That's why I also never complain about war, crime, poverty, disease, or dictatorships. If it's old, it must be good!
No, what's "old," here, is the technique of bad-mouthing/slandering your competition. I'm sure there was inter-witch-doctor FUD in neolithic times. Much, much more recent than that is having a legal framework for some recourse. If there are people posting BS complaints just to run down the company's reputation, then they deserve exactly what they get. If that's NOT what's happening here, then those same people should enjoy every bit of the punitive proceeds they can extract in a counter-suit handled by lawyers working for a cut.
Well, you insensitive clod, if you'd RTF, you'd understand. The freakin' Space Meteor Arsenic has damaged my ability to conjugate verbs, and I won't be able to get rid of Space Meteor Arsenic Syndrome until I get a conjugal visit. I hope you feel good about yourself.
Sorry, folks, nothing to see here. We're just slobs and our place is a toxic shithole. Sorry about that. Just call us Newark south.
Yeah, those poor, uneducated Peruvians and their backwards, self-polluting, toxic-drinking-water ways. Imagine dumping your arsenic right there where you live. Well, you WILL have to imagine, because if you RTF, you'll note that the area has naturally occuring arsenic deposits. It's in the ground water, and it's always been in the ground water. Nice troll, though!
I propose a sliding scale of crimes you can get away with given a certain disease
You've forgotten the most popular one for this group: real or imagined Asperger's or ADHD etc: license to troll and flame on Slashdot, AND right to take Highly Theatrical Umbrage when someone questions whether or not perhaps you're just annoying, instead.
Personally, I'm much more worried about people who cling to the unfounded belief that there existed an era where critical thinking skills and science education were any better than today.
Look. In my day, we had to critically think our way to school uphill, both ways, in the snow. And we LIKED it that way, yessiree we did.
I think I'm reacting to the availability of pervasive mass media that appears to celebrate the squashing of critical thought. That gives disporportionate weight to the idiots, and allows that (lack of) perspective to shape young people even more into such clods. I guess I mean that thougtless, inarticulate wingdings have way more influence than they used to, and because of the efficiencies and surpluses of modern life, it doesn't really hurt a kid as much, in the pocket, to go through life as a permanent junior high school student, sophistication-wise.
This kind of crap is infuriating for airline companies...It doesn't take much at all to kill a whole line of planes, just the vague reputation for being unsafe
Yup. Michael Crichton's "Airframe" was actually a pretty good read on this very subject. Well, it INVOLVED this sort of subject. Most people also don't understand that the airframe ain't the same as the engines, and ain't the same as the particular airline's choice about all sorts of other things (from avionics packages, to training programs/frequency, etc). But it shouldn't just be infuriating to airlines, it should be infuriating to ANYONE who manufactures anything, works for someone who does, likes buying from anyone who does, has some of their Mom's 401k invested in someone who does, likes the fact that we get tax revenue from someone who does, who would rather buy from Boeing than ship the cash consortium manufacturer, and more.
I'm way more worried about the corrosion of national critical thinking skills and basic science education (which allows this sort of stuff to be written and passively consumed) than I am about the prospects of water-based corrosion to a CF airframe 20 years from now. We can fix/replace an airframe, but we can't fix some teenager that's been trained to not think, and who finds the trouble of actually grokking issues like this to be unfashionable and too much work. That Dan Rather is pandering to that cultural flaw (while suing CBS for $70 million for getting busted having done it before!) isn't just embarassing, it's Actually Evil(tm). And not just for Boeing's upper management bonuses.
Why go all the way to the top? You only have to go back a notch or two for the post about "black-clad riot police in cities like Portland act with absolute impunity".
As for "hippie protestors," who cares? I don't care if they're hippies, or anti-abortion wackadoos. When they start physically interfering with other people, or destroying property, all bets are off. People who use violence can't bitch when the officers charged with stopping violence... physically stop it.
irrelevant commentary about protestors
The whole freakin' story is about crowd-control technology. Countless posts in the entire area have centered on "suppressing dissent," "freedom of speech," and many other topics related to the people-in-the-street context. But when someone else expressly mentions west-coast protest crowd control, I don't feel too far off talking about it ALSO.
Do you understand how much of a freaking non-sequitur that is?
Read his post. HE is the one that brings up the "impunity" with which crowd control cops seem able to act at protests. My point is that the protesters themselves have altered the threshold here, and people (such as the voters for whom the police work) get rather fatigued by it, especially when property is destroyed. The tolerance for police using more force than might be needed will go back down when there isn't as much tolerance (for BS behavior by disruptive, violent masked protestors) asked of the audience you're trying to persuade.
No, what we're afraid of is that the majority of the population is okay with police brutality
Like I said, you're afraid of your inability to be persuasive enough. If you can't convince people there's a problem, then you're not being persuasive enough. The reason that so many people shrug off coverage of crowd control cops getting rough is because they also get annoyed at shrill, masked groups of people in chanting crowds that think that stopping traffic (or torching cars), trying to block access to a business/clinic/whatever (or smashing its windows) is somehow making their idealogy more appealing. Some people actually DO get annoyed when they see the ambulance that costs more than all the state taxes they'll ever pay in their lifetime gets rolled over by a bunch of drunk idiots that are looking for more and bigger stuff to destroy because their favorite soccer/football/basketball/hockey team either won or lost that night. You will have a much easier time showing how unreasonable it is for police to be rough with people like that when the audience you're trying to pursuade don't find the people they're dealing with to be physically provocative, disruptive and destructive. I've seen all sorts of marches, protests, and demonstrations where there wasn't a whiff of what you're worrying about, because the people making the spectacle also kept it civilized, while still getting all the camera time they want on their giant puppets, organic tofu drums, slogan banners, and more. Your whole "stifling dissent" bit is pretty disengenuous, considering people can say whatever they want. Busting up other people's property isn't "dissent."
