….like the bit the horse gets to run away with, yes, the film link in the post prior to this one just won’t be let go. The responses I got to the topic (not here, oddly) made me even more incredulous. Some of the ‘justifications’ of the tasering:

(1)Well, he shouldn’t have run.

(2)He didn’t obey the cop’s command to LIE down (hands and knees, gasping for breath was insufficient, I guess)

(3)He could have still fired a gun from that position.

Now, I really do sort of get choked; I couldn’t respond at once to those comments/excuses because I had the tearing need to throw said people to the ground, slap a cop hat on my head and be abusive just as an object lesson. I know that is irrational and even feel friendship for some of those folks and would never allow myself such abusive liberties. Obviously, the Seattle Police have no such compunction.

So, first, the short answer to the above comments, in turn.

(1) Not to be racist, but the guy was black and had apparently ‘had words’ with the police, and while I didn’t know that having words with a cop was a crime, that was sufficient cause for a half dozen or more to run him down. I’d have run, too, to be honest—six or more pissed off cops chasing me on New Year’s Eve? Hell yes….so, not an excuse. Had he actually committed a CRIME? To date, none has been mentioned. Was he a THREAT to anyone except a cop’s ego? No clue.

(2) So, a taser is NOT a non-lethal response tool to be used in case of imminent threat (like by a crazy man wielding a knife or bat?), but is actually meant to be used to insure immediate obedience to any policeman’s “command” to a citizen? You know, that is the scariest thing I have ever heard.

(3) What gun? About six cops had just had their hands ALL over the guy while wrestling him to the ground, if he had a weapon either (a) he would have attempted its use or (b) it would have been noticed and taken. So I just have to call bullshit on that logic.

Now, just because I have got this bit between my teeth, let me make a bit of an analogy. I own a dog….can’t live with it in the house since allergy issues are profound enough to put me in respiratory distress, but I walk him daily. He equals me in weight and has strength, youth, and power ALL over me. I might possibly equal him in aggression and that is my only saving goddamned grace, let me tell you. He wants to fight every dog he sees, eat every jogger and bicyclist. I am all that stands between them and imminent destruction. Fifteen months of positive training, “Dog Whisperer” bullshit, and everything else have not altered Jayne’s perception that he is right and I am wrong. So, when faced with the choice of letting him eat a jogger or not, I wrap his leash round my waist to become a human anchor and tell him “No” in my most no nonsense tone. Much like the Seattle guy, he does not usually obey this and stop doing his very convincing hairy white toothy monster imitation. Unlike the Seattle guy, he is a real danger to whatever poor individual Jayne is focused upon. So I usually have to do the dog version of a taser…I grip one of his ears firmly (not trying to tear it from his head, but securely) and do not let go, only Jayne’s own impetus forward causes him pain and stops his attack mode.

Now, multiple people have criticized my approach to dog control. How cruel, it is only his nature making him act like that, after all. Right. Well, it was only the drunken party-dude’s drunken nature that likely made him mouth off to, and run from that Seattle cop. And unlike Jayne the Great pain in the ass Pyr, he was not threatening anyone but was in full flight. I don’t grab my dog’s ear cause he disobeys my “stand the fuck down” command; I grab it so he doesn’t take a cyclist off his bike or grab a jogger by the ass.

Yet MY action is deemed cruel and wrong, but the action of tasering a man for ‘disobedience’ is deemed ok? The only difference I can really see that is REAL is that the taser wielder had on a uniform.

THAT is why this is stuck in my teeth—if America excuses thuggish behavior so long as it is committed only by uniformed personnel, say hello to the Brownshirts, folks. If one must (1)never talk back and (2) instantly obey ANY command from a policeman regardless of circumstances and reasoning, the police state is already here. I have seen video of cops tasering a man for refusing to sign a traffic citation—and in front of his screaming, terrified pregnant wife, and a cop tasering a shopper for arguing over whether the credit card she used was stolen. The taser is NOT meant to be used as an interrogation tool (on the store floor) in the second instance, nor to force compliance in signing tickets. If Americans are signing off on these sorts of interactions with the very people who are supposed to protect us…oh we are well and truly screwed. It will become like some schools, you see, where security guards harass good students who get a bit rowdy and ignore dangerous ones who sell drugs in the john. It is easier to taser drunks, shoppers, and Joe-family man than to hunt drug dealers, meth-heads and mobsters.

I hope, should I ever be tasered for non-compliance of stupid assed commands, that it kills me. It is a good chance, my healthy unclogged heart has a fair share of silly electrical issues and that shock might be enough to stop it cold. When it does, I hope my family makes a humongous stink and sues the crap out of whatever cop shop is responsible.

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