Taser Pistol Proves Successful with Police

[leonid]

9/14/00

 After meeting with much success, the M26 Taser pistol, which disarms subjects with an electric shock, will be put into use by the Seattle Police Department, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Sept. 9.

"I'm so impressed with it. This is the latest and the greatest," said Steve Ward, a SWAT officer who recently used the Taser pistol to disarm a knife-wielding man.

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said the department conducted a four-month study of alternatives to lethal force. The Taser pistol came out on top of the list of less-than-lethal weapons.

The decision to begin using the Taser pistol was met with praise from members of the community. Oscar Eason, president of the Seattle branch of the NAACP, and other black leaders have criticized the Seattle Police Department for being quick to pull the trigger when dealing with African Americans. "You can't help but commend them on moving toward something that we've been asking for all along," Eason said.
 

[Toad]

You know how old the TASER is?

When they used it elsewhere ten years ago, it was "cruel and unusual punishment".

Hope it works out this time!

[DmdBT]

Yep, can see it now. Police officer downs a thug with a Taser and the slime will claim he has permanent nervous system damage from it and then some grease-ball lawyer team will show up with the full backing of the ACLU, some no life wanna make a name for himself doctor will chime in, Al Sharpton will show up, Queasy Infamy will "rally to the cause" and throw the full donations collecting crew of the NAACP after the state, herr Clinton will sick Janet Reno and her (in)Justice department on them claiming racial motivations in their police department and they should be under the control/supervision of the feds then he'll go grope some widow because the press will be too involved with the event to cover her accusations, CNN and others will be sure to air any video of the event every 15 minutes until people cannot close their eyes without picturing the scene, Bush will say that he believed the police acted prudently and be blasted in the media as insensitive and cruel towards minorities while Gore will feeeeel saaaad for the man and how this society has failed to properly build his self esteem and sense of self-worth to where he might have been a productive citizen and unveil a 23 billion dollar government program to help look into possibly finding a suggestion that might perhaps someday solve this crisis which strikes at the very heart of our America and the press will applaud him and love him and report on how great his leadership is to take this nation forward, then Rush Limbaugh will get the guys previous rap sheet of arrests and spend 2 hours of his show going over the various mix of his 148 arrests from armed robbery to drug dealing all of which were either dropped or plea-bargained out, the city will settle out of court for an undisclosed amount in the millions, the police officer will be sentenced to jail on some federal law, the slime will be freed and become the biggest crack-head on the west coast with all that money, government will pass sweeping legislation and outlaw "assault tasers" and any weapon even remotely resembling one (ie handguns), the police will be stripped of their oppressive armament and sent to sensitivity training and issued nerf-batons, finally all will settle down in a few weeks and then while on patrol another officer will scratch the cornea of a street thug with his nerf-baton and...

well I guess you can see where this is going.

T
A slave of the United States Federal Government.

[Fishu]

DmdBT  

"Only in America"

[Maverick]

Note of reality here.

The TASER has been around for some time. It has been known to work. It has soem serious limitations. Some folks are naturaly resistant to electrical shock. Some folks are made resistant to shock buy the ingestion of drugs and alcohol. Most notable failure of the TASER, the felon Rodney King. (I say felon as he was a convicted felon before the incident and was arrested AGAIN for a felony after the trial.) King took 2 TASER hits and was NOT incapacitated. This incedent, while not excusable, was not the sole responsibility of the LAPD officers there.

The TASER has it's uses just like pepper spray, mace or a net. It is NOT a substitute for deadly force when that force is called for. No Police Officer should be forced to sacrifice their life for a "politically correct" experiment.

There is a "force continuum"or "spectrum", if you will, that is a tool of the Officer. It ranges from verbal instruction to deadly force. Fortunately most situations do not require the use of the latter.

Mav