Don’t Tase Me, Bro

Subduing Protesters in New Orleans

As reported today in New Orleans to Demolish Thousands of ‘Poor’ Homes by Leonard Doyle (Common Dreams) and New Orleans Police Taser, Pepper Spray Residents Seeking to Block Public Housing Demolition (Democracy Now!), a meeting of the City Council of New Orleans to decide whether to raze 4500 units of low-income housing and replace them with mixed-income housing was disrupted by police wading into crowds of chanting protesters with pepper spray and tasers. The clips on Democracy Now! sound like an exhuberant but ruly crowd that wouldn’t shut up—but was also not required to. Police felt otherwise and shut them up, dispersing them with today’s weapon of choice, the taser.

It’s ostensibly a replacement for a handgun; police are trained to use it only in those situations where they feel they would have pulled a gun. However, it seems to be used more as a nightstick—and one that leaves no marks for which an officer can be reprimanded. At The Mercy of Taser Torturers by Pierre Tristam (Common Dreams) sums it up thusly:

“A cop who’d never dream of unholstering a firearm against a lout or a big-mouthed student isn’t hesitating to unholster the stun-gun and use it repeatedly under the guise of restoring control.”

Subduing Uncomfortable Questions in Florida

The taser has been in the news much more of late, with the most widely-reported, recent case being the tasing that occurred during a speech by John Kerry, documented in Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? by Paul Craig Roberts (CounterPunch) In that case, as you can see from the video below—which includes the full question rather than just starting at the action—the tasing came pretty much out of nowhere as the young man exercising his right to free speech in/disrupting a public forum was not in any way violent. He just wouldn’t shut up when they wanted him to—so they dropped him with 50,000 volts. Tears of pride should be standing out in your eyes. Hand on your heart and face the flag.

Andrew Meyer–Tasered by Police (YouTube)

Whereas we can be appalled by this act—watching the oppressors gain confidence and crawl from the shadows to execute their terror in broad daylight—the salient question was posed in the CounterPunch article:

“The question we should all ask is why did a United States Senator just stand there while Gestapo goons violated the constitutional rights of a student participating in a public event, brutalized him in full view of everyone, and then took him off to jail on phony charges?”

Why, indeed. It is assumed that because John Kerry ran against George Bush that he shares none of his views on class in America. But Kerry also believes that an elite (of which he is a member) has its proper place (in charge and able to speak its mind freely) as does the common class, which will swallow the elite’s stories of freedom, shut up when they’re told and will do as they’re told. After all, that’s how the founding fathers would have wanted it.

Interestingly enough, even the Daily Show with Jon Stewart saw nothing more in this than “police brutality meets student douchebaggery”, which, if you watch the video, isn’t even close to a fair characterization of the situation at all. The student was polite—though clearly not kowtowing enough to a member of the elite—when formulating a question. He went on longer than the organizers wanted—because they wanted 2-second sound-bites, not actual thought—but did not curse until he was assaulted by campus security officers. They also cut his microphone only when he asked a question about the Skull and Bones Society, of which John Kerry was (is?) a proud member.

Though Stephen Colbert chided—in his own way—students for idly sitting by, there are a few people who tried to stop the police with screaming and what was doomed to be futile attempts to get the six officers off of Andrew Meyer.

Stewart and Colbert are both comedians, so education and truth is a side-issue for them (though seemingly less so than for mainstream news, where entertainment value reigns supreme). More reputable reporting was offered in A Shocking Moment for Society: Tasering at University of Florida by Naomi Wolf (Common Dreams):

“We have to understand what time it is. When the state starts to hurt people for asking questions, we can no longer operate on the leisurely time of a strong democracy — the ‘Oh gosh how awful!’ kind of time. It is time to take to the streets. It is time to confront those committing crimes against the Constitution. The window has now dropped several precipitous inches and once it is closed there is no opening it without great and sorrowful upheaval.”

Yeah, it’s just about that time. Revolution time. But it won’t happen anytime soon because everyone’s smugly watching the gestapo crack down on a loudmouth who’s asking the right questions, but not respectfully enough. So you laugh and you forget about it, while the number of cases of gestapo-like behavior creeps higher and higher, accumulating slowly and unnoticed. Like it did for the Germans all those years ago. Don’t misinterpret; it’s not there yet, it’s not 1940 yet. It’s perhaps the early 30's, where we’ve re-elected a madman with a lust for power and war and no respect for individual rights. It’s debatable whether the analogy can be stretched far enough to equate Bush’s dubious elections[1] with Hitler adding a chancellorship to his presidency after the mysterious death of the former chancellor. At any rate, mangled comparison aside, it’s still America and there’s still time, but the inertia of complacency and comfort drags us down while men and women with bad intentions leap to take advantage.

