In yet another taser abuse video, a Utah officer is shown telling a man to turn around and then tasering him in the back after the driver refused to sign a ticket — while the man’s pregnant wife screams from inside the car.
The video shows Trooper John Gardner firing on Jared Massey during a traffic stop on on Sept. 14th.
The roughly 10-minute video shows Gardnerpulling Massey over for speeding. When Massey refuses to sign the ticket, Gardner gets upset when Massey refuses to sign the ticket while arguing its basis. Gardner tells him to turn around and fires into his back. Massey can be heard saying “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” and “read me my rights.” His screaming pregnant wife is ordered by Gardner back into the car and when another officer appears, Gardner says “he took a ride with the Taser.”
Once again, the video shows how easy this device is abused by officers. Absent the video, Massey would have no claim against the officer’s word. Now he says a good torts case and Gardner will likely face termination.
For the video, click here
I am 52 Years old and have tremendous respect for the law and the people who protect us. However, this officer did not use any tact at all. He was on a power trip from the start of the stop. Although you never know if this family of three with one on the way is a threat it seems obvious to me they were not a threat. The officer escalated the situation from it’s conception. Conversley when a police officer tells you to stop, STOP. I have been pulled over for speeding a few times and never was treated disrespectfully. The officer was wrong! He never told him he was under arrest or was being cuffed for the officers safety. He did not read hom his rights or warn him he would tase him, if he has to I don’t know. The Officer was wrong!!!! It was scary to watch a young family go through that. I love the police and totally respect 99% of them… Not this “COP”
You missed the most significant line: When the cop is telling the other cop what he did, he says something like the driver was “acting like he’s in charge.”
It seems that in almost all of these incidents, at least ones of which we have evidence such as videos, there has been a defining moment when the person who becomes the victim of the taser refuses to passively submit to the control of the cop.
I have said I don’t know how many times that – exactly as I predicted when I first learned of them – that the most frequent use of tasers would be and has been in defense not of a cop’s safety but of their ego. That they are used mostly not for protection but for dominance, not in lieu of lethal force (which was their supposed reason for existence) but in lieu, often enough, of any force or even of no force.
They should be banned.