Don't want to see riot cops at your protest? Tell some of the organizations that will be there not to use event-related web sites to advertise how they're planning on chaining off streets to prevent emergency responders and talking about how to conceal gas masks for when they'll be rushing a line of vehicles. Smashing up a Starbucks in Seattle because a trade conference happens to be in the same town isn't dissent. It's adolescent BS.
befor you admited that you had in-fact taken the Lindburg baby and shot JFK
Admitted how? On paper? When that goes to trial, you simply tell them it was under duress. And anyone who wants a conviction to stick and thinks you might pull that one are going to video tape the interview and your documenting of your confession. So, admitting on video tape? No defense lawyer in the world could drop that ball if you confessed while screaming in pain as movie-villain told you what to say. You're talking about cheesy movie scenes, not how it actually works. And for what it's worth, there are PLENTY of non-mark-leaving pain-inducing techniques (chemical and otherwise), and there's a reason those aren't used to get criminal convictions - because they generally can't produce workable (in court) "confessions."
So? What are you doing about it? Are any of the people who are daily misusing them employed by your city council, or county government? The purse strings that fund those tools, and which pay for that officer and his chain of command are controlled by, typically, a very small number of elected people that tend to be elected by a TINY number of people that actually vote like they give a damn in their local elections. If you think those tools can't be used constructively, or to avoid other injuries, then take the steps to deny your local officers access to those tools. Or take the steps to hire people that follow the same decision-making process YOU would use while trying to break up a fight, or deal with a crazy drunk guy, etc.
How do you prove an officer used excessive force on you when there are no marks?
How do you prove that a mark is actually caused by an out of control cop, and not something you already had, and which you're now leveraging for some lawsuit cash? It works both ways.
But we're not talking about some holster-mounted ray gun, here. We're talking about high-energy crowd control tools that are mounted on trucks. The sort of loud, noisy, jerky protests that people are worried will be inappropriately disrupted by something like this are invariably videotaped by dozens of people. The advances in technology that provide for non-injuring crowd control also provide for cameras and video recording the hands of everyone with a $39 cell phone.
The least sophisticated way of relating to other people is through violence
So, when a crowd of people are smashing your store front and burning your car - a form of "relating" to you of which you would presumably disapprove - which is better: sending in people with choking tear gas, or clubs, or other techniques that essentialy guarantee injury for people across the board, or using a tool that more or less instantly puts a stop to the violence? Do you NOT want violent people to be stopped, using a mimimum of violence? Or are you of the camp that would rather just let someone BE violent, despite lecturing other people about how bad it is? If your point is that using violence to stop someone else's violence is a bad thing, then you should be FOR a tool that avoids the need for escalating violence.
the general population begins to fear the police, and I think that is starting to happen in the United States
Why? An officer that's shown to abuse people can't keep his job unless an elected official/body allows him/her to. There isn't a law enforcement officer of any type, working at any level in the US that doesn't answer to elected civilians. So, what you're 'afraid' of isn't police with riot control weapons that no longer risk putting out an eye with a rubber bullet, or burning/choking someone with tear gas cannisters - what you're afraid of is your inability to be persuasive enough to get elected a person that, at the muncipal, county, and state level, will prohibit abusive behavior by officers (and support consequences for it).
Why are you more afraid of a fleeting, non-damaging nerve stimulation than you are choking gas, or bruising clubs and water cannons, or agitated K-9 units? You shouldn't be - those are all simply tools. This isn't about the tool, it's about the policies and rules of engagement. And those are dictated by people you do, or don't vote for. Police have always been ABLE to use painful tactics as needed, but those methods generally caused damage.
I don't know anyone in my neighborhood that's more afraid of police than they used to be. There are only people that are frustrated that there aren't enough police to keep gangs like MS-13 from being as scary as THEY are. If you're concerned about the ability of law enforcement officers to judge when and how to use force, then campaign for the higher taxes needed to pay the much higher salaries needed to attract and retain the physically fit, dedicated, experienced, philosopher kings you think would be better in that career.
He was asking a question with a bit of bombast and enthusiasm, and it seems like the cops were just looking for someone to fight with; they harassed him just for giving some background on his question
Yeah, other than that's not exactly how it went, and you know that. Nice spin attempt, though!
these cops decided to take the law into their own hands; basically they ignored the rights of every person in that room, not just the guy they tasered
Actually it's the rights of the other people in the room to assemble and talk that they WERE defending. When someone else wants to hijack your time, and your right to assembly, then it's reasonable to ask him to stop. He didn't. Repeatedly. It's reasonable then to ask him to leave. He didn't. Repeatedly. It's reasonable then to escort him away so that other people could have a chance to speak and ask questions. He pitched a fit, and then got physical with the officers present. The physically got hold of him, and asked him to stop kicking and fighting. Repeatedly. He wouldn't. They told him that if he would cool out, they'd have to do something ELSE to make him stop kicking and fighting. Six times. He wouldn't stop. Why? Because he was getting exactly what he WANTED: a chance to pitch a screaming drama queen fit in front of cameras. He knew he wouldn't be hurt, and he knew that even getting tasered is nothing but great TV for the activist groupie crowd. So, a quick prod to again remind him to quit fighting, and he did, in fact, quit fighting. Of course, he got to keep hollaring and bitching on his way out of the room. So, they kept tasering him over and over again to tortue him and suppress his rights. Only, that didn't happen, did it?
