Taser blast from the past

Taser blast from the past

by digby

Remember this one?

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Citizen Training

by digby

Be advised that walking your dog off leash could get youelectrocuted by the authorities.

A Montara man walking two lapdogs off leash was hit with an electric-shock gun by a National Park Service ranger after allegedly giving a false name and trying to walk away, authorities said Monday.
The park ranger encountered Gary Hesterberg with his two small dogs Sunday afternoon at Rancho Corral de Tierra, which was recently incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, said Howard Levitt, a spokesman for the park service.
Hesterberg, who said he didn’t have identification with him, allegedly gave the ranger a false name, Levitt said.

The ranger, who wasn’t identified, asked Hesterberg to remain at the scene, Levitt said. He tried several times to leave, and finally the ranger “pursued him a little bit and she did deploy her” electric-shock weapon, Levitt said. “That did stop him.”

San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies and paramedics then arrived and Hesterberg gave his real name, the park spokesman said.

Hesterberg, whose age was not available, was arrested on suspicion of failing to obey a lawful order, having dogs off-leash and knowingly providing false information, Levitt said.

Witnesses said the use of a stun gun and the arrest seemed excessive for someone walking two small dogs off leash.

“It was really scary,” said Michelle Babcock, who said she had seen the incident as she and her husband were walking their two border collies. “I just felt so bad for him.”

Babcock said Hesterberg had repeatedly asked the ranger why he was being detained. She didn’t answer him, Babcock said.

To be clear: what this means is that if a park ranger stops you for walking your dogs off leash, you are not to ask any questions or fail to carry the proper ID or you risk being shot through with 50,000 volts. This is now the way things work. Apparently, before the taser, this park ranger would have had to shoot this person in the back with her service revolver.

Tasers have turned cops into thugs who use the weapon to demand not just compliance but respect. Someone who is walking his dogs off leash is simply not doing something that would draw this kind of response for any other reason.

Get this:

Rancho Corral de Tierra has long been an off-leash walking spot for local dog owners. In December, the area became part of the national park system, which requires that all dogs be on a leash, Levitt said.

The ranger was trying to educate residents of the rule, Levitt said

Zapping citizens with a taser is certainly one way to train them. In a science fiction dystopia.

Sadly, that’s exactly what tasers are doing: they are training citizens to immediately comply with government authorities on command.

Guess what?

Federal magistrate judge awarded $50,000 to California man after a park ranger used a Taser on him during a confrontation over an unleashed dog…

Cavallaro did not give a verbal warning she would use the Taser, court documents show, but she did order him to stop.

Hesterberg fell face-first onto the asphalt trail, and he told the court he feared he might die.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said John Bartlett, one of three witnesses to the incident. “I’m 77 years old, never had such an emotional reaction to something. I didn’t know if the guy was dying — for a leash on a dog.”

The ranger cited him for failure to obey a lawful order, providing false information, and walking a dog off-leash, but San Mateo County prosecutors failed to pursue any of the charges.

Hesterberg then filed a federal lawsuit alleging battery and negligence, and Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley eventually ruled against the ranger.

“Tasers can kill,” said Michael Haddad, one of Hesterberg’s attorneys. “They should never be used against a non-threatening person as the ranger did here.”

The magistrate judge considered the severity of the alleged crimes Hesterberg had attempted to flee and whether he was actively or passively resisting the ranger.

The judge dismissed testimony from the National Park Service’s deputy chief of law enforcement, saying he “revealed a startling lack of awareness of the law and its application to use of force scenarios.”

The NPS official, Hunter Bailey, admitted he was unaware of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings on the legal standard for Taser use, the station reported.

Cavallaro remains on the job as a park ranger after the Department of the Interior found she “acted within agency policy and her training.”

This happens every day for very similar reasons. (And conversely, they often won’t use them for the purpose they were designed — as an alternative to those times you would have to use lethal force.)

At this point, I think we should probably get rid of them. But if the courts will come to see these taser confrontations for the abuse of power and use of torture to force compliance (and “respect”) then maybe the police could be retrained not to use them in anything but cases where lethal force would otherwise be required. Shooting someone full of electricity as a convenient way to teach someone to “respect” the police is authoritarianism in its purest form.

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