Demon Clown Baby

A woman in a wheelchair was tasered 10 times, and died.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield’s death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

“One, she’s in a wheelchair. Two, she’s schizophrenic. Three, they’re using a Taser on a person that’s in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes,” Alexander said.

Why do people persist in thinking it’s okay to use tasers whenever they want? Because they are supposedly non-lethal?

People can die because of tasers. There have been plenty of incidents.

That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be used. But they should only be used when the alternative is using a gun.

Before tasers, police had a baton and handcuffs, or they had a gun. Nothing in between. If they couldn’t subdue someone with physical force, if the person was dangerous, they’d use the gun to kill.

Tasers are a better way, because they let the police subdue dangerous people (usually) without killing them.

If someone charges the police with a knife, and they get tasered and live, great. If they get tasered and die, well, if the cop didn’t have a taser, they’d be dead from bullet wounds anyway.

The problem is when cops use tasers for things they would ordinarily use their batons and cuffs for. Women in wheelchairs come to mind. Obstinate women at traffic stops refusing to exit the vehicle are another. Grab ‘em and put the cuffs on them. If they resist, slap ‘em around, use the baton, they shouldn’t be resisting. But taser them and they die? It’s out of proportion.

The problem is cops buy into the “non-lethal” idea of a taser and think they can just use it whenever. It’s more properly called “less lethal” because it kill less often than gunshot wounds.

Then again there is the fact that the taser can be used to basically torture people. When do you cross the line between “pain inflicted in order to subdue someone” and “pain inflicted as punishment for resisting arrest.” Of course people are often tased for not obeying an officer’s commands, before they are even told they are under arrest.

Why don’t we hold the police accountable when they kill people in easily preventable ways?