Today's Chuck Norris Fact:
Chuck Norris played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.
Recently, here in Colorado, a 22-year-old man was tasered while resisting arrest. Unlike most people who get tasered, he died as a result. There is a tremendous outcry from his family and friends, of course; they claim he was "gentle,""quiet,""demure," and that he probably didn't weigh more than "135 pounds." They claim excessive force was used, because he was "incapable of harming anyone." The entire incident is under investigation by the police department. The ACLU has called for an immediate halt to Taser use by Boulder County law enforcement officials until a full review of their use and effects can be performed. All the local news channels have picked up the story; one of them even demonstrated their convictions by providing personal interviews with teary-eyed friends of the deceased.
Now, here's the side of the police. The man, Ryan Michael Wilson, was placed under arrest while on a drug bust. Mr. Wilson was apparently living in a tent in the middle of a field where he was growing pot plants in a remote part of Lafayette (a northern suburb of Denver in Boulder County). The police approached him and asked about the plants, 11 marijuana plants in pots in the ground. (Pots AND in the ground? Someone who knows something about plants can explain that one to me.) He admitted he was responsible for growing them, and when they tried to arrest him, he became "assaultive" and tried to flee. At this time, one of the officers used his Taser on Mr. Wilson and he "was immediately incapacitated" and then "went into convulsions." Police called for emergency medical personnel "immediately". A spokesman for the department said the officer, John Harris, was "in fear for his life" when he used the Taser on Wilson. Also of interest, Wilson had a prior criminal record, with arrests for disorderly conduct and felony larceny. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday to determine the exact cause of death.
So, let me tell you what I see. A fully-grown man is caught breaking the law. When he is called to account, he becomes combative and attempts to get away (i.e., he knows that what he is doing is wrong and does not wish to pay for his crimes). To the officer's credit, whether he really was "in fear for his life" or not, he did the NON-LETHAL thing and pulled out his Taser. Officers in fear for their lives are fully authorized to pull their sidearm and use it to subdue a suspect. I do find it suspicious that if the officer feared for his life, he fired his Taser rather than his pistol. However, I was not witness to this, and again, he still chose the approved NON-LETHAL method to subdue Wilson. So let's be very clear on that point; the officer did NOT intend to kill or seriously injure Mr. Wilson. None of us were witnesses to the scene. Once the officer saw what was happening to the suspect after use of the Taser, he immediately called for an ambulance; again, he did not want the suspect seriously injured or killed.
I see Ryan Michael Wilson as responsible for his own death. This was a terrible, sad tragedy, one Officer Harris will have to carry around with him for the rest of his life. His parents, as well, will have to face the facts that they raised a son who made these kinds of bad decisions, with one that ultimately led to his death. Wilson made his decision and took his chances, and I find it difficult to have a great deal of sympathy for him.
The reactions to this incident are curious to me. As usual, the ACLU pipes right up, saying more restrictions are required on how and when police use their Tasers. The ACLU has had a hand in many arguments regarding police tactics and weapons over the last 20 years or so; they have worked to fight or greatly limit high-speed pursuits, they have worked to increase scrutiny and penalties in situations where officers have used their sidearms, and they constantly bicker regarding the legal procedures used in catching criminals. Now they are working to take one more weapon, and a non-lethal one, at that, out of the hands of the police. I don't find this surprising, and it certainly starts to clear the fog a bit about why the police are so much better at catching speeders and writing parking tickets than at solving or preventing serious crimes. Again, it all comes down to philosophy, that of the police and that of society in general. If we expect them to fight crime but don't give them acceptable weapons, if we put more weight on the rights of the "innocent", even when they're caught red-handed, we will continue to have the same ineffective, ineffectual, inconsistent system of justice that we have today.
Something else that interests me, particularly about the reaction of his family and friends, is that they have said nothing about the prior record of the deceased, or the fact that he was unfortunately killed while resisting arrest for another crime. Now, knowing the Boulder area, where the lad was from, I'm not at all astonished. The man was growing pot, part of Boulder's lifeblood. Take pot away from Boulder, and you might actually have a rational, civilized town. Of course, most Boulder residents, and Wilson's friends and family as well, probably don't see growing marijuana as a "real" crime. However, whether you agree or not, it's against the law. Fight the law, not those who enforce the law, particularly for something relatively serious. As I said, I generally favor legalization and regulation of illicit drugs, but the law is the law, and right now, drugs are against the law. And drugs are much more serious than speeding or parking illegally.
The bigger question is, can Tasers be considered non-lethal? In certain situations, particularly where drugs are involved, Tasers have caused deaths. The issue should probably be examined, and perhaps procedures could be changed. However, I feel it's ridiculous to do a knee-jerk reaction and say they should be heavily restricted, at least not without providing some other sufficiently strong non-lethal means of subduing criminals. A gun that fires directed jets of incapacitating but non-lethal nerve gas, for example, similar to Mace but more focused on paralyzing the suspect. I would say that we should teach our police more kung-fu or require a heavier martial arts background before admitting candidates for the police department, but I would then be concerned that the ACLU would attempt to ban the use of martial arts in subduing criminals.
Perhaps someone somewhere can explain to me why women seem to enjoy going barefoot so much. Particularly during the summer, it doesn't matter the time or the place or the situation, women at rest will just whip off the ol' shoes at any opportunity. When I worked in downtown Denver, I would go out during the summer and see ladies sitting out along the 16th Street Mall, in their nice dresses and other workwear, minus their shoes. I routinely see young females here in Boulder, most of them probably college students, walking the sidewalks shoeless. Come on, ladies, what's the deal? Are all of your shoes really that uncomfortable? Or are most women genetically addicted to not wearing shoes? I'm not inclined to believe this last one, knowing from living with women how addictive BUYING shoes seems to be for most women. Maybe women are addicted to buying shoes, and addicted to not wearing them, and this is somehow some part of the punishment for listening to that stupid serpent and taking the apple in the Garden of Eden.
Let me see...here's Genesis 3:16:
To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.
Your desire will also be to buy shoes,
Yet you will detest to wear them."
Well, not really....
Thanks for reading along.
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