The Taserification of America

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Will Bunch

The Taserification of America
The whole justification for police to get tasers in the first place was to subdue potentially violent suspects -- but it's gone way, way, past that.

May 5, 2010 |


Unless you've been living in a Waziristan cave for the last 24 years, you've heard about the unfortunate misdemeanor-breaking dude who got Tasered at a Philadelphia Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park Monday night. My computer screen here at the Philadelphia Daily News went all a-Twitter about it even before all the electrons had even stopped flowing through 17-year-old suburban high school senior Steve Consalvi.

My gut instinct when I first learned of it was the same as I feel about it a day later: That while it wasn't exactly a Rodney King affair, clearly the officer had used excessive force. I've been watching baseball games for more than 40 years, and the drills is always the same. The fan isn't trying to do harm, just get attention; it used to be that the TV cameras never even showed a field-jumper for exactly that reason, back before ESPN needed an endless stream of fodder for its "Top 10 Plays."

People forget that the whole justification for police to get Tasers in the first place was to subdue potentially violent suspects in cases in the past in which they might have been tempted to use lethal force. But the notion that the cops would have pulled a gun and shot 17-year-old field jumper Steve Consalvi is absurd, which means the rationale for tasing him is...what? There's something oddly funny about zapping a fellow human for some reason, but Tasers are no joke to the loved ones of the estimated 50 people who died because of their use.

Consalvi didn't have the risk factors of most of those killed or injured -- he is young, healthy, and wasn't drunk or on drugs. But he still -- while committing a misdemeanor, let's remember -- was subjected to the brief, intense pain of 50,000 volts of electricity. There was a simpler, quainter time when causing pain to another person was called...violence. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/146755/the_taserification_of_america

[LiberalLoner]

1. We seem to be more accepting of violence and unfairness all the time - there is such a

coarsening of our society in recent decades. We have become a brutal, hard, uncaring people for the most part.

It's getting harder and harder to survive. And I have a feeling it will get even harder still.

[disillusioned73]

2. My first Un-Rec

Don't jump onto the field and interupt a game( not you) that thousands of people paid hard earned money to see and you won't get "tazed"... period, end of story

[marmar]

3. I think you missed the larger issue, but oh well.....

nt

[LiberalLoner]

4. I understood what you meant....we are becoming increasingly accepting of violence and

all kinds of other bad things in our society. And the amount of victim-blaming that goes on even here on DU (not talking about the tasered guy, he did commit a crime, I can see that point) takes my breath away.

We are turning into a society where we cheer on bullies and give an extra kick and spit to victims.

Kind of scary really, isn't it?

[MisterP]

30. it's like someone in the 1820s, nodding approvingly at a 11-year-old swinging from the gallows,

saying that "well, he shouldn't have stolen that bread. he commited a crime. actions have consequences" and other monstrous cliches

[depakid]

7. One hopes that people like the poster end up getting some of their own medicine one day

as it's something that they deserve ever so richly.

[disillusioned73]

13. I see people complain about

unrecs all the time here on DU,... and even more disgust to when a reason isn't given. So i give my opinion and reason and you wish harm upon me - quite mature indeed.

Oh, and just a tad hypocritical since you obviously were offended by the "violence" displayed in the tazering...

[wolfgangmo]

29. I agree.

You may be wrong and lot's of folks may disagree with you (i'm one of them), but to wish that someone get tazered due to a comment they made is, well, kinda fascist.

[JackintheGreen]

5. While I appreciate the sentiment

it's a 3+ hour game that got "interrupted." The young idiot was hardly stealing from the fans. But you leave me wondering, if tazing is OK, a procedure which causes immense pain and sometimes death, how would you feel if he was clubbed with a billy, which is what cops used to do a couple decades ago? The motivation behind each action is exactly the same: "subduing" a potentially violent perp, with maybe a dash of "that'll show your dumb hippie ass" vengeance thrown in.

In this week, the 40th year anniversary of Kent State, you suggest that some forms of State violence against non-violent criminals is somehow OK. Just because it's electrical and from a distance doesn't make it any less a form of State perpetrated violence.

This kid was a dick, and deserved to get arrested and banned from CPB. But it's a damned misdemeanor.

[depakid]

8. "which is what cops used to do a couple decades ago? "

In what fact free universe is that?

[LiberalLoner]

10. Oh, I remember seeing footage from Chicago, with protestors being beaten...n/t

[JackintheGreen]

12. What are you inferring?

1) That cops used to use billies against baseball rowdies?
This is a ridiculously over-general inference, though I can understand how it might be made, given my phrasing. It is not, however, what I meant to suggest. If you took it this way, my apologies and see below.

or

2) cops never used billies to subdue suspects/rowdies/rioters
which is absurd. Of course they did. A simple youtube search will show you plenty of instances. Including, interestingly, some Italian police using billies to subdue a fan who ran onto the field. Curious. Try it.

