A sixteen year old child was shocked with a Taser stun gun by police at a North Carolina school last week for failing to comply with orders to show an officer his I.D. badge.Good life lesson for the kid. When an "Only One" demands your papers, show him your papers.
If he wasn't doing anything wrong, this wouldn't have happened. Anyone who doesn't automatically obey a uniformed representative of the state deserves to be hurt.
And remember: They hate us because we're free.
[Via Cigar Rollers]
20 comments:
Tase my kids, you better grow eyes in the back of your head. Ditto for my neighbors' kids. Tic,tic,tic.
Violent felons caught in the act used to be the "Only Ones" to get shot, to get tasered, to get fingerprinted, to lose their gun rights, to have DNA samples taken, to get on lists of suspects to be looked at in investigations of future crimes.
My first thought is, if the young man had been approached with respect, he MAYBE would have responded with respect. The business of ID cards on lanyards is supposedly to PREVENT violent intruders from roaming the schools. "Lemme see some ID!" is not the proper way to interact with another human being unless he's been put on the ground after a pursuit for endangering someone.
The article never does say what Leak was doing to "disturb" the students. I know teaching them about the Bill of Rights has gotten teachers fired...
Not enough information about Quayshaun Leak in the story, but I can guess.
Richmond HS is in Rockinham, NC. The have over 1600 students, and a teacher:student ration of 1:17. 60% of the school gets free or reduced cost lunches. Student population is 51% white, 42% black, 7% other.
The school rates 3 on a scale of 10 on standards-based End-of-Course (EOC) tests.
The school has armed, sworn, full-time Only Ones patrolling the campus.
Not only would I not want to be a teacher there, I wouldn't even accept the job as school nurse.
My local school system, here in my county, has 1800 students in the entire school district, the schools rate 9 on a scale of 10 on standards-based End-of-Course (EOC) tests, student pop. 94% white, 6% other, teacher:student ratio 1:22, the High School Marching band is #1 in the State, and the Science team recently took 1st prize in a national engineering competition.
We have an armed Jr. NROTC drill team, and a rifle team.
No free lunches.
No crime.
No cops on campus.
After reading the article, I would have to say "hold your judgment" on this one until more details are available. The article had a very strong anti-taser slant. There are apparently allegations that the wasn't tasered until he began physically fighting the officer. The obvious bias in the reporting may have led them to omit or minimize certain "inconvenient" facts.
That being said, it certainly does seem suspicious that they wouldn't let anyone see the security video of the incident. I also have strong dislike of the "show you ID or else" philosophy that seems to be taking over in law enforcement.
I am strongly supportive of tasers, as long as the people using them remember that they are an alternative to lethal force. They should only be used if lethal force is a legitimate consideration (i.e., against an armed or potentially armed opponent, or when there is a disparity of force). In some departments the standard procedure for tasers recommends or requires that another officer be present with gun drawn as backup. This reinforces that idea that using a taser is only justified when an officer would be justified in drawing his gun, but the threat is not so immediate as to require shooting right away. (The threat is present and real, but there is time to try a non-lethal alternative.)
[...] Papers! Show me your papers! [...]
"...using a taser is only justified when an officer would be justified in drawing his gun, but the threat is not so immediate as to require shooting right away."
This seems to me to be the case for appropriate use of the taser. Unfortunately it seems that more and more the attitude is becoming "Lets dispense a little justice of our own right here." If I recall correctly, when the idea of arming law enforcement with these non-lethal weapons was first proposed there were people who expressed concern that since they were non-lethal, officers would begin to use them preemptively and aggressively. Its beginning to appear that those people were correct.
Maybe I should create a line of clothing that is densly wrapped with magnet wire - that way the wearer becomes a huge inductor - and when the taser shuts off the collapsing magnetic field will produce enough back EMF to 'taze' the person holding the taser...
It's always OK if it is happening to the other guy, whom we can suppose is doing something wrong.
No thanks, you can keep your pro-oppression sympathies.
I strongly object to the use of the term non-lethal when discussing tasers. They are less lethal than a gunshot, but there is a real and quantifiable risk of injury or death when one is used on a person. Same can be said of nightsticks, rubber bullets, and other such less lethal devices. The manufacturors are marketing this stuff to law enforcement as non-lethal then when someone dies they duck and cover claiming the officer should have known about the risks.
My daughter still won't tell me the name of the cop who slammed her up against a wall because seh wanted to know why he wanted to see her I.D.when she was shopping one day. She knows exactly what will happen to him if I ever discover who he is. And that was fifteen years ago.
