Police taze 8 year old girl

[nathanielb1984]

I think you are missing the larger picture, SP, which is that the policies of police forces (and many other things) are increasingly being set by insurance companies, rather than what is really best practice, or the goals and purposes we set for policing. These kinds of incidents are becoming more and more common - police responding with force, be it a tazer or shooting, when what is really required is resolving the situation by taking, or wresting the person to the ground, or whatever.

Policing is not ever going to be 100% safe. If that was what we wanted, we would not have people doing it in the first place. A person in a mental health crises is not someone we want to see shot to protect the public unless that is really the last resort. We want that person to be protected, including from himself - he is one of the people the police are supposed to protect. If someone cannot take that risk in physically engaging the individual, or does not have the emotional or mental capacity to try and talk him down, he has no business being a police officer.

It seems very unlikely that a girl that age would need to be tazered to disarm her. There is no reason a man in a paranoid delusion, totally alone on a bus with a knife, should need to be shot. There is no reason a man having a mental health breakdown weilding a stapler should need to be repeatedly tazered to death when there are six officers there to restrain him.

There is something very wrong when these liability issues are setting the agenda. Our policies should be set by the kinds of outcomes we want to see, what policing is meant to accomplish.

Liability doesn't even always follow what is the safest course. There are lots of hospitals in the US that will not allow some medical procedures because of potential liability issues, when it is well established that those procedures are actually safer than the preferred ones.

It's very much a matter of the tail wagging the dog, and people are right to be upset about it. Any of us, any of our relatives, could find themselves in some kind of situation like that. Our public servants should be looking to help us as best they can - not afraid to because of liability concerns by insurance companies that want to avoid paying out funds.

The laws of most democratic countries state that officers are fully permitted to use any force deemed necessary proportionate to contain and/or neutralise the threat....If an officer instructs someone with a knife to drop the knife, and the suspect doesn't comply.....then the officer kind of has "green lights" to take a taser shot....IF there was no other possible solution.....I was not there.....I don't know if there was any other solution!

 

[MKJ]

The laws of most democratic countries state that officers are fully permitted to use any force deemed necessary proportionate to contain and/or neutralise the threat....If an officer instructs someone with a knife to drop the knife, and the suspect doesn't comply.....then the officer kind of has "green lights" to take a taser shot....IF there was no other possible solution.....I was not there.....I don't know if there was any other solution!

No, we don't know for sure.

But again, you have missed the point.

There was a time when police officers were expected to try and de-escalate situations like this if they could, to disarm the individuals without risking killing them as much as was possible. That was the purpose of the job - to help without harming. Police are not soldiers. If it came to a shooting, it was because those other things had failed or could not be used.

Now it seems that force is the immediate go-to response. And this is being driven by insurance companies, lawyers, and liability issues, not what we think makes good police work.

That is a serious problem.

 

[nathanielb1984]

No, we don't know for sure.

But again, you have missed the point.

There was a time when police officers were expected to try and de-escalate situations like this if they could, to disarm the individuals without risking killing them as much as was possible. That was the purpose of the job - to help without harming. Police are not soldiers. If it came to a shooting, it was because those other things had failed or could not be used.

Now it seems that force is the immediate go-to response. And this is being driven by insurance companies, lawyers, and liability issues, not what we think makes good police work.

That is a serious problem.

Friend....I do see your point and rest assured that officers will always try to find the peaceful way out of any situation. Nonetheless it is the sworn duty of officers to pacify a threat to society!

Italian Carabinieri where faced with a similar scenario once.....a 9 year old boy was holding a craft knife threatening to kill himself.....a brave officer approached from his posterior with the intention to neutralise the threat.....the suspect was startled and mistakenly (or not) dug his craft knife in his neck......killing him! The next day headlines read "Carabinieri kill 9 year old boy"

Taser is a wonderful invention.....its usually an immediate de-escalator. Infact many officers call it "the second officer". Blackpool constabulary in England for example have cut down their patrol sizes, due to budget cuts. Many times an officer goes out on a beat by him/herself, and trust me in a mass disturbance you will definitely want taser with you.

In this case they may have waited her out? But unless I was there......and I wasn't......my opinion is exactly that......an opinion......

 

[MKJ]

Friend....I do see your point and rest assured that officers will always try to find the peaceful way out of any situation. Nonetheless it is the sworn duty of officers to pacify a threat to society!

Italian Carabinieri where faced with a similar scenario once.....a 9 year old boy was holding a craft knife threatening to kill himself.....a brave officer approached from his posterior with the intention to neutralise the threat.....the suspect was startled and mistakenly (or not) dug his craft knife in his neck......killing him! The next day headlines read "Carabinieri kill 9 year old boy"

Taser is a wonderful invention.....its usually an immediate de-escalator. Infact many officers call it "the second officer". Blackpool constabulary in England for example have cut down their patrol sizes, due to budget cuts. Many times an officer goes out on a beat by him/herself, and trust me in a mass disturbance you will definitely want taser with you.

In this case they may have waited her out? But unless I was there......and I wasn't......my opinion is exactly that......an opinion......

