Surprise: Cops Who Get Tasered Really Don't Like It

[annabanana]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/108404/

Metro's initial approach to Taser instruction can be summed up like this: Almost everything the police knew about Tasers, and taught officers about Tasers, they learned from Taser.

<...>

Today, Taser warns that the device can cause burns. Moreover, the company acknowledges these burns can become infected. It warns that people who are shocked by Tasers can suffer bone fractures, hernias, ruptures and dislocations. Today, Taser suggests students be Tasered while lying facedown on the floor, eliminating falling hazards and stray Taser probes to the eye.


And yet, police use these things indiscriminately.

And nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with the police inflicting horrible pain on people on the thinnest of pretexts. As long as there's no permanent damage, there's no harm in it. Heck, even if there is permanent damage, it's the victim's fault for failing to be properly cooperative --- or agreeing to do it as part of their job.

You can see why waterboarding is now considered perfectly acceptable. The authorities only use it when they believe they need to (and ok, sometimes just because they're in a bad mood) and it doesn't leave any permanent damage either. No harm no foul. What's the problem?

[qb]

1. My sister had to get tased during training.

She said it's the worst pain she's ever felt.

[Pithlet]

2. I've said it from the very first time these things were introduced

that they were a step to get us used to being treated a different way by the police. And anyone who knows me here knows I'm not a tinfoil woo woo type. From the beginning I've said we needed to fight these things. They should never have been allowed into our police forces to begin with. They're not non-lethal alternatives to guns. They're torture devices. I'm afraid the cat's out of the bag, now. Too late to ban them.