You're high if you think it's okay to use whatever means necessary, when in fact, the appropriate force needed to "subdue" a civilian is nothing more than an arm behind the back and a knee to the lower spine.
So, what you're talking about, here, is making sure that we only hire police that can physically control anybody they might encounter. Every cop should be larger, stronger, more nimble, and more skilled than anyone they ever have to deal with, right? You're really not getting it.
There's a nice cop that works my neighborhood. She's about 5'-2", if that. I'm more than a foot taller than she is, and probably twice her weight. She could NOT subdue me in the manner you describe unless I was otherwise injured or disabled. A taser would allow her to do that. Or are you saying that if she can't wrestle me to the ground, then whatever it is I was doing that demanded arrest should just be forgotten about? Or, are you saying that we need to make sure that we fire her, and get bigger people to replace her?
I didn't see any torture. I saw someone who KNEW what he was doing going to great lengths to make sure he screamed like a school girl at exactly the moment needed to maximize the theatrics. A hit with a taser isn't torture.
stab gear is light weight and worn under the shirt so you can not see it
Which does nothing for your arms, groin, face, or legs. As you obviously know.
sadism
You're confusing this kid's deliberately putting himself into that scenario and launching the physical part of the conflict with someone ELSE looking for some chance to inflict pain. Sadism: BS, and you know it. Not wanting to have to deal with someone acting increasingly loopy, is more like it. And, you're still talking like they just walked up and tasered him, which you know is BS. They TOLD him they were going to, half a dozen times. All he had to do was quit being physical, problem solved.
I would have put one of the kids arms behind his back grabbed a handful of hair with the other
Just what a guy like this would be hoping for, if he could talk you into tasering him. An officer dragging a political protester by the hair is a nice second place - he'd LOVE you for that. It would also go right up on his home page.
Hell bouncers in most bars would have done a better job then those clowns did.
I've bounced, subdued, and disarmed plenty of large, drunk people. I'm not a cop, so of course no arrests personally. But I've dealt with people three times that kid's size that turned out to be big pushovers, and some very small, very scrappy people that I've watched dislocate an officer's arm, break a jaw, and nearly blind someone else while resisting being tossed out of a venue. And I HAVE watched someone get a bad guy's dislodged, hidden belt knife rammed right into their thigh, followed by some life-threatening bleeding in the middle of the fight. His vest likely would have stopped it, but... he wasn't wearing his vest on his damn leg, as you ALSO know.
You are saying you can be tasered for being annoying?
No, I'm saying you can be tasered if, while you're actually swinging, kick, and fighting with several police officers and they've said half a dozen times that if you don't just chill out they're going to HAVE to taser you, THEN you can be tasered. Now, becoming violent with police IS annoying, so if that's how you meant it, then I suppose, sure, yes.
A good cop should be able to handle a 21-year-old kid, even if he is upset, without having to lift a finger.
You know that. I know that. The police know that. And the whiny drama queen idiot kid knows that. The thing you're leaving out is that he deliberately provoked this, and did everything possible to bring about a physical escalation so that he could enjoy the theater of it. He new he wasn't going to get hurt, and knew exactly that people who don't know what the hell they're talking about or seeing will assume that using a taser is some form of gleeful torture on the part of whoever uses is. This kid used YOU, and you've fallen for it, completely. They told him six times that he needed to stop hitting and kicking at the police. Why should one of them get to go home at the end of the day missing teeth, or with a broken nose, just so this moron can claim bragging rights? No need to, actually. A quick stun completely alters the situation, as it obviously did here. No need for clubs, no need for more injuries while he was yanking kicking and fighting in the violence HE started. Nope, it all ended just as it should: with the kid finally listening to what the officers were telling him, and him not flailing around trying to hurt them. A good cop could indeed "talk down" most people, but just like suicide bombers are hard to stop, a kid whose purpose was to show up specifically to cause a violent scene isn't going to be talked down. He was deliberately escalating it so that YOU would talk about it and feel sorry for him.
The tazer wasn't the "last resort" at all (or he'd be dead right now). It was simply the smartest way to get him to put an end to his act.