And they still do. All over the world. I've seen it.


What I was speaking to was the assertion that the kid got what he deserved. He committed a misdemeanor. If the poster to whom I responded thinks tasing sports rowdies is OK, beating them with billies must be, too. The reason? Both billies/lathi sticks/truncheons and tasers are meant to be non-lethal tools of subdual. Tasers were intended to minimize risk to the officer by removing him from physical proximity to the suspect.

[LiberalLoner]

14. were you posting in response to my post or...? I'm totally confused...

I was just saying, cops DID used to use billy clubs, I remember seeing footage of them using it. I've never seen it in real life in front of me but then all I've ever seen have been routine traffic stops so I've been pretty sheltered.

I thought the one poster was trying to say cops never used billy clubs, and I was saying, in response, oh yes they did used to use them.

I'm really afraid of tasers. I've heard stories on the internet that they've been used sometimes for almost no reason at all, that even if you cooperate, you could get tased. That really scares me. Heart disease runs in my family, and I'm convinced that if I ever got tased it would stop my heart and I would die. I already have a heart that misses some beats sometimes.

[JackintheGreen]

15. Oh, no no no...fear thee not

My second post was in response to depakid, who seemed to suggest that I make crap up, or rather that I referred to, perhaps even lived in, "a fact free universe."

You and I are in agreement. We responded in kind to the same poster: depakid.

[LiberalLoner]

18. Oh, okay, cool! :) n/t

[disillusioned73]

16. I understand your sentiment...

but bringing Kent State into this conversation is a bit over the top. The safety of the players and the coaches on the field is their responsibility, it's hard to determine who is/isn't a threat. Just ask the first base coach that got attacked a couple of years ago, and let's not forget the female tennis player that got STABBED during a match.... if that was the result of this situation surely we'd have folks on here complaining - "where was security!!"

Look, there is no way of stopping EVERY idiot from running out there and either just simply saying look at me or in the rare case physically assaulting someone. It's obvious this incident wasn't a deterent because someone did the same thing the very next day at the next Phillies game

[JackintheGreen]

19. I get you, and I may have been untoward

but it was not, I maintain, an abuse of history.

The poster I responded to said, basically, "he deserved it." A *lot* of people said the same thing about the protesters after Kent State. A lot of people said the same thing after the 1968 Chicago convention.

So I agree, under the circumstances that comment was over the top, but it was in response to a common enough mindset that just about any level of pre-mortality violence is acceptable to "deal" with perceived ne'er-do-wells, suspects, and perps. I take issue with that precisely because the mindset that says it's OK to taser an idiot fan often leads to the mindset that resulted in Chicago '68 or Kent State, namely: they're "criminals" --> they deserve it.

This is not meant to diminish instances of stabbed tennis stars or assaulted KC Royals coaches. But singular instances of wack-a-do fans do not justify excessive force against an entire class of idiot fans. Remember the hugely buxom lady that used to jump onto fields and kiss athletes including, if memory serves, KC's own George Brett? Or the two guys that jumped into Wrigley to burn the flag towards the end of the Vietnam War? Those weren't tasable actions, or even very preventable. We can only minimize risk; not eliminate it. Forcing police-state enforcement standards onto misdemeanor offenses damages us all.

[disillusioned73]

22. I see you point..

and I get the non-violent history of fans running out there for whatever reason to get attention and/or make a political statement. The kids that got to run with Hank Arron as he broke Babe Ruths record was a very touching moment... I guess I am conflicted to a certain degree, I get the sense though that times have changed and security has changed. Maybe the stadiums need to start employing more athletic security so that they are able to bring them down more quickly??

Although, someone might complain that he tackled them too hard.... sigh

[JackintheGreen]

25. Funny you should bring up the Aaron moment

I agree it is touching (now), but Aaron later revealed that at the time he was terrified they intended to do him injury. He had received plenty of death threats as he neared Ruth's record. It seems all things are fraught.

Cheers.

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. LOL!

What a silly thing to offer.

What about these:

Don't be a ten year old acting up in school and you won't get tazed!
Don't be a wheelchair bound person and act up and you won't get tased!
Don't be an 86 year old Grandmother and mouth off to a policeman and you won't get tased.

I only wish that I could stand over you after you had just been tased for telling a cop something that included the line "period, end of story" and laugh.

