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The police shot someone with a taser for doing graffiti on an abandoned building? That is completely insane. You can literally rub graffiti off a wall, why wou

The police shot someone with a taser for doing graffiti on an abandoned building? That is completely insane. You can literally rub graffiti off a wall, why would you risk killing someone for that.

Natsu 9y ago
Usually, use of force guidelines say that this level of escalation is only warranted when the person is actively resisting (e.g. attempting to strike the officer). This would be a good case to have body cam video for.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  The article didn't mention verbal warnings so I looked for the procedures and found this: https://cbsmiami.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/use-of-force.pdf https://cbsmiami.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/use-of-force.pd... It says use of ECD (Taser), as non-lethal force, is warranted to prevent inter alia damage to property, section 4.b.1.b. It also says verbal warnings should be given when they don't betray a tactical advantage. Once a warning is given, if you run you're resisting arrest, which is for good reasons a serious crime.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Resisting arrest and evading arrest are qualitatively different, though I don't feel like researching legal precedent on the topic right now to find which courts and circuits think what about it. Whatever the law says, the use of potentially deadly-force to prevent the application of graffiti is unconscionable. Graffiti may be aesthetically undesirable and property owners are within their rights to obstruct or remove it from their property, but adding a layer of paint to a wall does not damage the wall.
    - Natsu 9y ago
      It would seem that the use of force guidelines should be updated to solve this in the future and we should pay more attention to the rules and incentives the officers are working under.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      I dispute that there's no damage. The visual amenity of the wall/building/area has altered (possibly for the good IMO), returning it to the unaltered state has costs, leaving the visual amenity in the altered state can produce a deficit for businesses and residents (or the contrary). It's definitely an alteration, if the alteration is unwanted it seems reasonable to describe it as damage. Should we let people graffiti other's property without any hindrance? If you make something illegal, you have to allow police to intervene. If you allow police to intervene some people will run. Police are worthless, as are the laws they seek to enforce, if they don't have legal powers to physically stop people who flee from them, using appropriate force. Thus situations where people come to physical harm that outweighs the gravity of their (known) suspected crimes are inevitable so long as people choose to flee when confronted by police. Point out the holes there for me?
      - firmgently 9y ago
        "appropriate force". I'd contend that an electric shock across the heart is too much force for stopping someone accused of spraying graffiti. It seems to me that this is the grey area where the officer's humane discretion should come into play: "is it worth risking another human-being's life in order to prevent their evading capture for a crime of this level?" It seems like this grey area often gets flattened into "is this human being complying? If no, pull trigger."
        Natsu 9y ago
        Police have use of force guidelines. It would be good for concerned citizens to pay attention to and advocate that those guidelines be written in such a way that it's clear when each level of force is truly warranted or not. I tend to agree that shocking someone is a bit excessive for mere property damage, but I don't know all the details about this. The situation would change a lot if, e.g., they were tasering someone already restrained as a punishment, or conversely if they were tasering someone who ran into a dead end, then turned to attack them. Given that the details in the article were quite thin, I'd want to see more evidence before rendering judgement.
maloney 9y ago
"why would you risk killing someone for that" I think that's the main point of the article. Taser markets these weapons as non-lethal, going to great lengths to make sure investigations point the blame somewhere else when a death occurs. Police don't treat these weapons as lethal, which is clearly not true.
- AckSyn 9y ago
  They specifically mark them as "less than lethal" on all the packaging I've seen, and I've never seen a "non-lethal" marking on them. I've owned and used dozens (mostly for testing and one job).
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  I heard from an officer (in my city at least) that part of their training is getting shot by a taser. They even let citizens who join their "explorers program" get shocked by one for the experience (clip on the ends, not shot).
  - okreallywtf 9y ago
    I would be interested to know what, if any, emergency medical presence there is during this training. Might go to show what level of confidence they have in the true non-lethality of the weapons.
    - damnfine 9y ago
      The big differince is where you are tased, and for how long. I have done taser training and we usually got it in the leg, rather than across the chest, as most deployments happen.
    - PoachedSausage 9y ago
      As an electronic engineer, I've probably received more electric shocks than most people. It very much depends on where you get shocked, if you avoid the area around the heart then you could get away with it. It still hurts though.
deleted 9y ago
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devmunchies 9y ago
Someone ran from the police, escalating the issue, when they were just graffiti-ing on an abandoned building? That is idiotic. There is inherent risk when you escalate an issue with the police. I'm not excusing the police for using deadly force, but he made a bad choice.

