Not what I would have done, and would have definitely been out of policy for my department.
And that brings up a point I wish to make. There is NO nationwide standard for when to deploy the taser. Some agencies say deploy at verbal non-compliance, some say at the onset of physical non-compliance, some say at active physical aggression.
There are over 17,000 different law enforcement agencies in the US and their policies and training are not uniform. As you can see, there are two different agencies responding to this call, two different officers with different levels of experience, and probably training and quite possibly different policies on taser deployment. Tasers, good or bad, have become one of the most effective tools given to law enforcement and they are now in danger of being relied on too much.
Where officers might have used a hands on technique, which has the possibility of the officer being injured, they now just go Taser on everything. Many police administrators with tight budgets and staff being asked to do more with less, are reluctant to allow officers to go hands on as much anymore. This almost always winds up with some type of injury to suspect, officer or equipment. Even torn pants are a hundred dollars to replace. Injured officers put stress on staff and cost money for rehab. Injured suspects keep officers out of service because they require a fit for confinement examination by medical staff. A taser negates all of that, so hence it’s utility and unfortunately it’s overused at times.
Many of those that watched this video and the narrator herself question why didn’t officers just “help” Kaady. Before any medical attention can be given to Kaady, it has to be determined that he is not a danger to himself or anyone else. He is hurt, but assuming that all the blood on him is his own is not a smart play. Nor is assuming that he is harmless because he is just sitting there. Remember the call came out for several vehicles struck by the vehicle he was driving, you cannot assume that it was only accidental, and not something more serious. Information called into dispatch and then relayed to officers is notoriously spotty and sometimes completely incorrect. The officer on the scene has to be the best judge of what to do. This in no way justifies shooting this man. Again, definitely not what I would have done.
Some agencies allow officers to go on the street with as little as four hundred hours of training. Some large metros have over a thousand hours of police academy training before even commissioning an officer.
Some agencies do spotty background checks, and others check every detail of the last 15 years of your life. Thus without the highest standards for EVERY agency nationwide, you get incidents like this, with a less than stellar employees as shown in Bergin.
Law Enforcement needs to be become much more uniform nationwide with it’s standards and policies and completely PROFESSIONALIZED, like any other legitimate trade.
In my professional experience and opinion, with the information given by the video, this was a really bad choice by these officers. I am surprised there was not a civil rights case brought.
I know the family filed a civil case against the city and won a bunch of money. I just wish that the individual cops could be held criminally responsible... But that never happens.
I was watching a show about an outdoor event in Alaska. It seems the idea is everybody gets together for ice camping, fishing, snowmobiling, drinking, partying and reproducing. Some kind of Alaska tradition. They had a temporary building set up as a Police Station due to the size of the event. Thousands of people there, so drinking and fighting is common.
Well this one guy wipes out on his snowmobile. Busts up his lip pretty bad, you know cut up. I have seen worst when somebody takes a fastball in the face. Bad, but not that bad. Well the cops drag this guy over in front of the Police Station and insist on assessing this guy. He keeps refusing medical attention and telling the cop to not touch him. The Cop keeps touching him, trying to control him that sort of thing. Finally the guy tells this cop, “if you touch me again I will spit on you”. He had a mouthful of blood. Well the cop touches him again, and the guy spits a mouthful of blood on the cop. Next he is gang tackled, beaten cuffed and hauled off. Then they had the cop on camera, he looked like he was going to cry, and the cop says “I was just trying to get his compliance, but he wouldn’t have any of it.” Something to that effect.
So that’s my problem in a nutshell. Cops can always take a bad situation and make it worst. After that gang of cops was done with him he really did need medical attention. The heroic cop then explains to the camera how unfortunately under Alaska law the guy could only be charged with a misdemeanor. The cop really wished that he could upgrade it to a felony.
Ok, so I’m joe bag o donuts. I see this thing go down. I’m thinking the cop should have just let him chill out, then when the pain of the accident wore down he could try again to get this guy into the medical tent. Or he could have just walked away and left it alone. But no, he wasn’t gonna let a civilian tell him “no” in front of his cop buddies.
So my problem with cops is the control factor. They have no concept of leaving people alone. When somebody tells a cop to get off there property until they have a search warrant, the cops just need to do it. If Officer friendly pulls me over and asks me “why do you think I’m pulling you over”, and I choose to say nothing, don’t get mad. That’s my right.
Cops have too much power, a closed culture of bad ass bull hockey. They cause endless traffic snarls. When I see some heroic cop pulling over a sucker in the middle of rush hour, you know the drill, a motorcycle cop, who threads his way through six lanes of traffic to go after one guy and nearly causes a 10 car pileup.
So Cops need to just calm down. They need the support of the community they Police. They are losing that support. I don’t even know if I would stop and help a cop if I saw him getting the crap beaten out of him at the side of road. I think now, I just keep driving. It used to be I was the guy willing to jump out and help, or at least make the phone call. No more. To bad.