So, you're exactly the kind of person that makes them have to worry about this sort of thing in the first place. You don't know any of those police officers individually, and all you know is that they have to answer to people that were elected to office and manage them. And yet you want them to be injured.
riot would've taught the cops a thing or two
Yes! That sort of sentiment really goes a long way in showing everyone else that there's no need for police officers to worry about their lives and well being while doing their jobs, protecting politicians showing up at events, stopping speeding drivers, and everything else they do. You actually WANT violence, want police to be hurt, and you say those things in a tone that suggests you fully expect that to be a widely held perspective. And then you wonder why people tasked with keeping the peace are wary of "activist" crowds that confuse the people who enforce the laws with the people who legislate them.
but the force used was a little extreme as well. With four you would think they could move him outside
He was told, over half a dozen times, to stop fighting and kicking/swinging at the police who WERE trying to move him outside. He refused. With him kicking as hard as possible and throwing a fit, you're suggesting they should have tried to carry him through the crowd in the room? Or, after a moment's discomfort, without risk to the people trying to contain him or the people around him, he totally chilled out, and as you saw, got his act together and recognized that there wasn't any point in trying to beat on police that were to do their jobs. I have no idea if he's feeling any regret for not only making such as ass of himself but also for wasting everyone else's time so thoroughly. Further, whatever rambling point he was trying to make, philosophically or practically, is now completely tainted by the fact that it was issued from someone who appears to be either a little crazy or a lot of jerk, or both.
But mostly: I defy you to really try, with three other people, to gracefully move someone who is kicking and fighting - and to have no apprehension about doing so through a crowd when even after you've told him several times that you might have to tazer him to cool him out, and he keeps on fighting. It's much harder than you think, and police don't make enough money to have teeth knocked out, injured vertebrae, or any of the other things that can happen when someone acting that unhinged needs to be relocated. You could hire only police officers that are far larger than the average citizen, and make sure they're in riot-looking gear with joint/torso/neck protection all the time (which still wouldn't help), but then you'd just have police that plug right into every the-black-helicopters-are-watching-me conspiracy fantasy. Something like pepper spray was out of the question in a close crowd like that, and though it works, you don't want to give someone a shock to their system with a nightstick or other club if you don't have to, and you don't want to risk breaking bones or injuring joints (yours or his) by making it an Ultimate Fighting competition. The taser is effective, non-lethal, almost instantaneous, and works well on people who insist on being violent, like this guy was. He KNEW all of this, and deliberately did everything necessary to make sure that the police had to use force to counter his violence. It was part of his drama-queen approach to politics, and betrays his childish understanding of how to boost the credibility of your world view among anyone other than equally adolescent simpletons.
You're forgetting something its called the first amendment
No, YOU are forgetting it. That amendment applies just as much (more, really) to the people who organized and were running the event as it does to any one student who decides he wants to hijack it for his own use and press coverage. If he doesn't want to let other people speak, he can hold his own event with his own rules as to how it's being conducted. In this case, the event was about allowing multiple people to ask questions. He asked his, and he didn't think it was appropriate to let OTHER PEOPLE have time. Which approach is more in the spirit of the 1st Amendment: the organizers of the event, which allow many people to talk and ask questions, or the one person who attends the event, and tries to make it all about him, to the exclusion of other people?
I may not know all the facts but I think the kid had a right to ask questions when in that setting
The question you should be asking is: "Did any OTHER kids have the right ask questions in that setting?"
Because what he was trying to do was step way outside the framework of that assembly and take time away from other people. He DID ask questions. Should the entire event have been all about the questions he wanted to ask, and the ranting HE wanted to do, to the exclusion of all other students? No? Then, how do you get a kid that refuses to take a breather and let other people ALSO have a piece of that limited time get in their own questions? Perhaps you could actually ask him to finally stop? And what do you do when he starts to become clearly irrational? Do you perhaps walk over and say, "come on, kid, let's call it a day" perhaps? What do you do when he starts flailing at the police, refuses to leave, and actually starts fighting? If you're going to give him a web site, perhaps you can have the home page actually address the rights of the OTHER people that were there? And the rights of the law enforcement officers to not have someone get violent with them when they ask him to quit being such a loon?
He DID have the right to ask questions. And he DID ask them. What's your point, exactly? That's he's some sort of martyr because he didn't think that other students, or the senator he was talking to, also had any rights? He was a petulent, tantrum-having, jerk who deliberately provoked a need to ask him to leave so that he could have a badly acted theatrical response to the need to escort him out of the scene. Make a web site if you want, but at least call it what it was.
And then what? Ask him to walk along nicely? They already DID that. You'll recall he started fighting. Carrying him, wildly kicking, through the crowd, is more dangerous ("sadistic," perhaps you'd call it), than getting him to chill out without wrenching his arms and legs while he's flailing around fighting them.
Hi welcome to the job. If you don't like it get a different one.
The job should include being injured?
Police have had available to them for a long time things like stab proof vests and gloves.
Uh huh. And that stops you from getting your femeral artery cut how, exactly? Next thing you'll be recommending is that they just wear Star Wars Stormtrooper outfits so that they have no risk of behing hurt while subduing someone who wants a fight in front of a crowd. But, as soon as police officers are armored up enough to make whatever may come their way much less of a risk, you strike me as the sort of person who would then complain that they look like armed military personnel in the middle of a civilian lifestyle. How about this: they wear their current uniforms, which are far less intimidating and provocative, and they use a quick, non-lethal technology (as they did) when someone after many repeated instructions to stop kicking and fighting just needs to be reset for a few minutes so they can get their act together. No stormtroopers running around, and fewer physical fights (which also cause injury - I don't know why you think that restraining someone who would rather fight than be walked off isn't full of all sorts of risks to everyone invovled - I can only assume you've never had to do it).
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I also never complain about war, crime, poverty, disease, or dictatorships. If it's old, it must be good!
