Tasers

Every time there is a story about Glens Falls police tasering someone, the Post-Star's website lights up with comments, some fair, some snide. I don't believe police should be given complete impunity. That said, I don't think the local police have a bad reputation and am generally willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they demonstrate otherwise. A lot of poststar.com visitors are too eager to attribute malice to local cops, to assume the police are guilty of misconduct before they know a mere fraction of the evidence. This reflexive police bashing does a disservice both to the police and to serious debate.

Though they are certainly better than the billy clubs of the past, I believe tasers should be used sparingly and as a last resort. And I haven't seen any compelling evidence that Glens Falls police are doing otherwise. I don't believe that police should refuse to use one if it puts themselves at risk of injury at the hands of some belligerent idiot.

For example, one of the more controversial stories was the tasering of a drunk teenager at a high school basketball game at the Civic Center. The mere fact that a teenager showed up drunk to a high school basketball game isn't a good sign. But his tasering provoked the outrage of the anti-police crowd.

I happened to be at that game, fairly close to the incident. The drunk teenager walked by me at one point before his arrest and slurred some expletive at me. He was bumping into other people left and right. He was shouting obscenities until security and eventually police were called. He was struggling with police trying to escort him out while being dragged up the very steep stairs of the Civic Center. I did not realize he had gotten tasered but should the police have risked getting themselves knocked down ten flights of steep stairs in order to make sure the obnoxious 17 year old who showed up drunk at a high school basketball game didn't have his poor little feelings hurt?

That said, certainly more research needs to be done into the effects of being tasered. Officials need to make sure that no more shock is administered than is absolutely necessary to briefly subdue an arrestee. This article from Alternet explains why. I think it's fair to assume that most people don't expect that a taser should kill or seriously injure a suspect.