Posted on 11/21/2007 11:58:07 AM PST by Sopater
An internal police investigation is under way after a formal complaint was filed against a Utah state trooper who was videotaped Tasering a man who refused to sign a speeding ticket.
The officer's conduct has been called into question after a videotape of the incident was posted on YouTube.
The video, taken from a Utah Highway Patrol dashboard camera, shows Trooper John Gardner using a Taser on Jared Massey during a traffic stop on State Road 40 in Uintah County on Sept. 14.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Did you watch the same video that I did? Must not have.
He didn’t get the taser for speeding.
He didn’t get the taser for a ticket.
He didn’t get the taser for a “disagreement”.
He got the taser for not submitting to the lawful order of a cop to submit.
Once you admit that the guy was resisting arrest, the rest of the anecdotal bullshit falls apart.
To the extent that wasn't just movies and TV, I think "Stop in the name of the law" goes back several centuries to the notion of "hue and cry." By loudly calling out for the wanted man to stop in the name of the law, the un-uniformed, badgeless, officer was informing everyone that he was an officer of the law, and he was attempting to catch a suspected criminal. Every able bodied man had a duty to drop what he was doing, join in the "hue and cry" and help the officer pursue and catch the suspect.
Nowdays, with a uniformed and badged cop in a marked patrol vehicle, his stauts is clear, and anyone rushing up to "help" is liable to be arrested for interefring with the duties of a peace officer, if not just shot on the spot, so yelling "Stop in the name of the law" is passe.
That being said, I have to recycle the old joke about he difference between American cops and English cops.
American cops yell: Stop!, or I'll shoot!
English cops yell: Stop!, or I'll yell Stop! again.
Whenever someone sticks something in front of my face that I don’t really want to sign I just sign it “Henry Chinaski”
Nobody ever really looks at the signature.
According to some, the cop had no legal requirement to announce an arrest. The citizen was tazered for noncompliance with an order to submit, and legally had to comply, period.
Do you disagree that the law supports the cop in this case, and not the citizen?
Are we just playing games with words here? When exactly did the driver in this case become in the officer's "custody and control" and thus under arrest? Did the driver know that he was in the officer's "custody and control"? How?
It sucks to think that we must submit to a cop, even if we think we’re in the right.
There are times when I didn’t like it either ;)
But you can’t send cops out there and let suspects/detainees challenge the cop to a point where the cop is distracted or disadvantaged. Too many people here are claiming that the guy was “walking away” and “wasn’t being a problem”. Let them go out there and tell them to let a suspect move his hands about his person or vehicle compartment and see how long until they shrivel up and pass out.
These things are rightfully sorted out in both courts (criminal and civil). Rogue cops should be punished along with their agencies. This is the best way of keeping things level.
That would be asking the question of whether are not the cop gave a damn about killing you?
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The doofus was the guy in traffic, not the cop.
Had he submitted to a lawful order, he would have been in front of the police car and not the tazer.
The real threat was from a suspect who wouldn’t comply with the cop’s orders. That is the first signal of an impending threat. From there, the cop’s gonna take control of the situation before it takes control of him.
They are not toys, nor are they just a funny little handbuzzer trick.
marked to read later...
According to some, the target doesn't even have to be resisting arrest, but simply resisting an order to submit, in this case an order to place his hands behind his back.
The target wasn't resisting arrest, but an order to comply.
you totaly miss the point. law enforcement isnt about swinging your big ego around.
its about skillfully handling the public and keeping situations in the right key, not escalating. the best cops are really good at this. 99.999999% of what a cop does is with people skills, this guy has none.
this guy is a loser who cant handle being challenged, threat to his manhood. worst conceiveable guy to have dealing with the public while armed,
i dont know if the Utah regs will allow what he did. I do know he isnt the guy who should be a cop. thats for sure.
Revenue tickets do carry jail time if you don’t pay them or go to court- a warrant will be issued for your arrest and you will have to pay the original fine ++++ My step-son learned this the hard way after ignoring traffic tickets until he was arrested, jailed overnight and had to pay $1,800 to be released. His multiple outstanding tickets were all for the same broken tail light- that was still broken when he was arrested during a traffic stop- which was again for the broken tail light. The judge had no sense of humor with his attitude that traffic tickets were meaningless. You will not be jailed for most traffic offenses-if-you comply. You certainly will be jailed if you refuse to sign the ticket or comply with other requests- like a breath or other test for alcohol and you will be jailed eventually if you comply with the officer and then ignore the ticket/s.
Cop used excessive force. He wasn’t being attacked. Man wasn’t armed. Cops are trained(or should be) to subdue and cuff most suspects without using clubs,tasers, mace. Why am I reading more and more of these incidents as of recently? I respect the job that police officers have to do, but it seems we are seeing more and more incidents where they are overly paranoid or just plain mean?
I hope the driver was smart enough to respond with the appropriate "Yes, massa" and "No, massa".
You would just say he lied.
I wondered about that too. It almost seerms that the video had been edited, which of course is easy to do. For that matter its quite possible that whomever posted this video to youtube could have deleted key parts... we have no way to know since the timestamp in the video has (for some reason) been removed.
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