Reply #35: Someone always defends the use of Tasers on the helpless. [View All]

What's the hurry? If it takes an extra 20 minutes to "talk him down," then the cops should take the extra 20 minutes. No one was at risk. The guy was in a wheelchair! Besides, if there were 2 cops, and you know there were, then it would be a piece of cake to disarm him. In fact, I guarantee I, an out of shape 54-year-old woman, could have disarmed him, even without another person's help.

A pair of scissors, however big they might be, are poking weapons. Unless the guy has a clear shot for stabbing, he can't do diddlysquat with the scissors. Approach scary wheelchair guy from the back. The scissors would become ineffective as a weapon.

It isn't about getting control of a dangerous person. It's about punishing some "SOB" for his refusal to cooperate. A lot of cops develop contempt for civilians and rage against anyone who fails to immediately surrender to their authority.

You should read about the Standford Prison Experiment, done in 1971:
http://www.prisonexp.org/slide-2.htm

It showed that once people were divided into "guards" and "prisoners," even arbitrarily, as part of an experiment, the "guards" would see the "prisoners" as the enemy and punish them outrageously for any form of self assertion or any failure to cooperate 150%. They even punished them when they did nothing uncooperative, just because having the power to do so, plus their general contempt for "civilians," prompted them to. The experimental subjects were screened beforehand to weed out anyone with sadistic tendencies or any other personality glitch. Then the roles of guards and prisoners were randomly assigned. But the animosity toward the "prisoners" and the abuse inflicted on them by the "guards" were pretty much the same sort of thing that developed in Abu Graib--even the sexual abuse. When the Stanford "guards" thought there was no one around to catch them at it, they sexually abused the prisoners. (They didn't know they were being taped by hidden cameras the whole time.)

Even without authorization from above (which I believe they did have), some of the guards would almost certainly have abused the prisoners at Abu Graib, unless there had been a rigorous policy against it and active control to prevent it. It isn't because cops or guards are any worse than other people, but because it is in human nature to behave that way. Such tendencies can be supressed by proper socialization (which we don't much have here in this country) and controlled, but they are natural and given the opportunity to be expressed, they will be expressed.

The way the cops abuse peaceful protesters here in the US is another example of this tendency. Another thing the Stanford Experiment showed was that most civilians will not interfere or protest against abuse of civilians by "authorities," even if they are appalled by it. Look at how the civilian population in the US remained passive despite the Miami and New York cops' extraordinary abuse of protesters, the police state imposed at the G8 Summit in Georgia, etc.

BTW, on this site and on smirkingchimp.com, where I also post, some people also defended the use of Tasers against the 6-year-old boy and against the hooky-playing 12-year-old girl.

One of the things investigations have shown, BTW, is that even after Tasering someone and completely incapacitating that person, cops will sometimes administer another shock--or even more--as "punishment." I am quite certain that the guy in the wheelchair was Tasered for pissing the cops off, not because they needed the Taser to control him.