Gates Is Lucky Cambridge Doesn’t Tase
Henry Louis Gates is lucky Cambridge Police don’t use tasers. Anywhere else, it might have been different. Seriously, a quick Google News search of the last month alone reveals a barrage of police tasing incidents across the country one more barbaric than the other: grandmas, grandpas, the mentally ill, teens and even children. Some of these taser victims died. One (ok, in Australia) burst into flames, another was left with burns in his anus, and yet another, a 14-year-old girl, got it in the head — running away after a dispute with her mother over a cell phone (caution, graphic).
All — in varying degrees — needed to be “subdued” by police, and were. It is, after all, a most effective tool in that regard, especially when dealing with pregnant women, 16-year-olds with broken backs and 6-year-old boys. After reading news reports dating back to 2004 about the hyper-use of these 50,000-volt zap guns, it’s not difficult to imagine what might have happened if Gates were say, in Boise, and had hurled one more insult, used a few expletives, raised a hand or moved toward Officer James Crowley in a “threatening manner,” much like this guy, who was irate and scary, but nonetheless handcuffed and shackled, when he was Tasered in a Kentucky court on July 22.
When Reason wrote about Tasers in 2005, there were 6,000 law enforcement agencies employing Taser guns. The high-voltage weapons, according to the Amnesty International statistics in the report, “are used on unarmed suspects in 80 percent of the cases, for verbal non-compliance in 36 percent, and for cases involving ‘deadly assault’ only 3 percent of the time.” Today some 14,200 police departments use Tasers, along with countless school districts across the country. In Pennsylvania alone for example, Tasers were employed by police in 122 schools as of June.
So what does this mean?
According to police, who, as we’ve been reminded relentlessly over the last week face constant danger, Tasers are less lethal than guns and more effective at ending violent confrontations without serious injury. Furthermore, Tasers have been credited with shielding police officers from harm in the line of duty.
Maybe so. According to federal statistics, the number of police officers shot and killed in the line of duty is at an historic low. The nationwide number actually dropped 40 percent — from 68 in 2007 to 41 in 2008. The numbers have been on a downward trajectory for years, and Tasers are in part, credited. But there are other reasons, too, like the fact that overall violent crime is down, police wear super high-tech bullet-proof vests today and some 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated and off the streets.
Meanwhile, the stats on the number of American citizens police have killed in that timespan are much more elusive. According to this 2007 report (unverified), 9,500 people were killed by cops from 1980 through 2003, an average of 380 a year, one a day. These recent DOJ numbers jibe, with 1,540 killed by police from 2003-2006. Amnesty International says 351 people have died from police Tasers since 2001.
The police are poised to make their odds a whole lot better as Taser International on Tuesday revealed its newest model since 2003 — a weapon that can fire three rounds without reloading. In other words, it can hit three people, or fire three times at the same person without missing a beat. It can also fire from a farther distance — 35 feet instead of 15 feet. “Hundreds of law enforcement officers applauded after watching the two[demonstrators] fire rounds of barbed wire at metal targets,” according to The Associated Press.
Why not? If it helps subdue feisty 72-year-old great-grandmothers who “mouth off,” or 66-year-old ministers who make an unwise jokes in hospital wards (perhaps with three uninterrupted Taser jolts, the security guards could have bypassed the beat-down they gave this guy in front of his 6-year-old grandson).
Like I said Tuesday, any one of us might someday find ourselves in their places, given the right (wrong) circumstances. It’s a byproduct of police militarization, the “criminalization of almost everything” as Gene Healy calls it, and the transcendence of American police from neighborhood “peace officers” to gods, armed to the teeth and impervious but ultimately hostile towards criticism. They are largely unaccountable to the public officials and taxpayers who pay their salaries, and this can be seen in the myriad cases of abuse involving Tasers and other aggressive, over-the-top behaviors (like choking a paramedic while his patient is languishing inside the ambulance en route to the hospital).
Tasers are like cattle prods and we pray we never see the wrong end of one. Apparently they make police feel safer, but a lot of us are feeling more like animals these days. It would appear that Boston and Cambridge Police have so far resisted the Taser trend and should be commended for that. Gates dodged a 50,000-volt shock on July 16 – I’d bet a beer behind the Oval Office tastes much better.
And Kelley, there are more cops than ever. I don’t know how many new policemen have been hired since 9/11, but I think it is safe to say that every police jurisdiction has grown in size even though crime rates have been going down. Here in Loudoun County Virginia there are plans for a 60 plus officer police substation in the rural western part of the county. But we have near zero crime and the crime we do have is usually of the smashed mailbox variety. Police and Sheriff departments are really good at coming up with justifications for growing bigger based on some bozo’s analysis of how many cops per citizen you have to have for “protection.”