I'm still trying to find out who he is.
These sonsofbitches better think about people like me. They won't all be lucky enough to be protected by a little girl.
and one more thing. The fact that they won't allow the tape to be viewed tells you all you need to know.
I deeply respect your honest libertarian values, Kent, but I don't believe that calling for more information is "pro-oppression sympathy."
As others here have noted, this story is not a police-brutality story, it's a anti-taser story. I'm fine with that, but before I start casting aspersions on anyone, student or cop, I want to know the WHOLE story.
Not too much to ask, is it?
The troubling thing is the comments on the original site.
Things like this
Tommy wrote on Jun 2, 2008 10:55 PM:
" Maybe MOM shoulda taught the kid not to be such a punk and he wouldn't have had to ride the lightning. Maybe he didn't need to be tased....but perhaps, he should've followed a directive from a superior authority. Lesson learned! We hope "
yeah, moms teach your kids to march into cattle cars too.
Harvey Potter wrote on Jun 2, 2008 11:01 PM:
" I say tase a few more of them, that will keep them unruly kids in check. "
sure, that'll fix the PR problem the only ones have and will win them respect. Something that an occupying army that uses torture to demand compliance from the subjects and suspects.
We really are going to nazi route, and things like this make me question the authenticity of the FEMA camp stories that float around out there.
The oe good thing I see from this is some people don't and won't go for this shit, no matter if it's from years of racism or just teen rebellion. Some may be thugs and have something to hide, but in either case the first lines will likely be those elements of society that cause the most grief for the rest of it, and that's not limited to a race and in no way intended as racism. I know that can be used to label me as such, but it's a simple fact.
There may be some small pockets of hope.
gaviota - how can you have a 9 out of 10 on the schools with a ratio of 1:22? After all they tell us that the more teachers per student the better the schools do. You must be wrong about their school after all they do have a better ratio 1:17.
Of course I say that sarcastically.
When police said they wanted a so-called "less-than-lethal" device for use when deadly force would normally be called for, it should have been obvious that they were saying they wanted a toy they could use without suffering the same consequences they would if they shot someone with a real firearm.
A motivational torture device, to be used as often as the slobbering overlords can find an excuse for. Like putting a match in the hands of an arsonist.
"Law Enforcement Officers" due to what they are now, should be banned from Taser use. And on that note, let me also reinforce my outrage toward companies that have "LE only" product categories when it comes to weaponry. What a twisted set of values that is. Society should take the view that any weapon should be available to John Doe, but there be some products that should be restricted FROM LE.
C.H.
A badge and a weapon are a bad combination. That is why, to me, it doesn't matter what some of the details are.
Straightarrow, if you ever find out, and you need an alibi and a safehouse, count on me. I'm as serious as a heart attack. This will go on and get worse until there are consequences, and I don't mean piloting a desk for a week with full pay.
"A badge and a weapon are a bad combination. That is why, to me, it doesn't matter what some of the details are."
I think we'll have to disagree on that, Kent. I believe the police do serve a legitimate purpose, therefore the details do matter. However, it is well known that power corrupts, and it is the job of responsible citizens to keep the police on a tight leash. Unfortunately, we have failed to do so. Whether it is because of our failure to pay attention, or because we are outnumbered by irresponsible citizens, many police officers and departments have become corrupt.
My comment earlier was not to support the officer's actions, or to condemn the student's, but simply to say that the article itself was strongly biased in a way that shows the "reporter's" purpose was not to report the facts, but to shore up his opinion that "tasers are evil instruments of torture." He wasn't about to let anything like facts get in his way. This is, in fact, the very same thing that most of the MSM does with any story involving guns. The facts he presented may actually be accurate, but I find it suspicious that the allegation that the student was fighting the officer got only one or two sentences and the negatives of tasers got four paragraphs with provocative terms like "torture" and "intimidation".
That being said, and with a more thorough reading than before, unless some new fact not even hinted at in the article comes to light, I can not say this was even possibly an appropriate use of the taser. Tasers are an alternative to lethal force, and should only be used when lethal force would be justified. Nothing in this article, or the original newspaper article it links to, leads me to believe this is the case.
riposte3, the article definitely displayed a bias. However, nothing gets around the fact that the tape of the incident is not being made available for viewing. Bias or not, the damning thing here is the withholding of evidence by the "authorities". You know damn well it would be on the news if it showed what the cop said happened.
though someone may already have an opinion on an issue, it doesn't follow that that opinion or bias negates automatically further observations. Especially if they align with past observations from which that opinion was formed.
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