Like Drugged Up Thugs
by digby
Out in Wyoming, the very heart of Real America, the locals don’t like seeing the cops use their tasers up close and personal against one of their own:
Glenrock residents packed their town hall Monday to voice outrage over the tasing of a 76-year-old man by police officers at a parade.
The man’s family called for the officers’ firing, and Police Chief Tom Sweet told the crowd “we probably didn’t do things the best way we could have.”
The Aug. 1 incident remains under investigation, but most of the people who addressed town leaders at a council meeting suggested the officers used excessive force when they tased Bud Grose at Glenrock’s annual Deer Creek Days event.
“They both, in my opinion, acted like doped up thugs,” Grose’s daughter-in-law, Pat Grose, said.
Glenrock Mayor Steve Cielinski and most of the town council apologized to residents and asked for patience, as agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation examine whether any crimes were committed during the encounter.
Cielinski promised the results of the investigation would be made public. “If we have to stand up and take it on the chin, we will,” he said.
The exact circumstances that led to the tasing have not been disclosed by authorities. Glenrock police told state agents Bud Grose failed to obey directions while he was operating an antique tractor at the parade.
Grose had not discussed the encounter publicly, but several people who witnessed the event told the crowd police repeatedly shocked him with a taser.
“Those two were the most out-of-control officers I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Scott McWilliams, a witness who said he was shoved by one of the officers. “These two guys got to go.”
Mike Pyatt, a former Glenrock police officer, called one of the officers a “hot head” and said the other had poor people skills. He called on town leaders to make changes at the department.
“We will hold you accountable,” he said.
Police officers are no long required to have “people skills,” because they have weapons which are deemed perfectly acceptable to use in any situation, at their sole discretion. Why should they need patience or basic psychology or even any kind of rudimentary analytical skills when they can, without threat of serious repercussion, shoot people with 50,000 volts, thus instantly crumpling them to the ground in horrible pain they will do anything to not repeat? It’s a very efficient way to solve any situation and reinforce the All American belief that you must obey police no matter what.
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