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OC Is Strong With the Force!
- Thread starter Dammy
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As long as it's the bad guy on the floor, it's a beautiful thing.
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What a stupid story. It starts of with the headline:
Man wearing Darth Vader mask attacked trooper
Unprovoked attack occurred near Orlando construction site, officials say
so let's read the story and see what happened.
Apparently this drunk guy was in the street and when the trooper "asked" him to get out of the road so he attacked the officer by verbal insults and by lying down. From this dangerous lying down position the evil Darth Vader "attemtped to punch and kick the trooper" so the trooper logically had to taze and pepper him.
Look at the video and the street is full of flashing light vehicles and half a dozen troopers getting him off the road. That's an expensive way to get someone of the road. Huge Fail - and huge fail on the reporting too.
Looks like someone was playing the "provoke a dope" game to justify the spending of tax dollars.
Man wearing Darth Vader mask attacked trooper
Unprovoked attack occurred near Orlando construction site, officials say
so let's read the story and see what happened.
Apparently this drunk guy was in the street and when the trooper "asked" him to get out of the road so he attacked the officer by verbal insults and by lying down. From this dangerous lying down position the evil Darth Vader "attemtped to punch and kick the trooper" so the trooper logically had to taze and pepper him.
Look at the video and the street is full of flashing light vehicles and half a dozen troopers getting him off the road. That's an expensive way to get someone of the road. Huge Fail - and huge fail on the reporting too.
Looks like someone was playing the "provoke a dope" game to justify the spending of tax dollars.
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In my professional experience, past a certain point of inebriation drunks tend to do dopey crap without provocation being necessary on any level. The mere act of asking them to do something, no matter how polite will result in child like refusals and, more often than not, violent resistance to any attempt to enforce requests.
These people simply cannot be reasoned with.
These people simply cannot be reasoned with.
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Correct. That is why you have to trick them. As soon as you try to order them or ask them to comply with some request of yours you are starting to lose because they are starting to win by not complying. That's why you don't want to get into that cycle. Once you've established that it's going to take more tricks than you have in your bag you call in some guys to help you and just outnumber and overpower the guy. Tasers, pepper spray and guns just make officers feel more powerful than they are and these "tools" end up getting used inappropriately or vindictively.
I think one of the things that an article in another thread said was the difference in vantage point between "peace officer" and "law enforcer". The former is a problem solver but the latter is just hired muscle to get people to comply by whatever force necessary.
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Certainly, I think the taser was uncalled for. They shouldn't be using that for such a case. It should only be used in a case where you may consider using your firearm (ie, someone's life is in immediate danger). The point to a taser should be to save lives (by not having to shoot them with bullets) and not to make the cops life easier.
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Meanwhile, back on earth we realise that "tricking" them isn't always (in fact I'd go as far to say rarely once you go past a certain point of inebriation) an option and indeed when under the influence the mere presence of someone in uniform (any uniform, it has to be said) is a "provocation" to violence or non compliance. It's why paramedics and nurses are amongst the most commonly assaulted groups of a weekend.
Again, not always possible to call in backup ahead of time. Those tools are there to protect the officers who are dealing in the case of a violent drunkard the effective equivalent of someone with little or no inhibitions with impaired reasoning and depending on the person, various states of coordination. What you've written so far amounts to a mix of best case and wishful thinking so far, to be clear, the average fight takes less than 20 seconds and is usually over in less than a half dozen blows, with the most serious injuries occurring within the first few.
Before I go on, I have to ask, what is your level of training and experience in dealing with the chemically afflicted on a Friday night?
Many similar ariticles make similar comments, I'd be curious as to how many of them have ever been out with the police or even on the doors to see the by worst society does to itself of a weekend. I notice that fundies play on this same ignorance when they play the eeeew card in showing pictures of abortions.
With few exceptions, most police are both peace officer and enforcer of said peace and which side they have to use is down to the situation and the law as it stands. On the doors you have a different rule set but with fewer powers and the many more laws governing your actions (not to mention venue specific policies which may or may not work in your favour).
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I was only going by the article. The first thing the guy did was to lie down in the street. Right at that point you have all the clues you need that he is well in his cups plus he is also currently harmless and at a disadvantage if he wants to try something. I just assumed that the trooper had a car he could put in the street for the sake of traffic control and then he could call in his buddies.It's not clear from the article that any attack took place until the officer tried to haul the guy to his feet. He had a pretty safe (personal) situation except for traffic and could have waited for backup.
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Ah yeah, FHP back up should be there in an hour, oh wait, here comes a semi, slooooow doooown, oh too late. Oh man, there goes a pile of paperwork a foot high, and a finger or two at that. And then the law suits will hit.
Bull cookies. Jedi mind tricks are not apart of the state law enforcement job description. Moment the drunk start to resist with violence, all bets are off and anything under lethal force is good to go as per FDLE use of force regulations. Let me guess, you rather had the Trooper whip out the old ASP and go to town while in the middle of the street at 2:30am? Trooper has the idiot's and his own safety in mind and that idiot has to be brought under control.
There are no "peace officer" in Florida to be best of my knowledge. That was a Trooper who got the idiot under control without killing him or causing serious injury, job well done.
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That's at least one criminal offense, most likely two, depending on Darth Vader said to the Trooper.
Absolutely, that is the the training calls for. Minimize the possible injury to the subject. Tazer is the best, OC is party on spray, then there is the ASP.
It was the procedure that is spelled out repeatedly in training, Trooper performed his training properly.
What tax money? Troopers were all on the clock, so it's covered. I'm guessing they didn't arrest the idiot until after he was about to be released from the hospital so FHP doesn't have to pay for the hospital bill.
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This is Orlando area, they drive like idiots so putting a car in the way may not work and the subject might get up and flee into traffic, the entire road would be shut down to protect the idiot if they had multiple units on scene at the time. Second, neither you nor I nor the Trooper had any idea that on his arrival, he was able to detect if the subject was drunk and not suffering from mental disorders or drug overdose, or a combination of all the above. PCP is an extremely dangerous drug that can give a person super human strength or capabilities ( like continue to fight with a bullet in the heart for a minute or more until the brain fully shuts down from lack of blood/O2). FHP backup, might be an hour away.
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You seem to be arguing against yourself by bringing PCP into it. The guy was lying down and therefore was no immediate danger to the officer. If he IS on PCP then the officer should not go near him without sufficient back up because pepper spray isn't going to do anything. The tazer should work but he's going to have to take his finger off the trigger to get the cuffs on and then you are back to a PCP freak you can't control. A guy on PCP requires more manpower (or lethal force).
That is a problem with the FHP. Perhaps they should be more responsive to the need to support their troopers. But, as to that response time -
Isn't that the same amount of time the trooper had to sit on that cuffed guy in the middle of the street before all those other services in the video showed up to cart him off? Hmmm. I guess those guys are fire fighters. Perhaps they should take over from the troopers as they seem to be able to get anywhere fast.