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Lee Benson: Police wrong in use of Taser
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Police Officers can't force medicine down someones throat and you can't expect them to summon a small army on the side of the road to muscle the guy into submission.
People suffering from excited dilirium have super human strengh and while the taser might not have been the best tool at time, maybe it was.
No one will have the answers until the brain tissue is analyzed post autopsy. But if it was excited dilirium, he would have died anyway without immediate medical help that Police Officers just can't give on the side of the road.
As a former law enforcement student, the evidence is obvious, an innocent naked man (who may have run") is now dead, when discretion and proper attention was warranted. Unfortunaelay I expect to see more of this in or headlines as ignorance prompts force
While the death of Mr. Cardall is tragic, the facts necessary to assess the actions of law enforcement under the applicable legal standards are not set forth in Mr. Benson's editorial. Until the facts are known, it is inappropriate to pass judgment.
At the very least, tasers need to be reclassified as lethal force. I know they're not supposed to be lethal, and many times are not lethal, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes they are lethal. They need to be treated as such.
The world is different now, and the attitudes of everyone, including the police, are far different.
Let the police do their investigation. Let the video and other evidence come out. Sadly if it shows the police having acted the best way they could, Bensen will be loathe to appologize.
BTW, uncannygunman, tasers are NOT in the same class as firearms, and in 99.99% of the cases are not lethal. Peanut butter sandwiches kill more people than tasers...
Either way, we don't have the facts and can't pass such critical judgement on our public officers until we do.
Force is used not only to subdue crimial actor, but also to protect the officer,others and the very person of interest.
Had Washington P.D. sat back to monitor and observe Mr Cardall's behavior and he ran into traffic or into some other dangerous or harmful situtation which dead or injury happened, what would Mr Benson then be condemning. Let all the facts come out before the rocks start flying.
They do kill some people some times.
I work with a lady at Hill AFB who got out of the Air Force on a medical discharge. She was near where a mortar impacted. When it hit she fell down but immediately got up. She wasn't harmed or so she thought.
Hours later she fell down unconscious. Her heart had been damaged in this blast. The noise, the air pressure somehow damaged her heart. She now has a pace maker and a full medical discharge from the military.
Sometimes tramatic events can affect people in un-expected ways. Tasers shouldn't be used willy nilly, only when necessary.
The posts from LEO's and their supporters bear out that this has become their first option when dealing with uncooperative subjects. Nevermind the increased chance of a lethal encounter.
The officer will be found to have followed proceedure and be fine. LEOs will continue to claim that its all good, Tasering is pretty safe and their best option. No one in a position that matters will look at the policy or how often people die when they didn't need to. That is the ultimate tragedy.
People were saying the police just got bored and took him out so they could go home, or some stupid idiocy like that.
YOU WERE NOT THERE! YOU HAVE NO IDEA, AND UNTIL YOU DO, QUIT DEMONIZING THESE POLICE OFFICERS!
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If better, then good job. kudo, etc.
If worse, what happened, and what could have been done different??
So, obviously "something" IS wrong, and "something" needs to change to improve similar future outcomes.
Defending the status quo is called justifying and will never make things better in the future.
I'm betting it'll be 911. I'm sure it won't be the know-nothing haters posting above.
There's not the slightest doubt Mr. Cardall needed to be subdued, for his own safety and that of motorists. Cops have now been provided an effective and humane tool to do it with. Thankfully the responding cop used it in this case!
Tasers replace -- not the gun -- but rather, standing back and doing NOTHING.
We now have the luxury of endless hand wringing, bedwetting, and second guessing. The responding cop didn't. But the most likely pre-Taser results -- the traffic death of Mr. Cardall, and perhaps innocent motorists, or his family, or the cop, were avoided.
That's called success.
Only failure could have resulted from all the lame, laissez-faire suggestions above.
Last year Detroit police killed 10 people. Detroit has less than half the population of Utah. Did even 20 peope get killed by Utah police last year? If the answer is no, than Detroit has a larger rate of police killing civilians than Utah.
There was a taser related death of a Detroit man in one of the suburbs in the last few months. These things happen outside of Utah.
Incidentally, the Detroit Police Department is under federal consent agreements designed to lessen its use of force and unjustified detaining of witnesses. So supposedly the 10 deaths is AFTER reforms to reduce police violence.
I hope my prior post is kept, with the link.
Information about programs such as CIT is necessary to put out to the public.
Thanks!
I can't belief the loss of respect I feel for you right now. I guess the cops should have just pummeled the man with a club until they could take him into custody.
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