Yea sadly the kid was an aggressor here
But the cops should be using tazers or something non-lethal to deal with this kinda altercation
Why not use tranquilizers? Field biologists use them to check up on wild animals, why can’t they use them on “criminals”?
Wasn’t there a case some year back where a police officer was attacked and they mistakenly grabbed their gun instead of their tazer due to panic? The details are murky.
Tazers fail. A lot. You have one shot and if one of the two barbs don’t both go in for a good connection it doesn’t work. It’s not something anyone would want to count on in a situation where you or someone else is being attacked.
If you have multiple cops at the scene though, you can easily have one go through the tool kit using tazer, pepper spray, etc, while the other one covers them with a gun.
But that takes like actual thinking and training.
while the other one covers them with a gun.
Yes, exactly. They work through every less-lethal option they have, with an officer ready to escalate to lethal if the subject ever puts someone at imminent risk of death or grievous bodily harm.
If, for example, an atttacker is ever close enough and aggressive enough to attempt to stick a shovel in someone’s head and neck, a covering officer can immediately stop the attack with lethal force.
So, officers could start with a less-lethal option, like a baton, or tazer, or bare hands, and only escalate to lethal force if the situation actually calls for it.
That’s not as simple as it sounds. Even if they somehow knew exactly what has happening and had pre-arranged a plan of action, by the time they knew the taser has failed, the partner is as likely to shoot the other officer as the assailant.
Tasers simply aren’t effective in these situations.
To safely employ a tazer in this situation, the cop would have needed body armor completely covering his head, neck, torso, arms, groin, and legs. Wearing anything less than full riot gear, that attack posed an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. Striking the officer’s head or neck with a bladed weapon could destroy an eye, sever the carotid artery, or cause a wide variety of maiming or permanently disfiguring injuries.
Employment of a pain compliance method is only feasible once that threat has been stopped, delayed, or mitigated.
Neither of the officers present appeared to have had any opportunity to use a tazer or less-lethal device to stop the attack.
You sound like all the cowardly cops. If you can’t handle a non lethal situation like this with your tazer: find another job.
I see. And what training, instruction, or other expertise do you have to support your assertion that this was a “non lethal situation”?
I believe that I could cause a permanently disfiguring, debilitating, or lethal injury with any of the long-handled tools in my shed. I believe if a racist teenager swung one of these tools at a black man, you, too, would consider it to have been a use of lethal force.
I think a reasonable person facing a 15-year-old attempting to strike them with any of my gardening equipment would reasonably fear a threat of death or grievous bodily harm.
I reject your characterization of this as a “non lethal situation”.
He was 15. You’re saying that two trained and experienced police officers couldn’t deal with a 15 year old boy. Don’t make me laugh. “Bladed weapon”? Was the kid a samurai?
They deal with hardened criminals and meth labs in San Bernardino. But a confused 15 year old was their arch nemesis? No one is going to believe that and they better not try to convince a jury with that story. Like the acorn guy, these cops are going to be laughed off the force.