A police officer assigned to a Penn Hills, Pennsylvania high school tasered a student who allegeldy refused to end his conversation on a cell phone and then pushed away the officer’s arm.
Students are allowed to use cell phones but only for emergencies during school hours. It is not clear if the officer then allowed the student to his cell phone for an emergency call after being tasered.
Chief Howard Burton sees the use of a taser as perfectly appropriate in such a situation: “The kid refused to listen. The officer took him by the arm and said, ‘You have to go to the office.’ The student resisted, pushed the officer. The officer, defending himself, took out his stun gun and did a drive stun.” Burton’s reaction to the tasering reflects the increasingly reflective use of the weapon in a wide variety of circumstances where force might have been avoided. It seems to fall into the old military adage that, when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Where an officer might have grabbed hold of the student or issued another warning in prior years, the availability of the taser allows for this type of escalation of force. While we should know more facts about the level of resistance (and whether it was simply a case of the student pulling or swatting back the officer’s hand) the use of the device in the school over such a minor matter is troubling. It is also curious to see an officer policing the halls for such school violations as use of a cellphone as opposed to focusing on security issues.
We have seen a regular array of such taser cases in questionable circumstances recently, here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.
In fairness to the officers, another officer found a loaded gun in the bag of another student that day (though the authorities indicated that the eleven-year-old girl might not have known that it was in the bag).
Burton says that the student continued to resist on the floor and had to be handcuffed. The student complained of dizziness following the tasering and was sent to a hospital.
I see a couple of commenters here who would have been perfectly happy with the Third Reich.
What I’d really like to see is some of these taser-happy goons compelled to work in a mental institution — and learn the limits of handling violent patients. Without a taser to ‘defend’ themselves.
If the fathers of the Constitution were reading some of these blogs, I’m sure they would shake their heads sadly and say, “We wasted our time.”
Sorry, you can’t strike a police officer. You just can’t do it, never ever. If the officer gives you an order you need to obey it, if you believe the officer is acting outside their authority, you take them to court. That’s how you deal with that. Nothing good EVER came from battery on an officer. You will NOT get away with it, and people will laugh at you for being stupid enough to do it in the first place. If you are walking along the street and an officer approaches you and places you under arrest, you can’t fight them off screaming “What did I do????” The bad guys do that very same thing. Sreaming “You have the wrong guy, I didn’t do anything, fuck you, get off me, I have rights” never saved anyone a trip to jail. If you truly are innocent, the place to determine that is court. You could be walking down the street minding your own business, doing nothing wrong, and get arrested in a case of mistaken identity. Maybe you fit the description, who knows. No matter what, if you are being detained/arrested, and you decide to resist and/or assult the officer, you are now a criminal. Resisting is still resisting even if you are innocent of the original crime. Don’t do it. You can’t win on the street, you have to win in court!
“I think this is one rare instance where a student actually learned something in a public school and a good life lesson at that. Do what a police officer tells you to do.”
J.Gloss,
Well a Zieg Heil to you. Police Officers work for the public, not the other way around although some like you don’t understand that.
AY:
“Side note, Patty without the C. Please do not comment on my post and just leave it alone.”
AY, your repeated sniping and attempts at provocation all over this blog with non-sequitors like the above are childish. Why don’t YOU just leave it alone? Srsly. What was fun about this site is that it had so many adults with good manners. That’s starting to evaporate lately. It’s not bad enough that no posting under the Patty C handle can be trusted by me as hers anymore (and it’s not like I looked forward to her sniping) but now this kind of remark from you is becoming a regular thing. Growthehellup.
Appearances are the tased guy is a pretty rough customer.
However, what the judge is allowing seems vastly overreaching by sanctioning the use of a “Taser to a suspect who refused to provide evidence against himself”.
Perhaps the legal gang here will read the information at the link and provide us with an assessment.
Tazers in the hands of irresponsible police officers make me pissy too, so when I read this story today it put me in a really ugly mood:
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/04/judge-tasering-a-suspect-for-dna-legal-if-not-malicious/
I put the URL on a daily opened edit page on which I squirrel away ‘relevant’ links, knowing that it would be no longer than 48 hours before Professor Turley would have something on tazers posted and this link may be useful. That expectation, and its immediate relevance, says something about how out of hand the use of tazers as compliance tools have become. Bah, humbug. Fascist B*******.
This stuff is putting me in a really pissy mood.
do the cops need policing of their own? grandmothers behind the wheel? kids in school?
clearly the sentiment on the old bumper sticker “Question Authority” is getting a workout and it isn’t going so well for the questioners.
Anton – Being that you are not a law enforcement officer you would have no legal authority to grab the young lady’s arm in the first place and you would actually be commiting an assult which would give the young lady the legal right to defend herself by pulling out a taser and jolting your ignorant ass.
I wonder – if I were to grab a woman’s arm in a bar, say, and she shoved me off, would I get away with tasering her in “self-defense”?
I think this is one rare instance where a student actually learned something in a public school and a good life lesson at that. Do what a police officer tells you to do.
Two lines of thought here.
If you do not immediately comply with the instructions of arbitrary authority figures you deserve what you get.
If you have a society that encourages the immediate compliance with the instructions of arbitrary authority figures you deserve what you get.
Mike brings up a good point that this is an issue of using the wrong tool for the job. Technological problem? Technological solution.
Cell phones can be jammed and can be made functional again at the flick of a switch. It would probably cost less to implement on the scale of a high school building than paying for cops. There are probably FCC hurdles to jump over, but it would work.
Police Officers in schools does not compute in the first place.
A simplistic, stupid solution to a complex problem.
Yet another officer disgraces himself and his profession.
It’s no wonder departments hire unqualified bullies–no qualified individual would want to be branded with the reputation idiots like this are giving LEOs everywhere.
Rather than the increased use of tasering being caused by an exceedingly aggressive police force, testimonials by the officers in many of these cases suggests that it stems from policies whereby officers are not allowed to have much, if any, physical contact with students. The policy is often put in place in response to, or to prevent, lawsuits. Although it does make more sense to let officers restrain students physically, the legally cleaner option is to use a taser. Principals and school boards don’t want to take on the risk of either a lawsuit or an incident involving an officer touching a student.
Another example of a cop overreacting to a minor offense. Do police departments hire only bullies nowadays? I wonder if the officer hadn’t had a taser, but only a gun, if he would have shot the student over the use of his cell phone.
Every day I’m happier I don’t have any school-age children.
In all fairness, the phone might have been a bomb and the officer probably merely anticipated a hooribly scary attack by persons with unpronouncable names.
Mine eyess have seen the glory of the b….g of the school.
Side note, Patty without the C. Please do not comment on my post and just leave it alone.
Even though the Chief said the use of the taser was appropriate, shouldn’t there be a distinction between illegal behavior and behavior not condoned by the school (such as cell phone use)? Although the student “pushed” the officer, what right did the officer have to take the student by the arm over a school rule?