No, what's "old," here, is the technique of bad-mouthing/slandering your competition. I'm sure there was inter-witch-doctor FUD in neolithic times. Much, much more recent than that is having a legal framework for some recourse. If there are people posting BS complaints just to run down the company's reputation, then they deserve exactly what they get. If that's NOT what's happening here, then those same people should enjoy every bit of the punitive proceeds they can extract in a counter-suit handled by lawyers working for a cut.
Still don't know what verb RTF could be. Unless you mean something like RTFA, in which case we have an entirely different situation.
Dude. First one was a typo, second one was a joke. Really.
Can't quite find the RTF that's a verb...
Well, you insensitive clod, if you'd RTF, you'd understand. The freakin' Space Meteor Arsenic has damaged my ability to conjugate verbs, and I won't be able to get rid of Space Meteor Arsenic Syndrome until I get a conjugal visit. I hope you feel good about yourself.
Sorry, folks, nothing to see here. We're just slobs and our place is a toxic shithole. Sorry about that. Just call us Newark south.
Yeah, those poor, uneducated Peruvians and their backwards, self-polluting, toxic-drinking-water ways. Imagine dumping your arsenic right there where you live. Well, you WILL have to imagine, because if you RTF, you'll note that the area has naturally occuring arsenic deposits. It's in the ground water, and it's always been in the ground water. Nice troll, though!
I propose a sliding scale of crimes you can get away with given a certain disease
You've forgotten the most popular one for this group: real or imagined Asperger's or ADHD etc: license to troll and flame on Slashdot, AND right to take Highly Theatrical Umbrage when someone questions whether or not perhaps you're just annoying, instead.
Personally, I'm much more worried about people who cling to the unfounded belief that there existed an era where critical thinking skills and science education were any better than today.
Look. In my day, we had to critically think our way to school uphill, both ways, in the snow. And we LIKED it that way, yessiree we did.
I think I'm reacting to the availability of pervasive mass media that appears to celebrate the squashing of critical thought. That gives disporportionate weight to the idiots, and allows that (lack of) perspective to shape young people even more into such clods. I guess I mean that thougtless, inarticulate wingdings have way more influence than they used to, and because of the efficiencies and surpluses of modern life, it doesn't really hurt a kid as much, in the pocket, to go through life as a permanent junior high school student, sophistication-wise.
This kind of crap is infuriating for airline companies...It doesn't take much at all to kill a whole line of planes, just the vague reputation for being unsafe
Yup. Michael Crichton's "Airframe" was actually a pretty good read on this very subject. Well, it INVOLVED this sort of subject. Most people also don't understand that the airframe ain't the same as the engines, and ain't the same as the particular airline's choice about all sorts of other things (from avionics packages, to training programs/frequency, etc). But it shouldn't just be infuriating to airlines, it should be infuriating to ANYONE who manufactures anything, works for someone who does, likes buying from anyone who does, has some of their Mom's 401k invested in someone who does, likes the fact that we get tax revenue from someone who does, who would rather buy from Boeing than ship the cash consortium manufacturer, and more.
I'm way more worried about the corrosion of national critical thinking skills and basic science education (which allows this sort of stuff to be written and passively consumed) than I am about the prospects of water-based corrosion to a CF airframe 20 years from now. We can fix/replace an airframe, but we can't fix some teenager that's been trained to not think, and who finds the trouble of actually grokking issues like this to be unfashionable and too much work. That Dan Rather is pandering to that cultural flaw (while suing CBS for $70 million for getting busted having done it before!) isn't just embarassing, it's Actually Evil(tm). And not just for Boeing's upper management bonuses.
I read all the way up to the top of the thread
... physically stop it.
Why go all the way to the top? You only have to go back a notch or two for the post about "black-clad riot police in cities like Portland act with absolute impunity".
As for "hippie protestors," who cares? I don't care if they're hippies, or anti-abortion wackadoos. When they start physically interfering with other people, or destroying property, all bets are off. People who use violence can't bitch when the officers charged with stopping violence
irrelevant commentary about protestors
The whole freakin' story is about crowd-control technology. Countless posts in the entire area have centered on "suppressing dissent," "freedom of speech," and many other topics related to the people-in-the-street context. But when someone else expressly mentions west-coast protest crowd control, I don't feel too far off talking about it ALSO.
Do you understand how much of a freaking non-sequitur that is?
Read his post. HE is the one that brings up the "impunity" with which crowd control cops seem able to act at protests. My point is that the protesters themselves have altered the threshold here, and people (such as the voters for whom the police work) get rather fatigued by it, especially when property is destroyed. The tolerance for police using more force than might be needed will go back down when there isn't as much tolerance (for BS behavior by disruptive, violent masked protestors) asked of the audience you're trying to persuade.
No, what we're afraid of is that the majority of the population is okay with police brutality
Like I said, you're afraid of your inability to be persuasive enough. If you can't convince people there's a problem, then you're not being persuasive enough. The reason that so many people shrug off coverage of crowd control cops getting rough is because they also get annoyed at shrill, masked groups of people in chanting crowds that think that stopping traffic (or torching cars), trying to block access to a business/clinic/whatever (or smashing its windows) is somehow making their idealogy more appealing. Some people actually DO get annoyed when they see the ambulance that costs more than all the state taxes they'll ever pay in their lifetime gets rolled over by a bunch of drunk idiots that are looking for more and bigger stuff to destroy because their favorite soccer/football/basketball/hockey team either won or lost that night. You will have a much easier time showing how unreasonable it is for police to be rough with people like that when the audience you're trying to pursuade don't find the people they're dealing with to be physically provocative, disruptive and destructive. I've seen all sorts of marches, protests, and demonstrations where there wasn't a whiff of what you're worrying about, because the people making the spectacle also kept it civilized, while still getting all the camera time they want on their giant puppets, organic tofu drums, slogan banners, and more. Your whole "stifling dissent" bit is pretty disengenuous, considering people can say whatever they want. Busting up other people's property isn't "dissent."
