News Nov 27, 2008 at 4:00 am

Are Portland's Cops Changing Their Tune on Tasers?

Comments

1
"If you have a uniformed police officer pointing a weapon at you, that is not the time to explain something," says head of the Portland Police Association, Scott Westerman. "The officer has clearly drawn their own conclusions based on what they've perceived, and they're very likely to be different from what the suspect has perceived in that situation."

Truth told in a nutshell right here!

The rotten police here in this city are wild animals & are NOT to be reasoned with! YOU, mister citizen, are the criminal, NO MATTER WHAT! GUILTY, GODDAMMIT! YOU will not attempt to explain a goddamn thing to the police! YOU will not attempt to engage the police in ANY way! YOU have two seconds to comply or your ass WILL be blown away! Do not attempt to flee or you will be BEATEN TO DEATH! If you raise your arms YOU, citizen, are being "aggresive"! If you raise your voice YOU are being beligerant! Your actions are percived as THREATENING & HOSTILE! Failure to comply will be met with DEADLY (or slightly less-than-deadly) force!
SEIGE HEIL!!!
2
if you'd quit doing stupid shit that would make a police officer with a taser feel threatened then perhaps you wouldn't have a weapon in your face in the first place.
what is with this fucking pathetic bitching and moaning about the police, as if they are out to find YOU and YOU only? would you rather a police officer give a large benefit of the doubt to people he/she may find threatening? how would a story about a dead police officer or standbyer make you feel?

seriously. in order to enjoy the protections and security of public safety you need to understand they are working for you, the citizen, and they do not deserve your pessimism nor disrespect. yes, if you run from police who want you to stay that is breaking the law. yes, if you raise your arms in an encounter with police in a way they may see as threatening, you may be dealt with accordingly.

and if by "SEIGE HEIL!!!" you're thinking we live in fucking nazi germany, maybe you should hit some goddamn history books. or at least turn on a&e.
3
Typical, predictable, un-thinking, un-intelligent retort. Right on schedule.

"if you'd quit doing stupid shit that would make a police officer with a taser feel threatened then perhaps you wouldn't have a weapon in your face in the first place."


I hope that by this asinine statement you weren't refeing to ME, personally. Because i actually happen to be quite the law-abiding, tax-paying, working, struggling citizen. I WISH the police would actually do their job, but they goddamn don't. The public [over-all] don't "enjoy" any actual protections nor security because the police are often in culusion with real criminals.

Case in point, back in June there was a guy riding his bike down SE Morrison when he was suddenly jumped, beaten, & eletrocuted by a damn cop. What was the "stupid shit" this bicyclist had done? He didn't have a light on his bike. WHY didn't he have a light on his bike? It was stolen by a thief.


Btw, if you think the A&E channel is a good source for history, you should put down your meth pipe immediately.
4
Mr. Brooks. If you truly are the law abiding citizizen you say you are then you must have just decided to do so. People don't just happen to find themselves at the end of a police taser for no good reason, not once, but TWICE! That's two seperate occasions you have been wrongfully tased? Come on. You clearly have an anger problem and you like to vandalize things. A window or two on Belmont and, was it a statue you vandalized during a protest? You seriously need to get some help for your anger and you need to learn how to behave yourself.
5
>>> Phoney Cop

I haven't "vandalized" anything, you're not fooling anyone with your lies.

The statue you're refering to wasn't vandalized anymore than decorating a sidewalk with wash-away-chalk is. Which is why that charge was DROPPED altogether... unless the prosecuter was wrong too.

And i haven't vandalied any window, either. Now you're just making dumb shit up out of thin air.

I don't have an anger issue; i'm very laid back. I just have an issue with being jumped by violent, random thugs on my way to work, then being brutalized by violent, racist cops right afterwards.
6
With a Taser, you don't have to listen to anyone ever again.

imagine if everyone had them.
7
There you go with throwing the race card out there again, using it as a smoke screen. Is that all you truly have going for you? You can't take responsibility so you blame the color of your skin. You are such a victim. And you don't have an anger issue? That's certainly not apparent from reading any of your numerous rants. The point here is not whether the charges were dropped or what and how you vandalized someone else's property. The officers clearly had probably cause to arrest you. The DA's office can drop charges all day long, that doesn't mean there was no probable cause. This is about how you have behaved in a manner that attracted the attention of police or people who called the police. Then your behavior caused you to be tased on two separate occasions. Had you acted like a reasonable person it wouldn't have happened. But I don't think you have a reasonable bone in your body. I'm sure you'll have some sort of an angry response to this, too. You'll skate around the fact that you, unlike the vast majority of even the worst criminals, have actually acted in a manner causing you to be tased TWICE. Keep drawing attention to yourself. Keep being unreasonable. Keep blaming it on the "racist" white cops (you racist). Keep making excuses.
8
Tell you what, Cop, I'll walk up and point a gun at your head, and we'll see how reasonably you react.
9
"cop" is obviously a cowardly & hypocritical douch-nozzle who's far more interested in trolling than ingaging in adult debates. Who knows what his/her(?) damage is. But ofcouse, ANYONE can be brave on the internet.

It's quite obvious that the police in this city [generally] are racist, amongst many other things. But that's just not ME saying so; i've only been in Portland for little more than 3 years. The cops here have be terrible long before that.

