As many of you who’ve followed me for a while know, I spent years documenting taser abuse on this blog back when the practice was first being introduced all over the country. I consider it torture to force compliance rather than a substitute for lethal force. Not to mention that it is often lethal itself.
So this horror doesn’t surprise me. But in the context of the current events, it has so much more power:
The cops are being arrested for this, as they should be. Those two kids were brutalized for no good reason.
Arrest warrants have been issued for six Atlanta police officers, after video footage from Saturday night showed officers stopping two college students in a car while enforcing a curfew, firing Tasers at them and dragging them out of their vehicle.
The six officers are accused of a series of crimes, including aggravated assault, illegally pointing a Taser and criminal damage to property. Video of the encounter sparked widespread outrage, and two of the officers have been fired. The Atlanta Police Department did not immediately respond to a question about the status of the other four officers.
“The conduct involved in this incident is not indicative of the way that we treat people in the City of Atlanta,” Paul L. Howard, Jr., the district attorney, said in a news conference on Tuesday announcing the arrest warrants.
The college students, Taniyah Pilgrim, 20, and Messiah Young, 22, appeared at the news conference alongside Mr. Howard.
“I hope every police officer who thinks it’s O.K. to drag someone, beat someone, do all this stuff because they are cops — I hope they are all going to be held accountable as well,” Ms. Pilgrim said.
Tasering and casual brutality are condoned and accepted behaviors all over the country. This moment shows just how unreasonable it often is.
Maybe we will see some real change out of all this.