Should Grandma Have Been Tased?

This is one where the bleeding heart crowd screams abuse with no real appreciation for the issues. Watch the video below. Guess what? Granny is all fired up just off a busy highway. Watch the cop be sure to keep himself between her and the road out of concern for her safety. At several points, she's just inches away from giving him a simple push that would put him, not her, under a moving car or truck if she chose to. What an evil man, huh? And if that guy gets into a wrestling match with Grandma, her next stop isn't the police station, it's more likely the emergency room - even with the utmost care on his part.

So, why didn't he talk her down? Yeah, right. Go stand off the highway at rush hour some day and try to talk sense into some intemperate nut you can't walk away from as your job doesn't give you the option. Then we'll talk.

Shocked? Well, she was. Heh! And it was the right and safest call.

I imagine there's even more info out there but I did find this.

"In a confrontation," Lewinski explains, "you don't look at age, sex, height, weight-you need to look at behavior, the violence and potential violence you're encountering. A 6-year-old in a complete psychotic temper tantrum can really hurt you. Unlike some mental health workers, cops don't have training in methods of restraint that won't significantly injure the kid or open the officer up to severe injury. If you do a simple arm bar on an elderly woman with fragile bones and she resists in even a minimal way, it's almost a given that you will create a spiral fracture of her upper arm bone."

Yes, it's ugly when someone gets zapped with an electronic device, and in the case of the elderly they may still break bones from falling after being tased. "But in many confrontations the Taser remains the most humane and effective way of establishing control without serious injury to anyone."

Comments

[mark l.]

never touch a cop.
hope the taser was set to extra crispy.

[ET]

It always cracks me up when people push cops to the breaking point and then say, "OK, OK! I give up! I'm done now!"

I never blame the cop who says, "I said we were done 20 minutes ago, and you kept resisting. Now it's done WHEN I SAY it is done!"

Grandma deserved to be tased...

[sooze]

Grammy was a wiseass and I would have tased her a lot sooner than he did.

[G Norman]

I think tasering people is such bs.

[seekeronos]

Gah. She had it coming to her. Better than than deploying a nightstick upside the uppity old broad's head.

[Firehand]

Used to know a guy who worked in a mental hospital; had all the training on proper restraint, avoiding injury, etc.

He's about 6'1" and 220, and the other attendant was about the same, both were put in the hospital by a 5'1" 95-pound female who nutted out. Among other things, she damn near amputated his thumb by biting. So yeah, even a physically small someone can do you real damage.

I'm quite willing to criticize cops when they do wrong; I'll also defend them when they have to choose the 'least wrong' thing to do in a bad situation.

[mark l.]

"Used to know a guy who worked in a mental hospital"

did four years as 'bouncer' at a state forensic mental hospital.

i'd rather have to deal with a slow(and they usually are) 6'5" guy, weighing in excess of 300 lbs, than 140 lb wiry guy under 5'7". speed and sinew are a hell of lot more difficult than mass and muscle.

[Jim Treacher]

Apparently he should have let her get back in her truck and drive away. Or try to wrestle her down and break a few ribs.

[Ad rem]

Now, that's what I call a "senior moment"....;-)

[david r]

Apparently the sharks are circling the cop. The Austin news says the DA is launching her own probe.

[ArJay]

I think cops use tasers because they too lazy to work at handling situations without that tool.

Plus, I think they find it entertaining to watch tased people.

[ArJay]

Edit: "they too" should be "they are too"

[Ajlouny]

Tasing is wrong. When did the taser go from being a defensive weapon to a torture device to compel compliance?