I will add this to it....if I showed a photo of the entire police force for that community, almost anybody would be able to pick out the lone asswipe in the group....
We moved soon after the event with my FIL, so I never heard more about him. Hopefully he found work more suitable to his temperament....
Concerning the death, yes, family members reported their side of the story, which matched the cops story. He had no way of knowing the man would die, it was a freakish situation. THAT cop wasn't an asswipe, but he surely could have handled THAT situation better.
But the fact remains, the man had no weapon in his hands, and was not attacking anyone.
And you are not expected to comment, especially since you seem to be a bit biased here. Like I said, no profession is immune....
I am old enough to have personal knowledge or experience of a lawyer ripping off his own mother's assets, a dentist molesting female clients, another professional using his private plane to run drugs, and more... All supposedlly good people demonstrating bad judgement.
Tazer use has increased a lot in recent years, as more and more departments get them and form policy on their use, then revise that policy.
LE administrators love Tazers. I'll tell you why.
In my day we didn't have them. If someone declined to allow themselves to be arrested... well, we just had to wade in there and grab the guy and subdue him physically. There was never any way to tell how this was going to go, or more importantly how FAR it was going to go. The guy might decide to actively fight, or he might pull a concealed weapon... both cops and subjects got hurt quite often.
The Tazer, in many ways, makes it so much simpler (especially from a liability and admin viewpoint!) If the guy won't cooperate, you zap him and put the cuffs on. The damage done by the tazer is a known quantity, as is its liability profile. Perps suffer less harm, officers suffer less harm.... this cuts down on admin costs and expenses for medical treatment. From a Chief's perspective, or more importantly the perspective of the politicians and bureaucrats he has to answer to, this is like a gift from heaven.
So they use them frequently and enthusiastically. Maybe a little too enthusiastically sometimes, but it is hard to blame them considering that ON AVERAGE a lot fewer people get hurt with the Tazers.
The profile in that case was probably something like "mentally disturbed person, large and strong-looking, who is not responding to requests to cease movement and cooperate with being detained, equals Tazer." They would likely figure that grabbing him and trying to manhandle him would be more dangerous for both the officers and the subject... in most cases.
And the heck of it is, most of the time that is true.
