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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.
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 !
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.
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..
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?
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.
Wait, I take that back. I didn't notice there were more pages to the story.
The taser wasn't excessive. She clearly resisted arrest for several minutes, and she had been told not to come back to the store on a previous occasion. Department policy allowed for the taser in that situation.
But of course:
"She was scared, she didn't understand," said John Hugo, who said he was Li's fiance'. "I was outraged. You go into a store, and you end up getting brutalized by the police.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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 $16K draws unwanted attention in the current police state environment.
Obviously, she was taking the money she earned selling drugs, and laundering it by buying iPhones for cash, then reselling them. Makes perfect sense to a cop, who has been trained to assume that EVERYBODY is a criminal....
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Here's a crazy idea: instead of starting to shout "private property" and having the hired guns tackle a woman and break out their weapons - just ignore her. Don't take her money, don't ring up her sale. She'll either give up and go away or try to steal the phones and then it's cut-and-dry. Plus no news stories with bad publicity during the Christmas shopping season.This would also save two Nashua cops from the public humiliation of not being able to handcuff a middle-aged asian woman (I saw the video - there's no fear that she's a kung-fu master).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
She clearly resisted arrest for several minutes,
So a small, middle aged woman managed to resist arrest for several minutes? Wow. Those cops should be ashamed of themselves. Really, how did cops survive 10 years ago? Did they all get sound ass kickings from tiny middle aged women?
Seriously, if you can't arrest someone like that without a taser, then you're so badly trained that you should not be allowed out on the street.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Didn't some state have that as their motto?
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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.
Important part you left out:
The confrontation involving the Taser happened when Li went to the store on Monday to pick up two iPhones she ordered online.
So, here's how it appears the situation played out (Cliff's Notes for those too dumb or lazy to RTFA):
Incident 1 - Chinese lady goes to the store, tries to buy more than 2 iPhones, is told 2 is the limit. She pre-orders 2 iPhones, and begins to video the other customers, as she is convinced that the store has sold/is selling more than 2 iPhones to other people. Store manager asks her to leave, presumably for filming other customers. No charges files.
Incident 2 - Chinese lady goes back to the store to pick up the 2 iPhones she paid for. Store management tells her she must leave (no mention as to whether or not she had picked up the items she paid for, or if there was a new incident that prompted the request for removal). Confrontation ensues, cops attempt to confiscate the woman's cell phone and purse, then pin down and taze the 80 lb Chinese lady; some kid films it and posts on Youtube. Cops claim she was "resisting," because they always do.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Disagree.
The article describes how, in effect, if there were less people around they would have pepper sprayed her. Police are increasingly using violence as "compliance tools". It is the equivalent of beating someone with a club, but because it is less visual, people don't catch on to how brutal it is.
I don't care if she was surly or not. It's trespassing at best, some federal offense that local townie cops have no business enforcing at worst. When did we go from being a country that asked "who the F are you to tell me to do X" of cops, to kowtowing to their every demand.
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.
Giving tasers to the police was supposed to be a way for them to protect themselves from violent people without using guns. If this old lady was really threatening them then they need to be kicked off the force for being too unfit to serve as a police officer.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
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"
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'
If it's being bought to resell, that leaves consumers unhappy. They're just trying to make more consumers happy with their brand - an immediate shortage and outrageous prices on eBay would make that happen pretty quickly. Although I agree that one should only limit quantities when there is a very limited supply - such as a manufacturing shortage or it's a sale item that will sell out quickly. And that's exactly what this case is.
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
Check the video. They did indeed sit on her. It wasn't before she was laying face down to the ground that they tasered her. It looks more like the tasering was used to get her to shutup than to pin her down.
Football Odds
disclaimer: I am I cell phone salesman.
No, the PATRIOT Act has caused the rationing. Buying phones without a contract is limited to two per customer because of "potential terror uses".
Seriously, go walk into a Walmart or a Costco, grab three ten dollar Tracfones, put them on the belt, the cash register will not let you buy them. Take one of them away and the transaction will work fine. Alternately, call a local Walmart, ask for electronics, ask them how many non-contract phones you can buy. If you're in the US, the limit is two.
Whether or not Ms. Li knew enough English to know what her situation was will without a doubt become clear.
It's already clear in this case. She had gone to the exact same store the preceding Friday attempting to buy dozens of iPhones, and on that particular day understood quite well what the manager meant when he said "Please leave and do not return to this store." Yet we're to believe that the following Monday, when faced with the same situation and the same "Please leave and do not return", she's now a poor Chinese immigrant fresh off the boat, struggling to break through the language barrier.
Huh. Apparently, you can unlearn a language over the course of a weekend.
You don't even need to know english.
A group of armed people in a uniform (that other people are deferring to) pointing to the door and shouting... you'd have to me a moron to miss the intention...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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.
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)
...they were filming a movie.
Coming in 2013, Judge Dredd: Mall Cop.
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!"
Look what happened in Fullerton, CA. Mentally ill homeless guy sitting on the curb, subdued according to witnesses. Four cops stand around him, one putting on gloves saying "We're going to fuck you up", then proceed to beat him to death as he screamed for his mother. It is impossible to listen to the audio all the way through. Oh, these cops used a taser, too. One bashed the homeless guy repeatedly with the handle.
All on video, fortunately, with two of the cops pending trial and possible charges against the others.
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.
Since when is two "dozens"? She was tazered by rent-a-cops[*] for buying two phones and attempting to buy another two, having seen Suzi Whitebread being sold more than that in store.
Good job on jumping to the same assumption as the "geniuses" in the Apple store though. Looks a bit foreign, probably buying for export, TAZZZER HERRRRR.
[*] Yes, literal rent-a-cops. These were actual cops taking a second salary for acting as Apple store security.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
So you have these rulers who wander around giving out arbitrary commands to the proles. The rulers pretend to be following some 'law' but really they are above most laws and only have to follow their own loose interpretation of some written law. They meet any perceived challenge to their authority with mild to extreme violence often involving electrical torture devices.
Is that the kind of society you want to live in?
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?
Back in the day, in mental hospitals they often used violence to enforce compliance by mental patients who got unruly. Then the Korean War came along and they assigned a bunch of farm boys who refused to serve in the military no matter what form of coercion was used to work as orderlies at the mental hospitals. Now these farm boys weren't going to use violence here anymore than they were going to join the military. So, what did they do? Well, they did what they did when they had a stallion or a bull that would not do what was wanted. They restrained the patient. Two, or more, if they thought that was necessary, would go into the patient's room and approach calmly and carefully despite what the patient would do to resist their approach. When they got close enough, they would take hold of the patient and prevent the patient from moving. The thing about it was that it rarely took more than two of them, even if the patient was large and the two farm boys were not so large. That's because they had learned their techniques against animals that were larger than them, animals that were valuable so you didn't do anything that might damage them. There was one other factor that was very important. They were patient. They were willing to wait until the animal or the patient gave up. The thing was it rarely took that long because there is something very "calming" about dealing with someone who will continue to move towards their goals no matter what you do.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.