Lawsuit Says 77-Year-Old Veteran Died After Police Tased Him

http://www.flatheadbeacon.com ^ | 05-01-13 | By Myers Reece

[familyop]

"I don’t much disagree with you, I’m just damned disgusted with things generally."

I know, and agreed on disgust.

"I’m retired now and have a lot of time to watch the 'wildest police video' genre shows and they almost always identify each officer as a former so and so military person."

Oh. I don't watch TV at all any more except for a video of a news item from the Net once in a while. Most time using the Net here is spent on reading technical information (mostly low-tech. stuff) or watching an occasional free, old movie (archive.org , "feature films"). We live in the middle of nowhere on the Rockies (no nearby neighbors, cities far away) and have plenty to do outdoors.

"You can’t go a day without some headline about someone’s dog being shot or someone’s grandma being tasered. We equip these whelps with the most expensive offensive weapons available and train them to a razors edge and wonder why they go off like grenades."

Back in the '70s, police told me that they preferred hiring men trained for infantry combat, because they were less excitable and less likely to get into that kind of trouble (looking for work then, decided on different kinds of training to do private security part time and other work full time).

During the '60s and '70s, there were hiring preferences for soldiers, Marines and the like (around Texas and parts of the Midwest, at least). It seems to me that more police were more levelheaded during those years. I went through initial training (Army, 13 weeks straight) at the age of 31 (Baby Boomer guilt).

[familyop]

"I’m damned near full blooded Irish. My Grandmother was named kathura Geohagan."

My great-grandmother on my dad's side and my dad's mother, if not more of the recent ancestors. Great-grandmother lost her husband to a robbery on the Mississippi River (running payroll for his employees), when my grandfather (her son) was three years of age. They were very big, strong, peaceful and well liked. Three generations of Catholicism followed. Even had a great-aunt Sister Mary. :-)

"I’m on the debating side that contends that we had better police forces in this country when (in our larger urban areas), the cops were immigrants who were of a generation or two removed from parents who were searching for a free country."

Agreed that many of them were great. And Scots (mom's side). Many of them were veterans of wars, too, though. As for television news and written news, it seems that quite a few rear-echelon (not really so combat-oriented) military folks get reputations for being hot shot commandos of one kind or another. Vanities, you know.

And yes, many military people have earned bad reputations for all. Somewhere around 95% of them (last I looked) do military jobs that are much like civilian jobs in many ways. But how would combat-trained men compare, on average, in regards to criminality with the general population? We men in my specialty had our backgrounds very thoroughly checked (at a large government expense) and were evaluated throughout some fairly tough training.

I'm fine with police being recruited from exclusively civilian backgrounds, too, but they should be trained to stay calm and analytical in exciting situations. Such training, from my own experiences, needs to include a whole lot of humility. Also helps to make sure their heads are screwed on right (observing reactions to stress). Some state patrol schools were a little more like that in the past.

[MEGoody]

To violent Alzheimer's patients?

That question alone exhibits your ignorance.

Such a response is right out of the liberal play book. Attack rather than answer the question when you know the answer to the question will reflect badly on your so called argument.