Adding Some Fun to a Traffic Stop

Another recent incident has to be seen to be believed. You can watch the video of the traffic stop here: Man tasered for not getting insurance out quickly enough (Statesman). Don’t worry, it won’t waste a lot of your time as indicated by the title of the accompanying article, From officer’s order to Taser: 45 seconds (Statesman) (the article is long, thorough and well-written). It is seriously gutwrenching to think how easily this could happen to anyone whose reaction time is less than the one or two seconds expected by this officer. And look at the man’s crime: driving 70 MPH in a 65 MPH zone.

Although it’s a difficult to see in the video (I didn’t notice), the speeder is black and was on his way with his mother to a Thanksgiving dinner. The officer ignored his mother, the minor speeding transgression and the pile of food in his mother’s lap and noted only that the black man “was argumentative, and [he] thought [he] might have a problem”. That’s not argumentative, that’s an appropriate reaction to someone treating you like shit out of the clear blue sky. You’re a cop, asshole—not God. You can have two seconds of patience and not assume that every person on the planet is a criminal just looking for an opening to “hurl [you] into traffic” (the actual reason the officer gave for tasering the young man). So, he orders the guy out of his car (and remember, we’re talking about a negligible speeding penalty), shoves him, waits for the expected reaction, then tases the lowlife to the ground, where he belongs. Lovely.

To their credit, the Austin police department still viewed this as a “black eye” and are using the video as “a training tool to prevent future incidents”. However, the officer was suspended (probably with pay) for three whole days and exonerated of all wrong-doing because, though he failed entirely to “respect the rights of individuals and perform [his] services with honestly, sincerity, courage and sound judgement”, he had “perceived a threat”. The only mention made of just how bad his perceptions are were veiled in the amazingly bold justification that officer “O’Connor said he also had not eaten and has a medical condition that “makes you kind of edgy” without food.”

W.T.F.

Fire him. A hypoglycemic trooper with likely race issues who provokes tasing incidents during innocuous traffic stops? How bad do you have to be at your job to be fired instead of suspended? The victim, Snelling, put it best in the video:

“There’s no reason, just because you’re wearing a badge, does not mean you have the right to yell at me.”

He was, of course, arrested for some bullshit charge—“disobeying a lawful order”, which basically means that the police own your ass, lock, stock and barrel—which was, of course, dropped because that kind of law isn’t even constitutional. However, the arrest justifies the incident in the report and everything’s wrapped up nice and neat. Officer O’Connor can cruise on towards retirement with only a minor incident on his record. Motorists, on the other hand, have no such warm and fuzzy feeling and, lacking protection from the law, must simply hope that O’Connor doesn’t forget to pack a snack the next time he’s out of patrol.

Shutting Up an Unruly Customer

And finally, the last incident/attack involves a police officer in a Best Buy, as detailed in Use of Taser on Disruptive Store Customer Questioned by Lyda Longa (Common Dreams). In this case, the police once again cleared themselves of any wrongdoing, claiming that “the verbal lashing his officer got and the way her commands were ignored gave his officer every right to use her weapon”. Once again, the tasee was charged with a crime—called “resisting a police officer without violence” in this case—which amounts to being guilty of not shutting your big f$*%ing cakehole when ordered to so by your societal superior (i.e. any police officer). And, once again, the officer in question shows remarkable patience, moving from a conversation to a tasing in “less than a minute”. Again, how can this person still be working as a police officer? Not only are is she poorly-trained, but she’s apparently so socially crippled that she can’t handle being disagreed with without flipping out. In her defense, as you can see from the crime mentioned above, it apparently is illegal to disagree with a police officer, so perhaps we should excuse her confusion. This is patently ridiculous.

As with the previous incident, the police chief had this gem of a justification, “Everybody has their opinion, but at the end of the day none of the people who have an opinion walk in that officer’s shoes”. There you go. The answer to the question posed in the article, “[c]an running your mouth off at a police officer during a confrontation in a crowded store get you blasted with a Taser?” is apparently an unequivocal yes. Not only are you not allowed to disagree with a police officer, but your perception of reality is worth nothing compared to the officer’s in the eyes of the law. If the officer felt threated—either because they were hungry or because they suck at their job—your ass is in the wrong. Period. You’d better hope you’re either able to keep your eyes down and your opinions to yourself or that you’re in good enough shape to handle 50,000 volts.