alive. A Polish man in Canada wasn't so lucky. It is amazing how insular we still are about English in the US. We think people will understand us if we just shout a little louder.
This is racism: When the shop owner thinks that this woman, because she is from another ethnicity, will sell the iPhones outside of the US, then it is racism. Asking this woman to leave is like asking a black person to leave because of some random reason, because he is going to sell the iPhones in Africa for example.
The police, who arrests this woman because she refuse to leave the shop (why couldn't she do the same thing than the other people), is just doing the dirty job of the shop owner.
And the ending with the tazer is just the climax of this chain of stupidity.
That store's right on the Mass border. There are no sales taxes in NH, and a high sales tax in MA. They bring busloads of people up from MA, give them loads of money, and instruct them to buy all they can get their hands on. What they do with them after that is anyone's guess -- probably improper export. Glad they're restricting sales. The lines of these people outside the store make getting in there tough sometimes.
Problem solved.
become Microsoft? I thought they wanted to create a bit of good-will with their new Chinese customer base, rather than using heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to squash typical marketplace responses?
PRECISELY
If you don't comply with the police, pretty much. Personally i've broken too many laws to be a saint. But still not complying with police is about the dumbest thing you can do , if you're not sure you can get away with it. Even if you're totally innocent, noncompliance means guilt or atleast something worthy of investifgation
People who have a clean conscience are happy. People who don't have a conscience are the happiest motherfuckers alive.
Just another plot perpetrated by the man to bring a brother down.
Most times now a days cops just shoot you dead cause they 'feel threatened". All things considered this is a positive outcome.
I don't see why you've put a capital "D" to "Doub@afgy#VHEaagrWFlgfdshbzzzzzzzzzzz!!!
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Passive resistance, oh I can think of one or two examples.
Say standing/sitting/lying down in front of a police car preventing it from moving and/or proceeding to it's destination despite repeated requests from the police officer to move. If person either displays an understanding of English or makes statements about intentionally blocking the car from proceeding, then it's overt. "I'm not gonna move ya pig, deal with it!"
Methods of resolution:
find a way around the person (doesn't work if they move as well to block the path)
Use an alternate route (may not be viable - no routes may exist or may not be time efficient)
Honk at the person
Threaten them with arrest or charges (not sure if there's something that applies here, perhaps disorderly conduct, possibly not viable if there's a number of people)
Drive around them - could lead to them being run over
Use of pepper spray - extremely irritating but not permanently harmful, works to make the person so uncomfortable that they comply without violence.
Police could physically remove person from their path, may not work, particularly if there's more persons than officers - move two of them, others move back in place. Move the others, the originals move back in place, etc.
Arrest persons.
Which of these, or any that I may not have come up with, would be preferable in such a situation?
Problem solved.
Signed,
Bender
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The story says she was Tasered when she came in to pick up phones she had already ordered on line. So she was rightfully demanding that the store fulfill an obligation to her.
As for "unauthorized export", that has no meaning in state law, and state cops have no authority in that area. There are some Federal restrictions, but they involve mostly the few countries the US still doesn't get along with, like Cuba and North Korea. You can ship all the iPhones you want to China as far as the US is concerned. Importing into China is difficult, much more so than importing into the US. But that's enforced at China customs processing. Not by some mall cop.
As if your home-brew Linux shitbox is any more noble than an iPhone.
You mean my Chromebook? By Samsung? Not more noble. But lighter than Macbook Air.
She is from Newton....
That's the fate someone should face for buying an iphone!!!
mmmmm.....
There's not an actual bullet, just a slamming thingie that is re-used on every shot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_gun
Police will be using them on everyone soon.
'dunno how many iPhones were purchased (or attempted to be purchased), but if that number was "too many" surely buying in smaller quantities, at lotsa Apple shops, is the answer.
The prices would be about the same, across Apple stores. So, a little extra driving & queuing time would very likely save all the inconvenience of being pinned-down by security folks & having one's clothing soiled in the process.
Life as normal in a fascist state.
Then they wouldn't been able to get through, or ending up reaching the police for another state (since Apple phones can't tell where they are, look at Apple maps) and this wouldn't have happened.
And if the taser was as reliable as an iPhone, she wouldn't have got zapped. Instead, the taser might have exploded.
The summary is a lie. She as tasered because she refused to leave the store.
How do you say "Don't taze me, Bro" in Mandarin?
Hostility against Apple fans has reached a new height.
"Many were subjected to repeated or prolonged shocks -- far more than the five-second “standard” cycle -- or by more than one officer at a time. "
Abuse of the tool results in death. Just like with a nightstick! BAN ALL TEH NITESTIKS! TEHY CAUSE TEH DEATHZ!
