A Recipe for Disaster: School Cops Are Being Armed with 50,000-Volt Tasers

[ccharles000]

Tasers aren't 'nonlethal'; they've killed hundreds. With younger people being especially vulnerable to the Taser's shock, the risks could be very deadly.

One spring day this April, at the Franklin Correctional Institution on Florida's Highway 67, Sgt. Walter Schmidt pulled out his electronic immobilization device -- EID in correctional officer parlance -- and zapped two people, who immediately "yelped in pain, fell to the ground and grabbed red burn marks on their arms," according to the St. Petersburg Times.

The two were not inmates at the prison, however. They were students visiting as part of "Take Our Daughters and Sons To Work Day."

The move cost Schmidt his job, despite his claim that he merely intended to demonstrate how the devices worked. He had even asked the children's parents (who were also employees at the prison) permission first. "When they said 'sure,' I went ahead and did it," he told the Times.

"It wasn't intended to be malicious, but educational. The big shock came when I got fired."

Schmidt wasn't alone in his job-costing blunder. In fact, it came just one day after other children, visiting different prisons were similarly shocked.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/142652/a_recipe_for_disaster:_school_cops_are_being_armed_with_50,000-volt_tasers/

[KansDem]

1. Hey! Can private citizens get these "Tasers?"

Maybe the general public should start packing?

Just like the "old West," maybe we could continue the tradition?

Say, Pard, looks like you're a-wearing yer Taser strapped down there. Lookin' for trouble?"

Maybe even a "Taze-out at the O.K. Corral"-type event?

[Deja Q]

2. Conversely, if more parents disciplined their children, we wouldn't need as many packin' heat

:shrug:

I'm on the fence with all this.