Don't want to see riot cops at your protest? Tell some of the organizations that will be there not to use event-related web sites to advertise how they're planning on chaining off streets to prevent emergency responders and talking about how to conceal gas masks for when they'll be rushing a line of vehicles. Smashing up a Starbucks in Seattle because a trade conference happens to be in the same town isn't dissent. It's adolescent BS.
befor you admited that you had in-fact taken the Lindburg baby and shot JFK
Admitted how? On paper? When that goes to trial, you simply tell them it was under duress. And anyone who wants a conviction to stick and thinks you might pull that one are going to video tape the interview and your documenting of your confession. So, admitting on video tape? No defense lawyer in the world could drop that ball if you confessed while screaming in pain as movie-villain told you what to say. You're talking about cheesy movie scenes, not how it actually works. And for what it's worth, there are PLENTY of non-mark-leaving pain-inducing techniques (chemical and otherwise), and there's a reason those aren't used to get criminal convictions - because they generally can't produce workable (in court) "confessions."
we see them misused on a daily basis
So? What are you doing about it? Are any of the people who are daily misusing them employed by your city council, or county government? The purse strings that fund those tools, and which pay for that officer and his chain of command are controlled by, typically, a very small number of elected people that tend to be elected by a TINY number of people that actually vote like they give a damn in their local elections. If you think those tools can't be used constructively, or to avoid other injuries, then take the steps to deny your local officers access to those tools. Or take the steps to hire people that follow the same decision-making process YOU would use while trying to break up a fight, or deal with a crazy drunk guy, etc.
How do you prove an officer used excessive force on you when there are no marks?
How do you prove that a mark is actually caused by an out of control cop, and not something you already had, and which you're now leveraging for some lawsuit cash? It works both ways.
But we're not talking about some holster-mounted ray gun, here. We're talking about high-energy crowd control tools that are mounted on trucks. The sort of loud, noisy, jerky protests that people are worried will be inappropriately disrupted by something like this are invariably videotaped by dozens of people. The advances in technology that provide for non-injuring crowd control also provide for cameras and video recording the hands of everyone with a $39 cell phone.
The least sophisticated way of relating to other people is through violence
So, when a crowd of people are smashing your store front and burning your car - a form of "relating" to you of which you would presumably disapprove - which is better: sending in people with choking tear gas, or clubs, or other techniques that essentialy guarantee injury for people across the board, or using a tool that more or less instantly puts a stop to the violence? Do you NOT want violent people to be stopped, using a mimimum of violence? Or are you of the camp that would rather just let someone BE violent, despite lecturing other people about how bad it is? If your point is that using violence to stop someone else's violence is a bad thing, then you should be FOR a tool that avoids the need for escalating violence.
the general population begins to fear the police, and I think that is starting to happen in the United States
Why? An officer that's shown to abuse people can't keep his job unless an elected official/body allows him/her to. There isn't a law enforcement officer of any type, working at any level in the US that doesn't answer to elected civilians. So, what you're 'afraid' of isn't police with riot control weapons that no longer risk putting out an eye with a rubber bullet, or burning/choking someone with tear gas cannisters - what you're afraid of is your inability to be persuasive enough to get elected a person that, at the muncipal, county, and state level, will prohibit abusive behavior by officers (and support consequences for it).
Why are you more afraid of a fleeting, non-damaging nerve stimulation than you are choking gas, or bruising clubs and water cannons, or agitated K-9 units? You shouldn't be - those are all simply tools. This isn't about the tool, it's about the policies and rules of engagement. And those are dictated by people you do, or don't vote for. Police have always been ABLE to use painful tactics as needed, but those methods generally caused damage.
I don't know anyone in my neighborhood that's more afraid of police than they used to be. There are only people that are frustrated that there aren't enough police to keep gangs like MS-13 from being as scary as THEY are. If you're concerned about the ability of law enforcement officers to judge when and how to use force, then campaign for the higher taxes needed to pay the much higher salaries needed to attract and retain the physically fit, dedicated, experienced, philosopher kings you think would be better in that career.
