Disproportionate
by digby
Another killing. But this time, the court said the use of the taser was “disproportionate.” Apparently the man had done absolutely nothing wrong, presented no danger, had made no threats. The officers merely thought he might be mentally ill. And he screamed in agony when they shot him full of electricity five times in two minutes before he finally complied. (Of course, by “complying” I mean dying.) Therefore, they said they shouldn’t be held liable for killing him.
This is the logic that pervades the taser argument: The taser isn’t harmful so we shouldn’t be held responsible for killing people with them.
Actually this court decision is a step in the right direction. They at least held that there should be some probable cause before you kill someone with a taser. It isn’t much but it’s better than the idea that these deaths are “accidental” or caused by the police custody disease called “excited delirium.” At least they acknowledged that police can’t electrocute and kill citizens for no reason whatsoever.
Maybe someday we’ll even reach a point where courts will acknowledge that cops aren’t allowed to kill anyone for any reason but self-defense and that electro-torturing people into compliance is excessive force. It’s hard to believe it isn’t obvious that allowing police to commonly and reflexively use this level of pain, no matter how transient, is an authoritarian method worthy of the worst dystopian nightmare, but since huge numbers of people in this country seem to think the screams and terror they cause are really, really funny I guess you can’t really blame the cops for assuming it’s perfectly acceptable. The killings though, that might just be a step too far even for the jokesters. Maybe.
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