Monday, July 14, 2008

Post Tasing Death In Houston

Another person is dead after being tased:

The officer caught up with the man and was struggling with him on the ground when another officer, R.P. Johnson, arrived and used his Taser to stun the suspect, who was described as weighing at least 250 pounds.

"The suspect remained combative, rolling around on the ground," Cannon said.

Johnson fired another Taser dart at the man and the struggle ended, Cannon said.

Paramedics took the man to Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital, where he was reported dead at about 2:25 a.m., Cannon said.

The comments from that article are something. Taser fans offer up their typical tired talking points. These are people content having officers armed with random death sentence dispensers. Forget about pointing out that tasers were sold as a safe alternative to guns, but are now regularly used, and occurring in concert with deaths, in situations where guns would never be used. Forget any critical examination of usage and safety. For these people, if the police are doing it, it's correct by definition and if you think otherwise, you're a smelly hippy who can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.