He was asking a question with a bit of bombast and enthusiasm, and it seems like the cops were just looking for someone to fight with; they harassed him just for giving some background on his question
Yeah, other than that's not exactly how it went, and you know that. Nice spin attempt, though!
these cops decided to take the law into their own hands; basically they ignored the rights of every person in that room, not just the guy they tasered
Actually it's the rights of the other people in the room to assemble and talk that they WERE defending. When someone else wants to hijack your time, and your right to assembly, then it's reasonable to ask him to stop. He didn't. Repeatedly. It's reasonable then to ask him to leave. He didn't. Repeatedly. It's reasonable then to escort him away so that other people could have a chance to speak and ask questions. He pitched a fit, and then got physical with the officers present. The physically got hold of him, and asked him to stop kicking and fighting. Repeatedly. He wouldn't. They told him that if he would cool out, they'd have to do something ELSE to make him stop kicking and fighting. Six times. He wouldn't stop. Why? Because he was getting exactly what he WANTED: a chance to pitch a screaming drama queen fit in front of cameras. He knew he wouldn't be hurt, and he knew that even getting tasered is nothing but great TV for the activist groupie crowd. So, a quick prod to again remind him to quit fighting, and he did, in fact, quit fighting. Of course, he got to keep hollaring and bitching on his way out of the room. So, they kept tasering him over and over again to tortue him and suppress his rights. Only, that didn't happen, did it?
You're high if you think it's okay to use whatever means necessary, when in fact, the appropriate force needed to "subdue" a civilian is nothing more than an arm behind the back and a knee to the lower spine.
So, what you're talking about, here, is making sure that we only hire police that can physically control anybody they might encounter. Every cop should be larger, stronger, more nimble, and more skilled than anyone they ever have to deal with, right? You're really not getting it.
There's a nice cop that works my neighborhood. She's about 5'-2", if that. I'm more than a foot taller than she is, and probably twice her weight. She could NOT subdue me in the manner you describe unless I was otherwise injured or disabled. A taser would allow her to do that. Or are you saying that if she can't wrestle me to the ground, then whatever it is I was doing that demanded arrest should just be forgotten about? Or, are you saying that we need to make sure that we fire her, and get bigger people to replace her?
torture
I didn't see any torture. I saw someone who KNEW what he was doing going to great lengths to make sure he screamed like a school girl at exactly the moment needed to maximize the theatrics. A hit with a taser isn't torture.
stab gear is light weight and worn under the shirt so you can not see it
Which does nothing for your arms, groin, face, or legs. As you obviously know.
sadism
You're confusing this kid's deliberately putting himself into that scenario and launching the physical part of the conflict with someone ELSE looking for some chance to inflict pain. Sadism: BS, and you know it. Not wanting to have to deal with someone acting increasingly loopy, is more like it. And, you're still talking like they just walked up and tasered him, which you know is BS. They TOLD him they were going to, half a dozen times. All he had to do was quit being physical, problem solved.
I would have put one of the kids arms behind his back grabbed a handful of hair with the other
Just what a guy like this would be hoping for, if he could talk you into tasering him. An officer dragging a political protester by the hair is a nice second place - he'd LOVE you for that. It would also go right up on his home page.
Hell bouncers in most bars would have done a better job then those clowns did.
I've bounced, subdued, and disarmed plenty of large, drunk people. I'm not a cop, so of course no arrests personally. But I've dealt with people three times that kid's size that turned out to be big pushovers, and some very small, very scrappy people that I've watched dislocate an officer's arm, break a jaw, and nearly blind someone else while resisting being tossed out of a venue. And I HAVE watched someone get a bad guy's dislodged, hidden belt knife rammed right into their thigh, followed by some life-threatening bleeding in the middle of the fight. His vest likely would have stopped it, but... he wasn't wearing his vest on his damn leg, as you ALSO know.
You are saying you can be tasered for being annoying?
No, I'm saying you can be tasered if, while you're actually swinging, kick, and fighting with several police officers and they've said half a dozen times that if you don't just chill out they're going to HAVE to taser you, THEN you can be tasered. Now, becoming violent with police IS annoying, so if that's how you meant it, then I suppose, sure, yes.
A good cop should be able to handle a 21-year-old kid, even if he is upset, without having to lift a finger.
You know that. I know that. The police know that. And the whiny drama queen idiot kid knows that. The thing you're leaving out is that he deliberately provoked this, and did everything possible to bring about a physical escalation so that he could enjoy the theater of it. He new he wasn't going to get hurt, and knew exactly that people who don't know what the hell they're talking about or seeing will assume that using a taser is some form of gleeful torture on the part of whoever uses is. This kid used YOU, and you've fallen for it, completely. They told him six times that he needed to stop hitting and kicking at the police. Why should one of them get to go home at the end of the day missing teeth, or with a broken nose, just so this moron can claim bragging rights? No need to, actually. A quick stun completely alters the situation, as it obviously did here. No need for clubs, no need for more injuries while he was yanking kicking and fighting in the violence HE started. Nope, it all ended just as it should: with the kid finally listening to what the officers were telling him, and him not flailing around trying to hurt them. A good cop could indeed "talk down" most people, but just like suicide bombers are hard to stop, a kid whose purpose was to show up specifically to cause a violent scene isn't going to be talked down. He was deliberately escalating it so that YOU would talk about it and feel sorry for him.
The tazer wasn't the "last resort" at all (or he'd be dead right now). It was simply the smartest way to get him to put an end to his act.
