Posted on 05/08/2010 10:34:39 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A 36-year-old man attending the second round of The Players Championship was subdued by a Taser on Friday.
Travis Parmelee, of Jacksonville, was charged with disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest without violence, said St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Dave Messenger.
Messenger said course marshals notified officers that Parmelee was yelling at players and being belligerent near the 11th hole. Officers responded and attempted to calm Parmelee down, but they said he became more combative.
They tried to take Parmelee into custody, but he resisted and was Tasered once.
“He was at the point where it was time for law enforcement to step in,” Messenger said. “Our goal is to escort people off the property, but it was clear he wasn’t going to go with us.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Great point. It will surely happen. When it does, I can't wait to read the comments about "brown shirts".
Civilian law enforcement agencies are WAY too cavalier with their use of the Taser, IMHO.
Are they violent before or after they strike the officer? Where does violent start and who takes the first "punch?"
It should not be used to gain submission where the officer is in no danger but is being questioned by the target.
What if they can not get a person to coorperate with questioning or directions? How do you know there is no danger if you are an officer? Ask the beligerent drunk guy? If he says he super duper swears that he doesn't have a knife in his pocket do you let him keep his hands in his pockets?
You are making a ery sophomoric statement which belittles the reality of the environment and riskst that our police officers work in on a daily basis.
One thing officers used to be better at was talking to people causing a problem in order to gain cooperation.
One thing the general public used to be better at was respecting an officer of the law. That has gone downhill on a lot of fronts, but it is even more sad to see that what I assume is a law abiding person arm chair quarterbacking what the officers should have done...
Now they just reach for the taser when there is no clear physical danger.
Define clear physical danger. Wait for the bad guy to draw and take a shot? Assume that a beligerant person could be dangerous since he obviously was causing problems and would listen to instructions? Maybe call your wife and kids and say - I think I'll be home tonight 0 but I'm going to give this dumbass drunk the befit of the doubt. If he stabs me or something tell the kids I love them...
We have seen too many videos and read of too many incidents where the people are being tased because they are verbally questioning of the officer and the officer is not engaging their minds and acting wise and respectful.
Unfortunately the video's of cops getting punched, stabbed, shot, killed, etc., by someone just don't seem to make the news as much. Only their funeral does.
Officers should expect questions when they are arresting people.
Why? They are not the judge or jury. It is not their job to prove to a criminal that they are right - it's their job to arrest the criminal and turn let the prosecutor answer questions.
They should be tolerant of hearing out people and showing them that degree of respect.
Before or after they are allowed to check whether a suspect has a gun, knife, whatever?
You live in a dreamland.
And STOP shooting the pets, for God’s sake!
You might just be nuts. I see officers occasionally on the streets - never have I seen one with a AR pointing out the window picking off fluffy...
If someone’s acting like a drunken boor in public, they’ve screwed up their own life. They could have stayed sober and behaved decently. They chose not to.
You pose great questions for discussion among law enforcement and State/city elected officials and community members in a process of law enforcement examination and reform. Either law enforcement change what they are doing or the public is going to go at them radical led by the criminal-leftist element and get them killed in larger numbers than is currently the case. It is not acceptable as it is. They are harming and abusing innocent people. They are losing respect among populations who are usually unyeilding in their respect for the police. They changed with the terrorist Federal centralization of training. They are disconnected from their communities.
It shows you don’t read much if you have never heard of officers raiding houses and shooting pets from the git go. Sometimes it is the wrong house or a house that has no drugs or criminals. If I am crazy for knowing and stating this FACT, you are just damn stupid for not being aware. Do you find yourself angry at people who know uncomfortable facts of life that you want to ignore? Ignorance is bliss - until it is not. You got bliss? Reading a little would help cure what ails you.
Yes, you and I totally disagree on what constitutes a “threat” to the beknighted ones.