It's hard to say in this situation. I think if there weren't a lot of cases like this in resent years that were clearly off the wall, people would be less judgmental. people are no longer believing that the poice are trying to resolve situations less violently, because they are seeing more and more evidence that is not what is happening.

We had a man in an airport here tazered multiple times, and he died. He was having a psychotic episode, and was waving around a stapler as a weapon.

There were six or eight police officers there.

So the answer was to shock him repeatedly, rather then have six guys jump on him? Because they were afraid of a stapler?

Well, it was because they have been told that they cannot engage with people at all, they are totally risk adverse.

And unfortunately this is not an isolated case - a big city police force here has just launched an investigation into three shootings of mentally ill individuals. In Texas there was the woman with Alzheimer's who was repeatedly shot by police....

 

[nathanielb1984]

It's hard to say in this situation. I think if there weren't a lot of cases like this in resent years that were clearly off the wall, people would be less judgmental. people are no longer believing that the poice are trying to resolve situations less violently, because they are seeing more and more evidence that is not what is happening.

We had a man in an airport here tazered multiple times, and he died. He was having a psychotic episode, and was waving around a stapler as a weapon.

There were six or eight police officers there.

So the answer was to shock him repeatedly, rather then have six guys jump on him? Because they were afraid of a stapler?

Well, it was because they have been told that they cannot engage with people at all, they are totally risk adverse.

And unfortunately this is not an isolated case - a big city police force here has just launched an investigation into three shootings of mentally ill individuals. In Texas there was the woman with Alzheimer's who was repeatedly shot by police....

North & South American garnered an infamous reputation for being too trigger happy, remember however that police respond to thousands of calls daily, and that is just in a big city. You are Canadian, I have loads of on-line friends who are mounties (RCMP) who tell me that citizens have lost respect for police, and we see that in a small country like ours too, we get a small number of short fused, trigger happy idiots (excuse my French) who believe that wearing a uniform says "I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT" meanwhile in fact the uniform says a/ I'm a target and b/ I'm a sworn protector of the public.

Like I said Taser is an officer's best friend, but you have to know how to/when to use it. The airport scenario DOES NOT warrant authorisation for taser use. 8 officers vs 1 miscreant.....gosh.....he can easily be distracted, wrestled and braced in less than 10 seconds.....

Nonetheless nowadays officers' number priority has become their personal safety, and it's kind of understandable. In Wales (I believe - not sure) An officer was searching a suspect's pockets and pricked himself with a needle used by an AIDS infected person!!!! Thank God he's fine.....but what if he was not!!!

The essential truth is that more and more officers are putting their own personal safety and security on the priority list.....to these officers I say: Change your job.....go work in an office.....

But lets not get sidetracked from the fact that most officers are decent men & women!!!

 

[MKJ]

North & South American garnered an infamous reputation for being too trigger happy, remember however that police respond to thousands of calls daily, and that is just in a big city. You are Canadian, I have loads of on-line friends who are mounties (RCMP) who tell me that citizens have lost respect for police, and we see that in a small country like ours too, we get a small number of short fused, trigger happy idiots (excuse my French) who believe that wearing a uniform says "I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT" meanwhile in fact the uniform says a/ I'm a target and b/ I'm a sworn protector of the public.

Like I said Taser is an officer's best friend, but you have to know how to/when to use it. The airport scenario DOES NOT warrant authorisation for taser use. 8 officers vs 1 miscreant.....gosh.....he can easily be distracted, wrestled and braced in less than 10 seconds.....

Nonetheless nowadays officers' number priority has become their personal safety, and it's kind of understandable. In Wales (I believe - not sure) An officer was searching a suspect's pockets and pricked himself with a needle used by an AIDS infected person!!!! Thank God he's fine.....but what if he was not!!!

The essential truth is that more and more officers are putting their own personal safety and security on the priority list.....to these officers I say: Change your job.....go work in an office.....

But lets not get sidetracked from the fact that most officers are decent men & women!!!

Oh, I think most are trying to their jobs. I think this is mainly a policy problem. But it causes distrust all round.

The RCMP have had serious leadership issues over the last number of years - they were the ones involved in the airport incident. Unfortunately it ends up reflecting on the whole group.

 

[nathanielb1984]

EXACTLY & EXACTLY!!!

It does cause distrust all round.....but like I always say......negativity sticks out more.....we never read about all the good work police officers do......no-one wants to hear about the police officer than turned someone around from a ledge of a 20 storey building or about the effort it took to bust a drug cartel.....because that's what's we are here for.....none the less when we get someone who acted badly or did something wrong then it's all over the news!!

However a couple of years ago the media was kicking fuss about officers "not being nice"......let me tell you.....in many cases being nice swells a situation rather than defuse it.....

You say a policy problem.....i'd like to add two things to that a/ inadequate laws b/ budget cuts.....yes they are very relevant too......trust me!

The RCMP are still arguably the best force/service in the world.....their training is extremely rigorous and they get fine equipment.....I'd be proud if I was a mountie.....