Flex Your Rights: How To Not Get Tasered
My favorite 4th amendment activist group has a post on their blog about the recent taser incident which occurred here in Utah. Give it a read. Everyone should know the correct way to deal with police encounters.
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That guy was such a renob. I wanted to taser him after watching about 30 seconds of an interview.
Comment by Char — November 28, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
Okay, I just watched the video for the first time. I’ve heard a lot about it, and I had formed opinions about the incident based on what I’d heard. Now that I’ve seen the video, I’ve changed my mind.
I support the officer. The citizen was wrong all over the place here. The officer was placing him under arrest and he started walking away with a hand in his pocket. You don’t get to walk away from an officer who is placing you under arrest.
Officers have a hard and dangerous job. They ought to be scrutinized, but they deserve the benefit of the doubt. An officer shows up, alone, to a scene filled with unknowns. Who are the people in the car? Are they armed? Are they violent? An officer has a hard time knowing that he is safe, so he has every right to do what it takes to protect himself from harms perceived or real.
From what I understand, an officer does have the right to arrest you if you refuse to sign a ticket. (They can also choose to write “refused to sign” on the ticket and then give it to you.) When the citizen was belligerent, the officer chose to arrest him.
The citizen continued throughout the video to assert his dominance over the police officer. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. He demanded that his rights be read to him. This shows two things: one, he already knew his rights and two, he watches too much TV.
The officer’s first words were, “How ya doing? You were going kind of fast. May I see your license and registration?” The citizen responded, “No.” He immediately showed a lack of cooperation and respect. By law, you don’t have to give an officer respect, but you do have to obey his orders. The officer told him he was being charged with speeding. There was no mystery here.
Comment by Bradley Ross — November 28, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
I agree with both of you.
Bradley,
You’re right about what police have to deal with day in and day out.
Char,
You’re right…a total renob.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — November 28, 2007 @ 10:01 pm
True Police officers have a hard job to do well I guess it all depends what are your experties and what field, however what I disagree with is te fact that now nad days they will taser you just for the simple fact. My husband just got back from being deployed overseas and I still was on in Iraq on my third year. he was going to his next duty station when he met his friend and they decided to go out. He was at the bar when cops came in. as he was walking out he was going to use the bathroom first. Cop told him he could’t. Now this is a brand new cop that was having a bad day (per his statement). My Husband insisted that h goes to bathroom, cop said go and take a piss outside of the bar. my husband refused to do it because it was not proper to piss in public and he knew he could get arreste for that too, plus 10 years in the military didn’t teach him to behave that way. He once again told the cop that he needs to use bathroom for a min. cop then threw him on the ground and tazered him. That cop is yet to deal with us, because of him tazering my husband his career in the military was quite dificult.
I do appreciate what police officers do, but I truly love our military guys….
Comment by Iraq — July 11, 2008 @ 8:47 am