I agree with you. Tell the guy to calm down. When he doesn’t, tell him he is under arrest, and that if he does not cooperate, he will be tasered. If he doesn’t comply, it is HIS fault for gettting tasered, not the cops’. Compliance is fully within the choice of the arrestee. No one gets tasered when they comply.
I guess he’ll putter around the cell for a while.
I can see why your not a cop, you want someone to potentially loose their life for something as minor as taking down someone who is drunk and resisting arrest. But you wouldn’t risk your own.
You think the perp has more rights than the cop, but they have equal rights.
The most important right is the right to life, or have do you disagree?
Dang, the cops already have to download their tazers at the end of each shift. There are cameras on the tazers now.
They have to log ever time they pull the trigger.
And if they come up with a statistical pattern against the officer, where he is using his taser more often than the other officers, he can end up disciplined.
How much more do you want?
From now on the golf courses should “DRIVE” drunks from the premises.
The Taser might have it's useful purposes, but it's liberal use is troubling, IMHO.
Regarding the Taser's alleged usefulness, there are two questions we need to ask ourselves:
1. Is electroshock torture an acceptable practice?
2. Are electric cattle prods an acceptable tool of policing?
If the answer to either is no - and I believe any civilized person must conclude that it is - then I see nothing to differentiate the Taser as anything more than a higher-tech version of both, in which case it should carry a similar stigma.
Taser pain is between a bee sting and a wasp sting. Your imagination that this pain is like a cattle prod is just wrong. You should volunteer to get tased at least twice so you separate what you imagine vs reality.
And yet it functions through the pain compliance of a temporarily debilitating electrical shock. A hi-tech cattle prod is still a cattle prod.
I can see why your not a cop, you want someone to potentially loose their life for something as minor as taking down someone who is drunk and resisting arrest.
Since exactly when is a bumbling drunk at a golf event a "threat" to the cop's life?
Unless you count simply shooting his mouth off and acting like a drunken jackass, was he physically violent? No. Was he armed? No. Was he in a state of peak physical and mental awareness so as to easily inflict harm on others? No. Was he severely outnumbered by both the police and the common spectators in the crowd? Yes. Given that scenario, it is safe to say that there was a far greater risk of the drunk guy losing his life if something went wrong with the tasering than him inflicting any similar harm on somebody else.
Cops can lose their life over an uncapped needle in the guys pocket. That is reason enough not to want to roll around in the dirt with the guy.
You could also be struck by a falling meteor tomorrow while en route to the mailbox.
But none of these three events is even remotely near the level of statistical probability to justify fretting about them, much less carrying and using an electroshock torture device on another human being who is immeasurably more likely to NOT have that hypothetical needle in his pocket.
They also tend to use pepperspray much more liberally now, now that very potent nonflammible formulas have been developed.
Ah, think again. You are comparing stats for a regular american vs a cop. A cop on the street this is way to common.
You know your arguement sucks, give it up.
You are comparing stats for a regular american vs a cop. A cop on the street this is way to common.
Is it though? And do you have any stats to back that up? Or are you just claiming it because you think it works as an argument?
I honestly don't know of how to find statistics on the number of people who carry deadly needles in their pockets (although the simple absence of such statistics is itself suggestive that such persons are exceedingly infrequent). But I do know that other statistics (job site fatality and injury rates) conclusively attest that police work is nowhere near its common perception and reputation as a "dangerous" profession. Such mundane careers as loggers, fishermen, construction workers, ranchers, farmers, pilots, convenience store clerks, and even garbagemen all have a statistically higher chance of dying on the job than cops do - usually much higher. Some of that risk is crime related. Some of it isn't. But the stats are there for job fatalities.
Your claim about guys with needles in their pockets has no such substantiating statistic. It therefore may be classed among that overused category of assertions known as gratuitous.
It only takes a single needle prick to freak you out, happened to me and ever since I haven't looked at the same way.
Just call Tiger's wife to club him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.