Man Tasered For Filming Warrantless Police Search

When you get to court over your camera being smashed they will argue they were just trying to protect you from what could have become a volatile situation.

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.

I'm not trying to highjack your thread, but this relates directly to this seed that I made a few days ago. It's a direct answer to the question, "If you're not doing anything wrong why get upset?"

Military garb and equipment tends toward a military attitude.

jpark, I agree with everything you said in your post above. Its not often you and I agree on things, but it warms my very heart when it does. I'll go one further though and say that uses of non-lethal projectiles (i.e. tazers, bean bags, rubber bullets, etc.) should automatically have to be reviewed under the same criteria as the use of a real firearm.

I agree with your statement too. People can and do die from tazering. Firing a rapid projectile of any type at someone can result in serious injury or death.

'Non-lethal' weapons may have valid uses, but only in cases where possibly lethal interventions would otherwise be necessary. Every use should be carefully reviewed.

It is ironic that the same government which wants to monitor everything citizens do and say objects to that same monitoring when citizens engage in it.

While police violence, and especially police who appear to believe that they are above the law, gets me fired up like no other, they are not the "same government" as the federal government that wants to invade yor privacy. Both are reprehensible, but they are not the same.

You are correct that they are not the same, but state and local governments do invade privacy. Many cities have surveillance cameras all over the cities. State and local governments support the paramilitary police force -- or we would not have such heavy-handed police.

The technical term for inverse surveillance is "sousveillance".

Just thought I might expand someone's vocabulary.

Really? Thanks. Always glad to learn a new word.

Thanks for this information. I think I'll make a wallet sized card myself.

Photographer's bill of rights

I couldn't find the original seed that directed me.

This was a very informative read. I looked it over before my photo session last night at the skate park. Gave me a lot to think about. Thank you.

It's a pretty clear cut case, at least since the only evidence we have is an entry that doesn't represent the police's side of the story.

Mars,

Part of the problem is that police applicants are screened very minimally.

I just finished reading in another seed that 6 people have died in North America this week from tasers!

Wheel,

you are 100% correct. They are so desperate to get flesh in the squad cars that they don't care who they hire to do it. And my personal opinion is that there are only two types of people who become cops: real citizens who respect the badge, and ex-highschool jocks and bullies that didn't make it out of town before needing another confidence booster.... dead end losers who love power, in other words.

6 deaths in a week to non-lethal weaponry.... imagine that. That's what you call "user error"

I don't think the police killed 6 people with guns in the last week did they?

Tazered would be a good name for such a group.

May I suggest you broaden the group to include all police abuses? Paramilitary raids on innocent people often resulting in death or serious injury is also a problem and feeds into the 'strike first, rationalize later' attitude.

Thanks jpark. Will consider that but I wonder if it might overwhelm the tazering incidences. Tazering, being a new phenomena might deserve it's one collection.

Restricting it to tazering is OK. There will be a lot of incidents to post.

Alternate name suggestion: 'Don't taze me bro' .

Don't Taz Me Bro

:)

I would have to agree with calling it Don't Taze Me Bro.

HUH!? I don't think that would be to difficult to make.

When you build a better mouse trap, you make the mice smarter. This is from another seed of mine about tasers This is about the taser proof suit thing.

This will give the police 'probable cause' because 'Why would anyone be wearing an anti-taser suit unless they intended to confront a cop?' They would just take it as an excuse to pound the ever loving crap out of you.

Thanks for the vote, Sandie. It will be up by the end of the weekend.

You are probably right, but there are just so many instances where we hear about them being abused. On the whole, officers aren't ready for them yet.

Similar to pepper spray, perhaps officers should be tased so that they understand how serious it is? I'm not saying that in a sadistic "I wanna see pigs fry" sense, but rather to build a sense of respect for the weapon.

Well, keep in mind that a slew of anecdotes does not a trend make. There are 300 million people in America, and it stands to reason that if we are looking for instances of taser abuse, we are going to find hundreds even if the trend is a slight one. Doubtless taser abuse is a problem, but I for one haven't seen evidence to support the numerous claims of an epidemic problem. However, you are right at least in that training doesn't seem to be adequate as is.

I wonder, when pepper spray came out, were there the same issues with overuse before the more rigorous training was implemented?

abuse is one thing, but 6 people have died in North America this week from taser attacks by police. I don't think the police have killed 6 people with guns in that same time.

Additionally, you have to remember that Taser International tells officers going through its program that Tasers are "completely harmless" and "appropriate for multiple uses on the same suspect." That is basically the company telling officers to Tase to their heart's content, for any reason whatsoever It's advertised as a "pain compliance" tool-- one of the implied uses is to gain compliance in non-threatening situations.

Exactly my point. If the education concerning tasers is as complete as I assume the education regarding guns is, we would see a lot less of this tragic overuse.

Wheel --

What is your reference for that statistic? I'm interested to see the source.

here you go, 6 deaths from tasers in one week.

Bullets, however, treat everyone the same way. Tasers aren't the issue; undereducation and misconceptions about them are.

did you watch the video? The police were chasing someone, they were being filmed, they attacked the person with the camera, abandoning the chase of the suspect.

With all due respect, it would take some rather incredible mitigating circumstances in this particular situation. Police are just as human as the rest of us, though they do incredible things on a much more regular.