The police shot someone with a taser for doing graffiti on an abandoned building? That is completely insane. You can literally rub graffiti off a wall, why would you risk killing someone for that.

Natsu 9y ago

Usually, use of force guidelines say that this level of escalation is only warranted when the person is actively resisting (e.g. attempting to strike the officer). This would be a good case to have body cam video for.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
The article didn't mention verbal warnings so I looked for the procedures and found this: https://cbsmiami.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/use-of-force.pdf https://cbsmiami.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/use-of-force.pd... It says use of ECD (Taser), as non-lethal force, is warranted to prevent inter alia damage to property, section 4.b.1.b. It also says verbal warnings should be given when they don't betray a tactical advantage. Once a warning is given, if you run you're resisting arrest, which is for good reasons a serious crime.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Resisting arrest and evading arrest are qualitatively different, though I don't feel like researching legal precedent on the topic right now to find which courts and circuits think what about it. Whatever the law says, the use of potentially deadly-force to prevent the application of graffiti is unconscionable. Graffiti may be aesthetically undesirable and property owners are within their rights to obstruct or remove it from their property, but adding a layer of paint to a wall does not damage the wall.
  - Natsu 9y ago
    It would seem that the use of force guidelines should be updated to solve this in the future and we should pay more attention to the rules and incentives the officers are working under.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I dispute that there's no damage. The visual amenity of the wall/building/area has altered (possibly for the good IMO), returning it to the unaltered state has costs, leaving the visual amenity in the altered state can produce a deficit for businesses and residents (or the contrary). It's definitely an alteration, if the alteration is unwanted it seems reasonable to describe it as damage. Should we let people graffiti other's property without any hindrance? If you make something illegal, you have to allow police to intervene. If you allow police to intervene some people will run. Police are worthless, as are the laws they seek to enforce, if they don't have legal powers to physically stop people who flee from them, using appropriate force. Thus situations where people come to physical harm that outweighs the gravity of their (known) suspected crimes are inevitable so long as people choose to flee when confronted by police. Point out the holes there for me?
    - firmgently 9y ago
      "appropriate force". I'd contend that an electric shock across the heart is too much force for stopping someone accused of spraying graffiti. It seems to me that this is the grey area where the officer's humane discretion should come into play: "is it worth risking another human-being's life in order to prevent their evading capture for a crime of this level?" It seems like this grey area often gets flattened into "is this human being complying? If no, pull trigger."
      - Natsu 9y ago
        Police have use of force guidelines. It would be good for concerned citizens to pay attention to and advocate that those guidelines be written in such a way that it's clear when each level of force is truly warranted or not. I tend to agree that shocking someone is a bit excessive for mere property damage, but I don't know all the details about this. The situation would change a lot if, e.g., they were tasering someone already restrained as a punishment, or conversely if they were tasering someone who ran into a dead end, then turned to attack them. Given that the details in the article were quite thin, I'd want to see more evidence before rendering judgement.

maloney 9y ago

"why would you risk killing someone for that" I think that's the main point of the article. Taser markets these weapons as non-lethal, going to great lengths to make sure investigations point the blame somewhere else when a death occurs. Police don't treat these weapons as lethal, which is clearly not true.

AckSyn 9y ago
They specifically mark them as "less than lethal" on all the packaging I've seen, and I've never seen a "non-lethal" marking on them. I've owned and used dozens (mostly for testing and one job).
ReverseCold 9y ago
I heard from an officer (in my city at least) that part of their training is getting shot by a taser. They even let citizens who join their "explorers program" get shocked by one for the experience (clip on the ends, not shot).
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  I would be interested to know what, if any, emergency medical presence there is during this training. Might go to show what level of confidence they have in the true non-lethality of the weapons.
  - damnfine 9y ago
    The big differince is where you are tased, and for how long. I have done taser training and we usually got it in the leg, rather than across the chest, as most deployments happen.
  - PoachedSausage 9y ago
    As an electronic engineer, I've probably received more electric shocks than most people. It very much depends on where you get shocked, if you avoid the area around the heart then you could get away with it. It still hurts though.

deleted 9y ago

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devmunchies 9y ago

Someone ran from the police, escalating the issue, when they were just graffiti-ing on an abandoned building? That is idiotic. There is inherent risk when you escalate an issue with the police. I'm not excusing the police for using deadly force, but he made a bad choice.