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 ...
No, they are not free to place someone under arrest. A law must have been broken (and not the one that has already been resolved with a ticket. You cannot ticket AND arrest for the same offense, one or the other) to warrant a NEW charge.
Signing a ticket is not an offense. Signature NOT required. This officer is a jerk and will be removed from the force. A cowboy with a badge.
So the officer is suppoosed to somehow magically know that this isn't an escaped felon, just waiting for a chance to pop a cap in his behind?
In todays world a LEO can't afford to take the chance.
Say what you will of the officers actions but, again IMO, he was justified with the actions that had already happened.
Whatever.
susie
Agreed. I sent my brother an email asking for his opinion. He is a 15 year veteran LEO. Here’s his response:
It was hard to understand what was being said in the SUV during the stop that may have led up to the tasing, but the officer should learn how to communicate better definitely. Good verbal judo can greatly lessen the need to use force and I did not hear any of that from the officer. I am assuming that the stop was in a state where not signing a citation is an arrestable offense (as it is in Fla.), but the officer never bothered to tell the driver that. He should have said, “Sir, you are more than welcome to go back and look at the speed limit sign, but right now I need you to sign this citation”. Then if the guy continues to give him grief, “Sir, I want you to understand that it is an arrestable offense in this state to refuse to sign a citation and if you do not sign it I am going to have to place you under arrest”. Not that an officer has to explain the law to every offender before they arrest them, but when you are elevating from a traffic citation to an arrest, and you’re on video (duh), you want to clearly look like you are completely justified before you have to use any force. He just ordered the guy out of the car and told him to put his hands behind his back and then tased him when he did not get immediate compliance. Again, “Sir, you are under arrest, if you don’t put your hands behind your back, I’m going to have to tase you”, would have worked a lot better. I wouldn’t want to be watching myself on video performing the way he did when I’m sitting at the defendant table after this guy sues me.
For the record, Asheville PD lost one of the best when my brother moved back down here to Florida a couple of years ago. He’s no longer in law enforcement, but he was a great cop.
Thanks for posting that. So far, I haven’t seen a single law enforcement officer who thought this was done correctly.
susie
Before he was told he was under arrest the cop had already decided to taze. He has a “little man syndrome” so he arrests and tortures a man who asks what he did wrong. Before he told him he was under arrest the cop pulled the tazer and tazed this man with his wife and child in an SUV going across the desert. What a jerk. If I was on a trial panel the cop would be sued for everything he has. The cops are getting out of control.
I'm sorry, did I miss something . Can you tell me where on the tape the officer told the driver that he was under arrest BEFORE the officer used the taser?
Every day now there is a story of the cops killing some with a taser or raiding the wrong house and killing their dog. Crazy.
What jurisdiction are you talking about? The standard protocol in the states with which I'm familiar is that the issuance of a citation is an arrest. At that point, you're given the option to sign a promise to appear in court, or to go into custody. The signature is your promise to appear, nothing more, nothing less. This guy chose option two.
Not in Santee, SC.
Don't assume that a group of jazz musicians who are arguing about how a given riff was played agree that the song should have been a rock opera. The comments I've seen from peace officers were discussing tactics, not whether the arrest was proper.
That is encouraging. We have had far too many compliant serfs acquiescing to the socialist/statist remaking of America.
The cop was out of control from the start. Arrogant, authoritarian body language tells the story, and the fact that the poor kid wasn't going to just meekly roll over and be had, challenged this little hitler's empire. The stop was obviously a typical Utah ripoff, and this cop was a duplicate of the one that interfered in the Rodney King arrest that started this video craze. Speed limits on major highways are nothing but an unjust tax. Engineering studies have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that speed limits make highways more dangerous. The only limit that is needed is the "basic speed limit," i.e. you can't drive faster than safety permits. But that won't give the socialists any tax revenue.
Sorry, but you’re wrong on this. The officer pulled the taser out DURING the first instance of saying “Turn around...put your hands behind your back”. He did NOT wait until the driver was non-compliant to that first command before pulling out his taser.
Are you saying in a town of 40,000 people tazed it is acceptible to kill 140 people. In my buisness, which is general and trauma surgery, committing an action which directly results in 140 deaths is not acceptible. This officer does not deserve to remain on the police force.
Still, I am not sure how I feel about this incident, so I will give the benefit to the cop -- even though I usually do it the other way around.
I do want to note that I think that the Taser has become the everyday equivalent of the politician's cruise missile. Just a chickenshit tool used liberally without fear of repercussion.
We're not quite there yet, but I expect that within the decade the national topic will be 'Police Reform'. We'll all look at one another in wonder about how just the previous decade politicians were patting themselves on the back for 'putting 200,000 more cops on the street'.
Just give it time for one really horrifying 'no-knock' SWAT raid to take place on the wrong address that the administrators in charge can't pretend to cry their way out of like they did in Waco, and the worm will finally turn.
Cops need all the friends they can get, and the relationship has to go both ways for it to work.
So you’re saying that an ER that treats 40,000 trauma patients won’t have at least 140 die? If so, somebody’s not triaging traumas properly. The analogy is accurate, by the way. It’s a proven fact that people die after being admitted to an ER, but saying that being admitted to an ER CAUSES people to die is the same as saying deaths following taser use are being caused by the taser. And, that logical falacy is exactly what’s being foisted on the public at the moment.
Again, following our comparison, it’d be far more relevant when making a decision about an ER to know how many of those deaths were caused by the errors of the medical staff. It’d also be far more relevant to know how many ‘taser related’ deaths are actually caused by the taser. Unfortunately, in the latter case, no attempt is being made to quantify cause of death, they’re just lumping all deaths together. Last I heard, the number of deaths in taser incidents that have been determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty to have been actually caused by the taser totalled two, which means tasers are probably less dangerous to life than improper use of tampons.
At some point...regular citizens are going to be all armed with Tasers...and I think the cops are going to realize how they influenced us to this point. I don’t see this as a positive...for example...if a wife gets upset with a drunk husband...Taser the dude. If a teacher gets upset with a hostile student...Taser the dude. We will invite all kinds of health investigations...because I doubt its a good thing to blasted...and five or six of these events in your life...might take a year off your expectations.
I finally got my audio to work. I didn’t realize the officer told him to get out of the car. I was figuring his fast response was because the guy came up unexpectedly behind him. I really didn’t like his report to the other officer either.
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