I would have tazed the guy myself. Don’t care how he thought of me afterwards.
He could hate me forever but I would taze him if I were that cop. He could put me up for performance review and have me written up take me to all the papers and I’ll say the same damn thing.
“Why did you taze him”
To save his damn fool life.
You do not run into a building that’s on fire once you are outside and safe.
And if they took this guy to court, I’d acquit the cop on day 1 and hang the jury if necessary. His job as a cop is to let some damn fool kill himself out of grief? No his job is to save his damn fool life.
**** “His job as a cop is to let some damn fool kill himself out of grief? No his job is to save his damn fool life.” ****
YOU WERE THERE? YOU SAW THIS WITH YOUR OWN EYES?
Worrying about what I thought of your narrow ass after the fact would be on about page 60 of your worries if you Tazed me.
TT
And had you prevented me from attempting to save my son, no matter how long the odds, I would hunt you down afterwards. That is not your decision to make. And if I were on the jury if the father kills the idiot that tazed him, I would acquit the father on day one or hang the jury.
Tasers were not designed for compliance. They were designed as an alternative to deadly force alone. To say you would tase him is to say without the taser you would shoot him dead.
Well, that's not the state's job in individual cases like this. Protect the borders, track down criminals...but leave law abiding citizens alone. Let them try to help and protect their own kids. They are adults and perfectly capable of weighing the choices and making the decision. Either help them, or get out of the way.
The father was trying to save his son. Do you know what that means? This is not a case where he got there long after things had occurred and there was no hope. He got there at the same time as the responders. His duty and responsibility as a father for his infant son transcends what you feel is your duty if you were that state employee.
The father is an adult, and despite your feelings to the contrary, you are not his father, and he is not under your "charge."
His infant son is howerver under his "charge.". Both before man, and before God. The father in this case is his son's legal custodian.
You and the state want to assume and presume custodianship for all of us. Sorry, but it does not work that way... indeed it CANNOT work that way...in a free society.
The driving factor behind most of this on the state's part is simple...a fear of litigation. How shameful. Because that fear now supercedes, in the state's eyes, the life of those in true danger.
And you may say, "But I have a responbsibility to save that man's life" (and the fact that you call a man intent on saving his sons life a "fool" reveals all that need be said about your attitude if you are/were a state employee to your fellow citizens, who in fact are your employers).
Well, as I have indicatted, his responsibility this man had to his infant son, transcends your perceived responbsibility to him. Rather than tase the man, a number of people should have worked with him to do everything possible to save the child.
Period. Even at risk to themsleves.
He may have ultimately seen he could not do it...on the other hand, they may have been able to get to the child and save him. And finally, if he died or was injured in the attempt, well at least he did so of his own free will while trying to save his son, which is not only understandable, it is heroic and respresentative of the highest level of service someone can perform.
The act of tasing him to prevent that was far, far on the other end of the scale. Did not shwo any respect for his responsibilty or position as the father, trampled on his right to choose as an idividual, particularly when the life of his son was at stake, and IMHO, was in fact a cowardly act.
This reminds me of an incident outside of Waco, Texas in the mid 1980s. A man was traveling back from Houston to Denton, Texas with some computer equipment he had taken to a client in Houston to demonstrate. It was dusk and there was a flash in front of him a mile ot so ahead on the raod.
When he got there, he found a sedan that had been involved with a head-on collision with a pick-up truck. The sedan was burning in the engine compartment. As this man pulled up, he noiticed that a single car had stopped on the road in front of him and on the other side in the oncoming traffic with their occupants inside, watching. As he noticed this, another car pulled up on the other side.
This man got out, as did the male occupant of the other car that had just pulled up. They yelled to each other and went to the burning car. There was an older, negro man in the car, penned in by the steeing wheel, and barely conscience. They decided to try and extract him, even though the car was on fire.
As they did so, they got him from behind the wheel but found that his right leg and foot were entangled in some wreckage above and to the rear of the gas pedal. This man worked on getting that loose...but the fire was coming closer.
The other people had gotten out of their cars at this point, and were urging these two to come away from the burning car. But they continued.
The older black man's leg, as it turned out, was partially severed, being held on by a large part of his thigh, but the main bone was broken completely through. It was bleeding badly above, but was starting to be cauterized lower down. It began to burn the hands of the man helping.
At this point, the man got the foot and leg loose and he and the other man helping him, quickly pulled the black man away from the car. No more than five seconds after putting him down, there was a "whoosh" and the entire front of the car went up in flames.
The older gentleman was saved...but at great risk to the two who helped him.
Was that a mistake? Would you have tased those two men?
About two minutes later the first police car arrived, a county Sheriff's deputy. A minute or two after that, the first ambulance.
The officer congratulated the men on what they had done, and indicated that he only wished he had arrived earlier himself, TO HELP THEM GET THE MAN IN THE CAR OUT OF THE BURNING WRECKAGE AND TO SAFETY.
That, IMHO, is the necessary attitude.
I know this because I was the guy that worked on that black man's burnt leg, to get it free, so we could pull him out.
Five more seconds, and I suppose I would have died right there. But I did not think of that at the time...I thought about the chance to save a life.
If you had been there and tried to tase me, I would have done all in my power to cold-cock you, so I could go on about trying to save that man's life.