I don’t have anything substantive to add to this post, but I need to express my gratitude for the existence of this web site and its writers. I consider myself a conservative, but events since 2002 have convinced me that I no longer can call myself a Republican. I’m just so glad for sites like The American Conservative, which makes me realize that there still are a few sane conservatives left.
[...] Kelley Vlahos in TAC: Seriously, a quick Google News search of the last month alone reveals a barrage of police tasing incidents across the country one more barbaric than the other: grandmas, grandpas, the mentally ill, teens and even children. Some of these taser victims died. One (ok, in Australia) burst into flames, another was left with burns in his anus, and yet another, a 14-year-old girl, got it in the head — running away after a dispute with her mother over a cell phone (caution, graphic). [...]
[...] Kelley Vlahos does just that in a piece for The American Conservative. The numbers are surprising: According to federal statistics, the number of police officers shot and killed in the line of duty is at an historic low. The nationwide number actually dropped 40 percent — from 68 in 2007 to 41 in 2008. The numbers have been on a downward trajectory for years, and Tasers are in part, credited. But there are other reasons, too, like the fact that overall violent crime is down, police wear super high-tech bullet-proof vests today and some 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated and off the streets. [...]
Your whole thesis completely ignores the fact that a LOT OF PROBLEMS have been cleaned up, and today’s police force are more culturally and racially sensitive than ever before, overall.
In Portland, Ore, late 70′s, a streetwalking drunk knocked off one of my external rearview mirrors, I got out of the car and was beginning to give chase, when a policeman pulled up. I quickly explained, and he got on radio, and said to dispatcher, “We have a piece of shit, who knocked a citizen’s mirror off…”. A minute later, dispatcher’s voice said, “Your piece of shit is one block over…”
I got a quick lecture about getting out of my car in that part of town, and the policeman was gone. I was left vaguely offended, but not enough so to file a complaint. Only 10 years before, I had left Roseburg Oregon, who had a law on the books in the 60′s that no black people were allowed within the city limits after dark. I had never known about that law, until much later in life.
After a lifetime of computer-based accounting, remembering the calculus physics and statistical analysis, and set theory, I can confidently that any good accountant can LIE using statistics.
But if you’re REALLY going to LIE, use anecdotal evidence. Don’t you agree, Ms Vlahos?
[...] Yet more *tasers, this time) from Kelly Vlahos. Posted by Jim Henley @ 7:20 am, Filed under: Main Comments (0) « « Foot, mouth, [...]
Policeman deaths are also down, I’m told, because in previous decades police were more naive and less paranoid about people trying to kill them.
How much police militarization and excessive force is encouraged by social disorder and cultural contempt for the police?
[...] Vlahos on taserings and police shootings. Digg it | reddit | del.icio.us | [...]
“How much police militarization and excessive force is encouraged by social disorder and cultural contempt for the police?”
Interesting question. I see it as a fairly vicious cycle. The more the police militarize and engage in blatant assaults on liberty, the more social disorder and contempt then can expect to reap. Over the last decade I have noticed a real shift within the police force in the small city I live in (150k people), and it has not been for the better. What disturbs me the most about this shift is that it is not in response to any increase in crime (we really don’t have much violent crime here). Some changes were subtle and some were not. Our officers went from light blue uniforms to a navy (almost black) uniform, from shoes to combat boots, from shotguns to M16s. In this small city we even have 2 swat teams (one city and 1 Sheriff). 10 years ago it was rare to see them called out, now it’s a regular thing (for fairly minor situations).
I know several officers on both the city police force and that work with the Sheriff’s office. I break them down into 2 groups. Those that live “the cop” lifestyle and those that don’t. out of the 10 or 11 officers that I know, the only ones that are decent human beings are the ones that don’t hang out with other cops. When they punch out at the end of their shift they are done. The 8-9 guys are just miserable human beings. The big chip sits on the shoulders all of the time. It’s a real us vs them attitude. The problem is the “them” is not the criminal element, it’s all non cops! That’s not healthy for any free society.
For me, the crux of the taser issue is Taser International increasingly unbelieveable claims that the taser cannot possibly cause a death via any inherent internal risk factors such as cardiac effects. Taser Torture is also an issue, but I believe that exposing the risk of death is the first step, followed closely by taser abuse, misuse and overuse (especially against minorities, as a modern electrowhip).
On my blog at Excited-Delirium.com (with the dash) I bring you news of the recent Canadian Braidwood Inquiry into taser use that conclude that tasers are capable of causing death, via any of several taser-death mechanisms, even in healthy adults. Please use Google or my blog to guide you to the Braidwood Report and read the summary.
Also, for those that haven’t already figured it out for themselves, there is the taser’s “Curious Temporal Asymmetry” that uses a simple and obvious observation to indicate the real truth about taser / death cause and effect. Please Google the phrase and think it through.