As i've just said, racism is but one of many problems with the police. When those 3 cowards chased down & beat James Chasse to death, i don't think race was an issue.
10
Way to prove me right.
11
Loaded Orygun has a post in response:

http://loadedorygun.net/showDiary.do?diary…
12
Thanks for the LO link Matt. I'm actually going to send this info. to Leonard Berman. He's a lawyer i've been in discussions with for some time now.
13
I'd rather be tasered than having the baton brought out on me. Just do the what the cop tells you to do. If he messed up and did something illegal, sue him later.
14
Well in that case, i'd rather be beaten with a baton(billyclub) than to have my entire ribcage destroyed. But that doesn't mean cops can go around beating the shit out of people !
15
There's an old saying, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." I would add that when people have been taught a skill, they look for excuses to use it. I remember when the first SWAT teams were created - they were sold to the public as a last-resort option for capturing really scary, dangerous criminals. Now, it seems the standard apparel for arresting someone at home is black clothing, helmets, body armor & semi-automatic weapons. While it's a good thing Tasers are less lethal than guns are, that reduced lethality itself makes it attractive to use a weapon where one wouldn't have been used before. There was a time when American cops were known as "peace officers" and were expected to try to de-escalate problems on the spot. These days, it seems that the most important thing to the cops is not a peaceful community but making sure people follow police orders immediately. The James Chasse case is a frightening case in point. I've read that the police thought he was armed because he acted furtive & afraid [being armed makes one scared-er?], that they though he might be pissing out doors [gross, but not death-penalty eligible], and that he tried to run. I have to question, if there's no evidence that someone has committed a crime, should the police be allowed to treat that person's retreating from an officer as a justification to chase that person and take extreme physical measures to detain that person?

16
What's even more distressing & enraging is that we live in a society where such gestopo, dracionian, cowardly, Orwellian tactics by the police are not only tolerated, but endorsed by people who're either uninformed, or just plain hard-headed. Waaay too many times, these arm-chair warriors like to say, "Well if people wouldn't do stupid shit, cops wouldn't have to be so violent". Now what a thoughtless, dim-witted, childish, utterly butt-ass thing to say.
"Stupid shit" might be - not complying with orders fast enough, or raising your arms, or running away. Do any of these these things warrent being killed or beaten to a pulp?!

I'm all tough on crime too. And believe me, i want to see scum-bags put away more than most people! But MY idea of a scum-bag isn't a person with mental illness who's guilty of "looking shifty", or a shouting protester at some demonstration, or a Black guy driving, or some other guy riding his bike without a light.
Why do we put up with this shit? Why do we put up with people being shocked, beaten, or killed over the smallest slights? Why do we allow cops with a history of being violent & out of control to continue "policing" our streets?

The cop who murdered José Santos Victor Mejía Poot, a man who didn't comply b/c he was in the throws of an EPILECTIC SESUIRE, why isn't that cop in prison right now?

The cops who assualted Frank Waterhouse for... video-taping them(?!), why aren't they in prison?

The cop who beat/tasered Phil Sano for not having a light on his bicycle (b/c a thief stole his mount), why isn't that asshole in prison?

The 3 thugs/cowards who crushed Chasse to death for "illedgedly pissing in public", why are those cops in prison?
17
In the old days if someone didn't respond to a police officers commands he would be tackled and punched and batoned until he complied. Injuries on both sides would happen. Why not just taser someone so that all of the above can be avoided.

I used to work in a profession where I observed PPB taser citizens. In my personal experience the use of the taser has prevented injuries on both sides. If you don't like how tasers how are deployed and if the DA wont bring up charges against the cop for being within the guidelines of the Use Of Force Policy, lobby down at City Hall to get something done about it.
18
But in many of these cases where tasers are being used, NO force would've been needed anyways!

And what's also the issuee here is that citizens [again, in many cases] aren't even being given a chance to comply. Not to mention the fact that tasers are "less-than-lethal" designated, which still makes then POTENTIALLY [& occastionally] lethal. I mean, throwing rocks at someone is "less-than-lethal", but it can still kill someone. And far too often, cops use them as torture devices. So i don't think tasers are some "great" alternative to night-stick beatings.

Or mop-handles.
19
Thats is what cops do, they lie and make things up!
Domestic terrorists, more accurately government, sponsored terrorism. There used to be a fine line between police work, and terrorism, now there's no line, and there's laws to promote these acts on the citizens, and courts that enforce terrorist regimes, like the DEA, sheriff’s, SWAT, and others.
Laws that cause harm, aren't "laws", they're "agenda". Laws that cause death, aren't "laws", they're contracts. Laws that jail nonviolent citizens, aren't "laws", they're criminal acts. Laws that disregard rights, aren't "laws", they're acts of terrorism.
What's so different from what Saddam did to his people, to what the government is doing here? Only difference is we have many "Saddams", not just one. And all ours are alive, and thriving on the misery of others, along with stolen property, money, and complete disregard of constitutional rights.
And we don't consider the USA a terrorist regime? C'mon.

Known Saddams’
Officer Bacigalupi #30878
Officer Sery #36878
All officers that worked or collaborated with Bacigalupi
Officer John Hughes #45063
and many more

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