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If you’ve ever tried cuffing someone resisting arrest, you’d know how naive your statement sounds. It’s like saying, “why don’t they shoot to wound him,” or “why didn’t the officer kick the gun out of his hand like they do on television.” I’m sorry the guy died, but a little understanding of police tactics and the real world sometimes puts things in perspective.

The offhand, almost cavalier mention of an officer lying in a hospital with a brain injury is evidence that cops and their work are valued little more than that of houseflies.

My reaction is to be expected since I have a personal connection to the guy. We’ll find out more about what happened as the days go by. But I do know that this man was not a criminal.

It's a real eye-opener to enter this thread and read the naive comments concerning officer tactics when dealing with a citizen who cannot get himself under control, and physically resists their attempts to do it for him.

I generally think of people on the left being anti-police, but no, now it's folks who consider themselves to be on the right, that are against them too.

Just one question before I continue, are Conservatives Law and Order people?

Evidently, there's a segment of people here who disagree with my answer to that question. I am a law and order person. I believe we should abide by the laws of our community and nation. I do not think we should give police officers a hard time. I believe it's better to submit to arrest rather than harm a person who has taken on a tough job and is trying to execute that job in accordance with his/her mandate.

If a person is causing a public distrubance, the officers will try to talk them down. If the person will not calm down and appears to be a potential threat to the public, the officers MUST remove him from the public setting. If they walk away and something takes place like a murder, a wounding, a robbery or some other felony, the officers would have subjected their department to a serious litigous situation. If it was one of our spouses, children or relatives that was this guy's victim, we would be furious with the officers who gave them a pass.

These officer stepped in at the request of the establishment owner/employees. The person was causing a disturbance. The officers were able to get him to go outside, but out there he dug in his heels and refused to calm down or comply with their directives. At some point the officers found it necessary to take this person into custody. They tried to do so peacefully, and he resisted. One officer suffered a head injury. It was deemed necessary to use non-lethal force to restrain this person. The officers used their taser.

Tasers have become a part of the accepted policy procedures for many police departments across the nation. As part of that decision and implementation, thousands of police officers have volunteered to be tased, so they can understand what the assailant feels like, when the device is used on them. To make the audacious claim that the taser is a lethal device, is to state that thousands of police officers submitted themselves to a lethal tasing. The logic that could cause someone to come to that conclusion is absurd.

Officers don't use tasers or lethal force without following guidelines set up in departmental policies. Those that do are committing a crime themselves. For that reason they must be able to justify what they did. When confronting a perp, you go through a number of steps that eventually may lead to using non lethal or lethal force. In this instance, non lethal force was deemed reasoned, and the perp was tased. The officers had no reason to believe this tasing would wind up any different than the tasing of officers each had seen try it on themselves.

With six officers on scene, if that had been the case, would officers necessarily have to submit themselves to a physical wrestling match which could see one or more of them injured seriously? No. The officers could have still opted to use non lethal force.

People who haven't had to be involved in taking someone into custody, don't seem to realize that even with six guys taking a suspect down, officers can suffer injuries to legs, arms, hands, fingers, eyes, as well as skin breaking abrasions that could result in exposure to blood born transmissions of infection. This not only makes the individual officer exposed to injury, but can expose smaller departments to situations where varying numbers of staff members can be out on disability, causing the department and community to be undeserved.

What happens if an eye injury is serious? What happens if an officer's gun is taken? What happens if a joint suffers a serious injury, preventing the officer from returning to work, ever? What if a finger or arm is broken and the officer has to take off months to recover? How does that benefit the community?

I see it mentioned that the officers should have called in backup. And evidently it's not supposed to matter if there is a domestic abuse, a burglary, a robbery, or some other situation that could mean members of the community would be exposed to a life threatening situation, without officers being able to respond. All this, because some dingo wanted to give officers grief for daring to challenge him when he was causing a public disturbance. Well, sometimes it's not possible or preferable to call in other people.

There is one person who was at fault here. The idiot who couldn't conduct himself in a reasonable manner, and had to be confronted the way he was, caused this whole situation.

Anyone trying to find an excuse to let him off the hook, is sadly misguided.

If more information comes to light, I'm open to changing my mind. Until such a time, these officers have my full support for doing the thankless job they were hired to do.