11-18-2006, 08:15 PM
Quote:The second issue has nothing to do with profiling. It has to do with some maltrained police officers reacting poorly in the given situation. Even if you believe a taser was warranted in this situation, it's clear that 5-6 taser shots was excessive. There does not appear to be any racial profiling on the behalf of the police officers. They clearly speak their command, and repeat it over and over again. There is also due warning of the oncoming tasering if student does not comply to their commands. The only thing at issue here is that the police officers should have known how to better handle the situation - including adapting their treatment of the non-compliant yet unaggressive student, especially in face of the crowd of people.
The video is impossible to see what is happening and what exactly the individual is doing, but just from listening to the officers audible commands you can tell that the use of the tazer was excessive. When the video starts the individual is complaining of already being tazered. it's possible that this use was warranted, but the next time he is tazared is in response to not standing up when the officers told him to.
The fact that the officers are telling him to stand up signifies that he is already restrained and handcuffed when they tazer him the second time. if the only issue was he wasn't standing up, than there are many ways in which officers are trained to deal with unresponsive people that are already restrained. using a Tazer is generally not one of them. in fact, in many of those types of situations it would be far preferable and easier to cuff both his hands and feet and essentially hog tie him and carry him out. If he was still acting aggressively towards the officers than there is no way they should be ordering him to stand up of his own volition.
There is a laundry list of ways in which these officers failed to properly handle the situation.