Posted on 05/20/2012 1:35:59 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The case involves Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her 11-year-old son to school in Seattle when she was pulled over for speeding. The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20.
Ms. Brooks said she would accept a ticket but drew the line at signing it, which state law required at the time. Ms. Brooks thought, wrongly, that signing was an acknowledgment of guilt.
Refusing to sign was a crime, and the two officers on the scene summoned a sergeant, who instructed them to arrest Ms. Brooks. She would not get out of her car.
The situation plainly called for bold action, and Officer Juan M. Ornelas met the challenge by brandishing a Taser and asking Ms. Brooks if she knew what it was.
She did not, but she told Officer Ornelas what she did know. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I am pregnant. I’m less than 60 days from having my baby.”
The three men assessed the situation and conferred. “Well, don’t do it in her stomach,” one said. “Do it in her thigh.”
Officer Ornelas twisted Ms. Brooks’s arm behind her back. A colleague, Officer Donald M. Jones, applied the Taser to Ms. Brooks’s left thigh, causing her to cry out and honk the car’s horn. A half-minute later, Officer Jones applied the Taser again, now to Ms. Brooks’s left arm. He waited six seconds before pressing it into her neck.
Ms. Brooks fell over, and the officers dragged her into the street, laying her face down and cuffing her hands behind her back.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I agree there. Far to many citizens shot, beaten, etc. for my liking. I have not experienced any of this, but I am an old white guy so it is less likely to happen to me.
OTOH, in this case the Tazer seems to be the correct weapon to choose. She must either sign or be arrested. She must get out of her car to be arrested. If she is refusing the police orders, it is perfectly legitimate to use force to get compliance. Neither pregnancy nor ignorance is a reasonable excuse for not following procedure. And, no each individual does not get to make up his or her own procedure for being arrested.
Thank you for posting reasonably on a FR anti-cop derangement thread.
You have served civilization and promoted liberty here today.
Thanks again.
There’s not as many bootlickers as there used to be. (Or else they just aren’t as vocal.)
Ok, three less dumbasses in the field of law enforcement.
Getting someone to sign the ticket is just not worth fighting over. Write “refused”, advise them it is now a mandatory court date, give them their copy and end the stop.
Kicking ass at all costs is just crushing this field.
*15 years on the job.
The cops can not be trusted with tasers. They managed to arrest people without tasing them in the past and they can learn to do that again. They are torturing people.
A woman that pregnant is very easy to control.
Everywhere you go, you make sure you know the restroom location.
If she needed to go, the cops had complete control, no taser needed.
No, those proceedures are not logical, because they are completely unnecessary.
Her signature would have changed nothing. A judge would in either case have the disgression of signing a warrent.
Police are losing contact with reality. Tasing the woman was aggravated assault, and possibly mayhem if the child were harmed. I’m sure they had far better things to do that this.
>> “OTOH, in this case the Tazer seems to be the correct weapon to choose. She must either sign or be arrested. She must get out of her car to be arrested. If she is refusing the police orders, it is perfectly legitimate to use force to get compliance” <<
Utter nonsense! There was zero reason to arrest the woman. They had her identity, and heraddress; simply mail the complaint to her home.
These officers at the very least should be terminated. I would favor prosecution is cases so aggravated as this. We absolutely do not need for police to do these things.
This case is just another one representing the true role of
government in out lives....government is force, plain, simple naked force. Government will KILL you for jaywalking. If you refuse to comply with an order or a law,
doesn’t matter how small, stupid, insignificant or asinine the law or command is if you refuse to comply any and all force up to and including the use of deadly force will be
brought to bear by the state and it’s agents.
The taser was advertised by the vendor and purchased by LEO
under the promise that it was a less lethal alternative to
firearms giving officers a tool one step below shooting a person. That statement was a lie, only a fool would believe
it. Tazers have become merely modern day electronic whips
and LEO have become modern day plantation foremen who use
these “whips” to whip the slaves....You and Me....back in to
line.
“Getting someone to sign the ticket is just not worth fighting over. Write “refused”, advise them it is now a mandatory court date, give them their copy and end the stop.”
Is that how your jurisdiction does it ?
We have printers, no press hard four copies nonsense, no signature, hand them a copy with an envelope, no fuss, no muss. It cuts WAY down on complaints.
The three men assessed the situation and conferred. “Well, don’t do it in her stomach,” one said. “Do it in her thigh.”
A classic example of why police should not be allowed to carry tasers, since out of the three of them, including a sergeant, none of them understand the basics of electricity.
Something to take into consideration then.
What’s the resolution rate? Is there a problem with people claiming “it wasn’t me,” etc. ?
You'd probably only need to do that once and it'd send the message.
“They used the taser. Why exactly was this excessive?”
Well, maybe because tens of thousands of volts, which may be safe (under most circumstances) when used on an adult, may not exactly be healthy for a fetus? The police officers themselves seemed to realize this, hence their comment to not tase her in the belly. Of course, the voltage still passed through the fetus even though they tased her in her limbs, since the human body is a excellent conductor.
If we are going to give cops these weapons, they should at least have the understanding of electricity that you could get from an elementary school science class.
Almost the first day of that experiment a lady cop was faced with a very angry, quite a bit larger Hispanic criminal type ( I think he was caught shaking his parking meter or something, and raging at the sky).
She sized up the situation instantly and shot him in the gut ~ went through his liver too ~ guy lived, but barely.
Given that these officers were given lazers as a less fatal alternative, we just know they'd all three unloaded into that woman and the baby if they didn't have the tazer to use as a torture device.
the irony of all of this is that they’ve done away with the requirement to sign the friggin citation.
The usual mindless crap from a nutty entitled minority. I would have complied (signed) and this drag on civilization should have done the same. But because she has limited intelligence the rest of us have to pick up the tab (thousands or a million?) for her showboating
Another step towards Idiocracy
Of course not. But do you believe we are responsible for the choices we make?
I believe there are good and bad people. Unfortunately, authority can be abused. I'm sure this is why some here have negative experience with the police.
And there was no way the police was going to let the woman leave with a "warning." She made the conscious choice to disobey.
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