[disillusioned73]

17. ahhh

another hypocrite I see

[Forrest Greene]

20. Spoken Like A Real

...respecter of authority.

[disillusioned73]

23. One can respect authority...

and question it as well

[Forrest Greene]

26. And Some Can't Tell The Difference

...between respect & fear.

[jotsy]

31. Bravo.

I've heard taser technology referred to as cattle prods for people, if law enforcement can't draw the line of applicability appropriately, they have no business using the technology at all.

This boy was no threat to anyone and the use of this weapon is what I believe to be the truer criminal act here.

[provis99]

27. so you would be ok if the cop had killed him with a gun.

You're a real psychopath. Go back to freeperville, asshole.

[wolfgangmo]

28. Does it pass legal muster?

A basic legal argument, especially when applied to constitutional law is to change the venue (or race, etc.) and see if the argument holds up. Let's try that here.


Don't jump on a field ... and you won't get shot? Fail
Dont jump on a sidewalk ... and you won't get tazed? Fail.


The problem I have with your arguments logic is that the officers didn't follow the force continuum and the use of the tazer was out of line with both the crime and the circumstances.

[Tutankhamun]

9. Our media and our politicians constantly pressure us to be callous, unfeeling and mean.

We can't empathize with others. They don't deserve sympathy, we're told. That poor person can't eat? Too bad. He's lazy and doesn't have the work "ethic" that made this country great. That woman is dying of cancer and can't afford the $150,000 medical treatment to save her life? She should have gotten medical insurance. I, of all people, can't be expected to feel badly for her. After all, it's not _my_ fault she didn't have the foresight to get insurance.

What's that, you say? She did have insurance, but the company cancelled her policy when she was diagnosed with cancer? Tough toenails, lady. Maybe you should have been more responsible and read the fine print. What's that? The fine print didn't tell her that her coverage would be revoked if she actually needed it?

It's just not my fault. She should have saved her money for a rainy day. It doesn't matter that she and her husband spent their life savings to care for her elderly father. They should have saved more, worked more. So what if she and her husband had five jobs between them, just to make ends meet. They should have prayed more, gone to church more. If Jesus didn't provide for them, they couldn't have been good Christians.

What's that? They went to church every Sunday, along with their three children? They should never have had children if they couldn't afford it. I don't care if they're Catholic and the Pope told them not to use birth control. They shouldn't have had sex then. Jesus warns us about giving in to pleasures of the flesh. I'm not Catholic anyway; I'm an evangelical and Jesus loves me because I go to the right church, wear the right clothes, listen to the right music, read the right books, say the right things, and I pray, and I'm in church every week, and I _never_ sin.

And what's more, I'm always the first to...hey! What's this lump in my neck? That wasn't there yesterday...

[LiberalLoner]

11. Brilliant post +1 You hit the nail right on the head...that is what I am seeing around me

and it's becoming harder and harder for me to want to be any part of this society. I have become extremely withdrawn, in fact, and I'm losing hope that we can ever have just a "normal" society again for any of us. I know society has always had a mean underbelly, and there have always been victims, but I also remember a time when it used to be okay - even expected - to show sympathy and to be kind to others.

Now, if you have something bad happen to you the bullies come out to piss in your wounds and make it worse for you. I got a taste of that recently right here on DU and my heart still aches from it.

It's that rising level of meanness and cruelty that take the breath away. I remember reading books as a kid about how the Nazi thugs acted and I swear we are acting more and more like them every day. This won't end well.

I find myself wishing I could get out of the U.S. and just move away. There are countries that aren't so cruel and harsh - I have lived in them. Where people still at least pretend to care about others and where being a bully is not rewarded and applauded.

[Forrest Greene]

21. It Seems As If

...we used to be able to take pride in how much we were able to help out others. Being able to afford to help out was in some ways a brag about how wealthy & strong we were --- we've got plenty to go around, that's how strong we are. Like the Northwestern American Indian tradition called potlach, where competition was held to see who could give away the most gifts.

But we've been perverted. It didn't just happen, it was done to us. Our souls have been deliberately & systematically shriveled. Bullies are buffers between ordinary people & the powers that be.

Speaking of Nazi thugs, examine history. See how often, & how thoroughly, the winner in a battle of ideologies takes on the persona of the loser.

[caraher]

24. +1

It's sad how getting "tased" is all a big joke to so many people - the growing streak of sadism in this country is frightening!

Nobody's saying someone who dashes on the field should just be left alone... but generally in the past some security guard(s) would tackle the dude, drag him away and the game would continue. Now they have to zap him, not because they need to, but because they can.