Dark decades of direct experience with human beings have given us reason to operate from an ecumenical distrust of human nature. Although perfectly natural, human nature is a foul entity regardless of what skin color, genitals, or ideology the individual human in question chooses to hide behind. Them humans is sneaky snakes, sho’nuff.
Since there’s literally no “government” beyond the humans authorized to run it, our distrust of human nature leads us to a special wariness of those who possess the legally sanctioned power to harm and extort others. Without ways to keep government power in check, the whole world would devolve into the Stanford Prison Experiment within a week. Then again, since the “governed” are also human beings, we also greet their every word and deed with suspicion—if not outright disdain.
So when someone complains about police brutality, our default presumption is that both sides are at least guilty of something and that we’d need clear evidence of innocence to exonerate anyone. Yes, sure, some police officers are sadistic rageballs who take out their castration fears on the skulls of hapless citizens they’d stopped for minor moving violations. But flipping the flapjack over, many citizens are irredeemably unhinged drunken lunatics who endanger everything in their path and aren’t above lying to score a huge civil-rights judgment that the taxpayers, not the “state,” are obliged to pay. Faced with such a dismal choice, why should we even pick sides?
“Opinions about police mostly fall into two rigid camps: ‘Shoot the scum pigs’ or ‘Shoot the scum criminals.’” Sadly, not everyone is so evenhanded. Opinions about police mostly fall into two rigid camps: “Shoot the scum pigs” or “Shoot the scum criminals.”
But sweeping all ideology aside and looking at things in practical terms, if a certain Taser gun had been stocked with fully functioning batteries back in 1991, it’s likely that LA police would never have hammered on a resolutely uncontrollable Rodney King with billy clubs and 53 people wouldn’t have died in the ensuing riots.
If the full-time complainers were handed the awful responsibility of actually having to hold and administer guns, billy clubs, and Tasers, we doubt they’d behave any nobler than the “pigs” on the street already do. Personally, we doubt we’d have the patience to perform a policeman’s job for a week without losing control. It’d be hard to maintain composure after some plastered idiot wandering amid traffic took a swing at us. Hell, it’d be difficult not to tase someone merely for calling us “bro.”
Words such as “justice” and the idea of how much punishment someone “deserves” are fatally subjective. In that spirit, allow us to speculate what we would have done if we’d been wearing the policeman’s badge during any of these recent cases involving law enforcement and Tasers. We make these snap judgments with the understanding that we are receiving the facts in each case only as they were reported and that even the reporters may be lying.
CASE: CALIFORNIA PARK RANGER TASES DOG OWNER IN LEASH-LAW INCIDENT DETAILS: The Golden State’s “dog community” is up in arms about this story, and if there’s one group you don’t want to upset more than the gay community, it may be the dog community. Slightly before 5PM last Sunday, Gary Hesterberg, 50, was walking his two pooches in a state park near Half Moon Bay. A female park ranger stopped him and told him to leash one of his dogs. When she asked for identification, he allegedly gave a false name. Eyewitness accounts differ on whether Hesterberg’s demeanor was peaceful or belligerent. While the ranger was talking on her radio, she instructed him not to leave and said she’d tase him if he did. He turned his back and started walking away, at which point she tased him. VERDICT: We would have kept following him while calling for backup. Tasing him was overreaching. Given a motivated and litigious “dog community,” this case may wind up costing millions.
CASE: PORTLAND POLICE TASE MAN WHO WAS SWINGING PLASTIC LIGHTSABER AT TOYS “R” US CUSTOMERS DETAILS: Sure, it’s all fun and games until some innocent passerby gets bopped in the head with a plastic lightsaber. Police at an Oregon Toys “R” Us store responded to a call after a crazed 33-year-old David Canterbury had already struck three other customers with such a weapon. When they tried tasing him, he ripped the Taser wires loose with a mighty swing of his toy lightsaber. At this point they piled on him and subdued him using the sort of brute force that even his plastic lightsaber could not repel. VERDICT: We may have tased him merely for being a grown man who’s still into Star Wars.
CASE: FLORIDA POLICE TASE 77-YEAR-OLD KNIFE-WIELDING MAN AT CANCER CENTER DETAILS: Last Tuesday night at the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center, police arrived after medical staff reported that Juan Carrasquillo, 77 and presumably a cancer patient, had brandished a knife at them in the midst of treatment. The arrest report said he was holding the knife “With his arm coiled so he could strike quickly with it.” Police subdued him with one Taser jolt and then arrested him. VERDICT: Very tough call. Given his age and the fact that he’s likely terminal, we would have tried exhausting every possible option before tasing him, whether it involved gentle persuasion or somehow making him slip on a banana peel. But if he’d come directly at us with the knife, then ZAP!
CASE: ILLINOIS SUSPECT GRABS TASER GUN FROM ARRESTING OFFICER AND TASES HIM DETAILS: In the course of interviewing 19-year-old Dashawn James for a possible curfew violation, Chicago police say James initially tried fleeing, then became “combative” after they caught up with him. He swung at two officers and in the ensuing scuffle grabbed one of their Tasers, zapping one cop in the arm with it. The other officer deployed his own Taser on young Dashawn, subduing him. VERDICT: If we were the officer who got tased, we would have tased ourselves again due to shame for being so clumsy.
CASE: POLICE IN WASHINGTON, DC TASE “OCCUPY” PROTESTER DETAILS: Last Sunday at an atypically long-lasting Occupy DC encampment, police began placing flyers on tents that instructed everyone to disperse in compliance with the law. Ryan Lash, wearing eye-searing pajama pants, a T-shirt that said HE LOVES IT IN THE ASS, and the scruffy bearded-moppet look so common among these bold opponents of “greed,” almost instantly began removing the flyers, ripping them to shreds, and shouting, “Here’s your trash, you fucking pigs!” (At 0:11 of the above-linked video.) Police followed him through the park. Even though he made a conscious decision to wear those pajamas, he began chanting, “I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG.” When police attempted to apprehend him, he physically struggled (at 1:34-1:40), at which point they tased him, instantly bringing out the shrill chirping of the camp’s “Justice Whistles” (or whatever they call them) and an audible assurance from a compatriot: “Yo, yo, it’s a lawsuit, brother, don’t worry.” VERDICT: These people want nothing more on Earth than to have filmed evidence of police doing anything worse than serving them warm meals, so we would have strained with all our being not to tase him. These people see nothing odd about the fact that they moan of police brutality at an event they organized and purposely called “Fuck OPD (Oakland Police Department).” They see nothing askew with the fact that they openly flout the law yet jump at the chance to file lawsuits. Since he struggled, yes, he deserved to be tased. Since it’s stupid to scream at cops and call them pigs, yes, he should have received an extra jolt merely for being stupid. And since the cost of cleaning up their juvenile gypsy shenanigans will fall on average members of the “99%” who don’t make a habit of pooping in public parks, sure, zap him one last time for good measure. But since that’s exactly what he wanted, we would have found a way not to give it to him, if for no other reason than spite.
Poster Comment:
Let's not pretend the police are always wrong.