A tazer is considered “less-lethal” force.
Only in a small fraction of cases does it turn out to be lethal.
1. The guy refused to sign the ticket, so the officer had every justification for taking him into custody.
2. The dumbass in the car was lawfully ordered to submit, but didn’t.
3. He began to walk away from the cop (who couldn’t see one of his hands for a period of time). Combined with the guy’s irrational behavior, the officer had justification to use force to apprehend him.
So, IMHO, the cop had a right to subdue him, and elected to use his tazer instead of his club, pepper spray, or gun.
It doesn’t look pretty, and I’m certainly no apologist for the misdeeds of public trustees/agents, but the dumbass in the car didn’t give him many options and he certainly got the softest of the physical choices. Remember he was lucid and finally trying to “reason” with the officer after he was tazed and cuffed. Couldn’t have been that bad.
Taser a cop and see how serious the act is.
I just watched the video. My view is:
1. the VERY VERY LOW IQ cop did not realize he never said the word ARREST to the guy before tasing him.
2. I doubt tasing a nonthreaten person by the side of the road where he might fall into a busy highway is going to enhance the VERY VERY LOW IQ cop’s career progress.
3. Personally, I think at a minimum the cop should be charged with felony witness tampering for the way he tried to alter the woman’s perception of the event. Even at his VERY VERY LOW IQ he certainly knew that taking a respectable looking person into custody on a traffic stop was very likely lead to a complaint or even charges being lodged against him. He chose to try to tamper with the one eyewitness to the event. And by this I just mean talking to her. He similarly ordered the unarmed citizen back into the SUV so any criminal actions on his part could not be observed.
A simple if you don’t sign this then I a required to arrest you probably would have defused avoided the entire situation. But alas police work attracts control freaks.
I would rather be Tasered than clubbed by a State Trooper, who are usually well over 6' 4" and 250 lbs.
Your points are exactly what I was thinking, especially number 3 (3. He began to walk away from the cop (who couldn’t see one of his hands for a period of time). Combined with the guy’s irrational behavior, the officer had justification to use force to apprehend him.)
Another thing to remember is that a cop is under no obligation to argue with you about a citation. That’s what courts are for. I really like when the guy started telling the cop to “read me my rights”, like that means anything. For anybody who doesn’t know, Miranda rights only come into play when questions asked by cop are submitted for evidence in court. This cop really had no reason to ask the guy any questions that would be considered self incriminating and therefore no reason to be obligated to read him the Miranda speech.
“He began to walk away from the cop (who couldn’t see one of his hands for a period of time). Combined with the guy’s irrational behavior, the officer had justification to use force to apprehend him.”
That is where you are wrong.
If you watch the video and especially the aftermath discussion, what was bothering the cop was the the motorist was “in charge”. It was the motorist telling the cop “you’re a little excited and need to calm down and such”
While the motorist should have not moved around, the cop was the irrational one, the motorist was verbally explaining things to the cop, not the other way around. This is the likely underlying cause of the tasing.