I'd say yes
So, you're exactly the kind of person that makes them have to worry about this sort of thing in the first place. You don't know any of those police officers individually, and all you know is that they have to answer to people that were elected to office and manage them. And yet you want them to be injured.
riot would've taught the cops a thing or two
Yes! That sort of sentiment really goes a long way in showing everyone else that there's no need for police officers to worry about their lives and well being while doing their jobs, protecting politicians showing up at events, stopping speeding drivers, and everything else they do. You actually WANT violence, want police to be hurt, and you say those things in a tone that suggests you fully expect that to be a widely held perspective. And then you wonder why people tasked with keeping the peace are wary of "activist" crowds that confuse the people who enforce the laws with the people who legislate them.
but the force used was a little extreme as well. With four you would think they could move him outside
He was told, over half a dozen times, to stop fighting and kicking/swinging at the police who WERE trying to move him outside. He refused. With him kicking as hard as possible and throwing a fit, you're suggesting they should have tried to carry him through the crowd in the room? Or, after a moment's discomfort, without risk to the people trying to contain him or the people around him, he totally chilled out, and as you saw, got his act together and recognized that there wasn't any point in trying to beat on police that were to do their jobs. I have no idea if he's feeling any regret for not only making such as ass of himself but also for wasting everyone else's time so thoroughly. Further, whatever rambling point he was trying to make, philosophically or practically, is now completely tainted by the fact that it was issued from someone who appears to be either a little crazy or a lot of jerk, or both.
But mostly: I defy you to really try, with three other people, to gracefully move someone who is kicking and fighting - and to have no apprehension about doing so through a crowd when even after you've told him several times that you might have to tazer him to cool him out, and he keeps on fighting. It's much harder than you think, and police don't make enough money to have teeth knocked out, injured vertebrae, or any of the other things that can happen when someone acting that unhinged needs to be relocated. You could hire only police officers that are far larger than the average citizen, and make sure they're in riot-looking gear with joint/torso/neck protection all the time (which still wouldn't help), but then you'd just have police that plug right into every the-black-helicopters-are-watching-me conspiracy fantasy. Something like pepper spray was out of the question in a close crowd like that, and though it works, you don't want to give someone a shock to their system with a nightstick or other club if you don't have to, and you don't want to risk breaking bones or injuring joints (yours or his) by making it an Ultimate Fighting competition. The taser is effective, non-lethal, almost instantaneous, and works well on people who insist on being violent, like this guy was. He KNEW all of this, and deliberately did everything necessary to make sure that the police had to use force to counter his violence. It was part of his drama-queen approach to politics, and betrays his childish understanding of how to boost the credibility of your world view among anyone other than equally adolescent simpletons.
You're forgetting something its called the first amendment
No, YOU are forgetting it. That amendment applies just as much (more, really) to the people who organized and were running the event as it does to any one student who decides he wants to hijack it for his own use and press coverage. If he doesn't want to let other people speak, he can hold his own event with his own rules as to how it's being conducted. In this case, the event was about allowing multiple people to ask questions. He asked his, and he didn't think it was appropriate to let OTHER PEOPLE have time. Which approach is more in the spirit of the 1st Amendment: the organizers of the event, which allow many people to talk and ask questions, or the one person who attends the event, and tries to make it all about him, to the exclusion of other people?
I may not know all the facts but I think the kid had a right to ask questions when in that setting
The question you should be asking is: "Did any OTHER kids have the right ask questions in that setting?"
Because what he was trying to do was step way outside the framework of that assembly and take time away from other people. He DID ask questions. Should the entire event have been all about the questions he wanted to ask, and the ranting HE wanted to do, to the exclusion of all other students? No? Then, how do you get a kid that refuses to take a breather and let other people ALSO have a piece of that limited time get in their own questions? Perhaps you could actually ask him to finally stop? And what do you do when he starts to become clearly irrational? Do you perhaps walk over and say, "come on, kid, let's call it a day" perhaps? What do you do when he starts flailing at the police, refuses to leave, and actually starts fighting? If you're going to give him a web site, perhaps you can have the home page actually address the rights of the OTHER people that were there? And the rights of the law enforcement officers to not have someone get violent with them when they ask him to quit being such a loon?
He DID have the right to ask questions. And he DID ask them. What's your point, exactly? That's he's some sort of martyr because he didn't think that other students, or the senator he was talking to, also had any rights? He was a petulent, tantrum-having, jerk who deliberately provoked a need to ask him to leave so that he could have a badly acted theatrical response to the need to escort him out of the scene. Make a web site if you want, but at least call it what it was.
could sit on each limb and renender him helpless.
And then what? Ask him to walk along nicely? They already DID that. You'll recall he started fighting. Carrying him, wildly kicking, through the crowd, is more dangerous ("sadistic," perhaps you'd call it), than getting him to chill out without wrenching his arms and legs while he's flailing around fighting them.
Hi welcome to the job. If you don't like it get a different one.
The job should include being injured?
Police have had available to them for a long time things like stab proof vests and gloves.
Uh huh. And that stops you from getting your femeral artery cut how, exactly? Next thing you'll be recommending is that they just wear Star Wars Stormtrooper outfits so that they have no risk of behing hurt while subduing someone who wants a fight in front of a crowd. But, as soon as police officers are armored up enough to make whatever may come their way much less of a risk, you strike me as the sort of person who would then complain that they look like armed military personnel in the middle of a civilian lifestyle. How about this: they wear their current uniforms, which are far less intimidating and provocative, and they use a quick, non-lethal technology (as they did) when someone after many repeated instructions to stop kicking and fighting just needs to be reset for a few minutes so they can get their act together. No stormtroopers running around, and fewer physical fights (which also cause injury - I don't know why you think that restraining someone who would rather fight than be walked off isn't full of all sorts of risks to everyone invovled - I can only assume you've never had to do it).