The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Considering it was probably tens of dollars worth of CDs, I can see why they reacted with what was justifiably reasonable force.

Yeesh.
 

No offence but you guys weren't there.

Have you ever seen how someone acts when they are jacked-up on pcp or crack??

Why was the guy stealing stuff? Possibly to sell it at a pawn shop so he can get more crack!

The cops have a right to protect themselves. If the rummy was too dumb or stoned to back-off & didn't stop being a physical threat it's his tough luck. (i'm not saying he deserved to die only that he may have brought it upon himself)

Hey maybe the cops did overreact but until all the facts are known don't be quick to condemn.

If i'm coppers spouse I'm happy he protected him/her self & came home from work in one piece rather then having to tell the kids mommy/daddy didn't come home from work because someone put a knife in his heart.

Tasers are a media frenzy since the incident at Vancouver airport. There are thousands of taserings every day without incident. Cops have killed people with guns but nobody is asking them to do away with their guns.

Don't fall for the hype. If ever your a bonehead drunk who decides to be superman against a couple of cops, your odds are better against a taser then a glock.

Dan
 

I couldn't agree more Dan, people eat this stuff up, it’s the same fear mongering that we see in every story that is similar or that crime is on the rise in TO or don’t go to Mexico b/c Canadians are being murdered every day!

But at the same time I have to agree with the other side as I think that there are certain cases where police officers could use other means and not turn to the taser immediately, and then some cases where cops get pumped and believe they are above the law and go to far and either kill or severally injure someone for no reason other then to inflate their ego.

Why do cops train hand to hand combat or the use of billy bats or telescoping bats? So that they can protect themselves and the public from some irate sober or cracked out suspect. Guns were a last resort and to be honest I think that the taser is a less lethal resort should honestly be the last one before the gun.

Being a cop is a shitty job at the end of the day. We don’t know what it feels like to have a gun pointed in our face by some crack head at 2 in the morning, but not every case is like this so they all deserve differing approaches.

If some crack head is freaking out and won’t comply and is potentially doing harm to themselves, the officers or other bystanders, then I would rather see a cop physically restrain this individual and if it escalates smack an irate person in the head with their fist male or female (no! before you say it I am not condemning hitting women I am talking about someone who can not be controlled and has a weapon or not) to get them to the ground put cuffs on them and so on.

But what happened with that? Well in many cases people saw this as excessive force. Hmmm you ask my buddy that is on the force in Ottawa and has been for several years, what it felt like to get into a fist fit with a 200+ man who was not going quietly, ask him if that was excessive force. But he did what he was trained to do without going to a taser or bat.

I believe the hype about this is just something to write about and it sells and will continue to do so. But at the same time it gets tricky b/c there are many officers that are over zealous to say the least and going way to far and you get incidents where people die like this. It comes down to training and individual characters as every cop out there is different.

Yes things need to change but until every individual case is looked at deeply there is no assumption that can be made. I am on the fence here as I have never really said too many good things about cocky cops who go too far or act with a macho attitude when doing their routine job and ruin the reputation of good cops. And at other times when stories similar to these come out there is a chance for misunderstanding excessive force and protecting ones self. In the end the public looks at every cop as an egomaniac bully, which isn’t fair.
 

Or maybe the cause of death was threatening the police with a knife and refuseing to drop it. What if this trend continues and more criminals are killed or injured while attacking police. Maybe criminals will start to rethink their career choices.
 

If tasers didn't kill people, I would have no problems with their use. The manufacturers of tasers though sell them on the premise that they are a "non-lethal" way of subduing a suspect. But after getting zapped (like that poor INNOCENT man in the airport, and this teenager) some people have wound up dead, and that's why I think their use should be stopped and police should use alternate means (I'm no expert...pepper spray?)
 

I agree make the taser less lethal or use pepper spray but even though he was a teenager he was not "innocent"

"…the boy refused to drop the knife despite numerous commands to do so from officers before being shot by the electronic stun gun."

Not saying the kid should have died but you pull a knife on a cop and then don't drop it when told to you better be prepared for what is coming next and it isn't going to be a stern talking to, that just won't cut it...
 

Just the guy at the airport was innocent, not the teenager. He deserved a paddlin', but I draw the line at death.
 

The teenager certainly didn't deserve death but he is responsible for putting police in a situation where they had to use the taser. The guy at the airport was throwing furniture and computers accross the room which led police to confront him. However his frustration was caused by him being kept in customs limbo for about 12 hours and the police were very quick to use the taser instead of trying to talk him down.