"In at least six of the cases where people died, Tasers were used on individuals suffering from medical conditions such as seizures"
Ah, there we are then. 6 cases of proper application gone horribly wrong due to an unknown and unforeseeable medical condition. The same as getting into a confrontation with a suspect who has a blood clotting condition, choking him out and him suffering an aneurysm or whatever.
There is always a high risk of injuring yourself or the suspect when the suspect is resisting arrest. If you know a way to take down someone without hurting them when they are trying to hurt you, that the taxpayers will actually pay for, please share. Oh and make sure it cannot in any way cause accidental death, even if abused!
Just because one person abuses a tool, it does not mean the tool is inherently at fault and should be taken from everyone else using it. it mean the abuser should be removed. From his job and probably society for a number of years. If only we had some place, separate from normal society, where we could put people who had shown they had trouble following societies rules. Maybe a place we could put them for a number of years until they had learned their lesson. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to let them go for now.
Again, read. All the sources you can.
They had one cuff on her. She refused to give them her other arm and began to struggle. They tried to make her comply with force, the struggle went to the ground, and they used a stungun on her. Not a Taser (thank you misleading journalists for using a brand name weapon in your story instead of the actual device). They used it to make her stop struggling and get the cuffs on her. These are far less "deadly" than an actual Taser. I've watched kids playing with them (kids being stupid teens from 14-25) and zapping each other for kicks. They used a bunch of them in a Jackass movie in test mode (continual firing) to make a "gauntlet" for themselves to run through.
Secondly, she understood what she was told when they refused to sell her more than 2 devices on the first visit then come back later specifically to photograph and "catch" them selling more than 2 to people. Pretty sure her basic/poor understanding of English was sufficient enough to understand "Leave the store now" considering she did it not 2 days prior when told.
This is an appalling situation. Many police departments do not allow their employees to moonlight for exactly this reason.
This policeman took a civil situation and made it into a criminal one.
I have never heard of someone being tazered for even shoplifting...
Apple has not done themselves any favors here and they had better begin to.do damage control right NOW.
Get rid of that manager immediately.
re:Encryption for DRM purposes no longer counts as munitions. ;>)
Wait, so I've got this idea for sending encrypted messages without breaking the hardware-encryption-export laws. Have the message said out loud by Alice (or have Alice perform an interpretive dance that encodes/denotes the message) but along with it, have a copyrighted musical performance playing in the background. Now use encryption as DRM to ensure that no unauthorized person gets access to that copyrighted musical performance! We just switch
f_{DRM} ((Alice's message A as foreground)+(copyright performance B) ) into
A is background and B is foreground and f(A+B) is now protected by DRM which requires encryption. That should fly, right?
Just be glad they didn't have pepper spray. They might have bathed her in it while she lay on the ground. It's apparently a popular compliance technique with the overweight law enforcement crowd.
You mean the typical law enforcement crowd?
Your post and the video in TFS prompted me to go to youtube in search of tazer/police brutality footage. Truly disheartening. I would recommend to anyone to do the same for a more visceral experience of what appears to be common police activity.
They should have zapped my auntie, nicknamed the "Dowager Empress".
I live in Nashua. A few months ago I heard a police officer outside my window tell a woman she wasn't allowed to record video of him using her cell phone. A man in Nashua has been arrested twice for recording them. The cops here are pretty fucking bad.
Live Free Or Die! This taser bullshit has gotten out of hand! It is the first reaction to anything the cops might be nervous about. Why engage someone in conversation when you can scream at them and then tase them? As we give the stupidest of our society more and more power, what can we expect. I guess we have to take that state motto to heart!
Thats because they (the cops) know nobody needs jumping in the smart phones wagon...and if someone decides to do so, can't it choose samsung? camon! u deserve some taser treatment!
to everyone saying the police were justified
how would you feel if your mother was treated this way because she wouldn't leave a store at the mall? pinned to them ground then tasered. or you? how would you like to be treated like this ? justified? no
Were any iPhones harmed? A Tazer emits very high voltage, so there is a chance that any phones on her person could have suffered from Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) damage. Good thing there were AppleCare personel nearby read to apply mouth-to-battery-compartment resuscitation. I hope all the phones were rushed to the Brain Bar in time.
There has been a recent update in this report. Officers have now stated that upon searching the woman's vehicle, they discovered an accordion. Authorities have not commented on additional charges being filed, however New Hampshire is a right to silence state, opening up the possibility of a life sentence for crimes committed with an obnoxious instrument.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
"A woman who said she was asked to leave New Hampshire's Pheasant Lane Mall because she WANTED TO BUY too many ...
Maybe the cops were right but you have to prove a crime was committed.
The next question is, what would the response have been had the woman been a hispanic, black, powhite, east european immigrant, smartly dressed lady with credit cards... ?
OK
Apple will release the iTaser next week.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
You sir are either an idiot, or blissfully ignorant of the actions of police officers in your area. I was peripherally connected to the police commission in my last US abode, thus I was not.
Luke, help me take this mask off