By now it's no secret to you or anyone else, that some kind of taser-restricting regulation needs to be implanted to abate the trend we've seen in the death of innocents by taser-happy police officers.
Electronic Village blogged about this at the beginning of the year, raising necessary awareness to the uncomfortable reality we are faced with, especially in the communities where People of Color are concerned.
Even Tank met his fate with the taser when he asked an officer why he could not proceed in a certain direction recently, according to Soulbounce.
Justice, Just-us or... Powerplay without racial motivation?
Realistically... Tasers are not being used with justice in mind, if the rise in taser-related deaths is any indication. Taser-related deaths have risen to an uncomfortable level with handicapped, epileptic, and other individuals who were truly posing no threat to an officer when they were killed by the unnecessary application of a lethal electrical current.
So the question now becomes: What are we going to do about it?
Will petitioning be enough? Should we march on this, or demand our local officials take action in each of our areas?
Tasers are useless if they will only be used to stand in the place of guns and cause death nonetheless. It is too easy to say 'Oops... The Officer didn't mean it...'
Brainstorming is in order.
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Update:
Villager has alerted us to the existence of the Tasered While Black blog and suggests we brief ourselves in the use of Force Continuum (see the second link in the above paragraphs for a description provided on his site).
Samsara has provided links to TaserWatch on Newsvine here, and a petition we can sign.
Thankyou both for your contribution.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Solving The Tasering Problem
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photo: 
Believe (Black Faerie) Dazjae(C)06
4 comments:
I've written several articles and have taken up the cause of anti-tasers.
Taser use needs reform and
Ban Tasers Petition
I also co-mod TaserWatch which is a repository of taser-related articles on Newsvine. You and your readers may be interested.
I find most of the problems with the current taser-use is citizen apathy versus citizen ignorance.
It's hard to know which because we can combat ignorance but only to the extent the person *wants* to know the truth. And with apathy being the reason, well...In my experience and education it's a result of this feeling of separatness from the rest of society. [ie, I would never find myself in those ciscumstances in which to get tasered so I don't care.]
The truth is - and this is the scary and horrifying part - is that it's moving through all walks of life. All colors, classes, and situations.
Getting tasered is no longer reserved for the person who is 180* different than us. It is us.
Hotep! This issue is being followed closely by Tasered While Black blog. Personally, I suggest that your blog readers take a moment to research where use of tasers falls on your police force use of force continuum. I'm convinced that many po-lice are using the taser sooner than necessary according to their own use of force continuum policy...
peace, Villager
Yeah something has to be done. When I read that Tank of all people got caught up, I knew things were getting out of control.
Thankyou for visiting Villager and Samsara and for the links. I will check them out and update the entry.
@S.Flemming Thanks for visiting. Something needs to be done indeed.
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