Are there any societal expectations that apply here?
Yes. Our genitally challenged wizard has a societally based moral obligation to conform to basic standards of decency as well as probably a legal obligation to abide by laws which codify those standards. And the officers are obligated to pursue every means possible before using even the "non-lethal" force of a tazer. It seems to me likely that these officers tried for some time before this particular video starts to get the man to put his clothes back on and we know from the video that they tried at least a few times to hand the man his clothes and get him to put them back on. When he refuses and they make a clumsy, half hearted attempt to take the man into custody they immediately and suddenly escalate to one of the more brutal tazings I have ever seen. There is a trigger on those things and all you have to do is release the trigger to stop the flow of current. The officer applying the current keeps the tazer activated continuously for 40 to 45 seconds. You can hear the electricity crackling down the wires (btw, this makes for a spectacular display in the dark). I would think that these three officers, overweight as they seem to be, could take down one flabby 30 something hippie spouting platitudes about how beautiful everything is if they made a concerted effort or had any training at all in joint locks or jujitsu or some such discipline. For fuck's sake, two of these guys could not get him to turn over on his face? My guess is that they were repulsed by the whole thing and were unable to get past their latent homosexual tendencies and were therefore afraid to touch the guy. Perfect. Look carefully at the way the officer that does the tazing looks as he makes that choice and draws his tazer. Does he look to you like he just thought, " alright, fucker. If you're not going to cooperate then I'll just taze the hell out of you until you do". Officers should never be using a tazer in a punitive fashion. It should be a second to last resort, just short of using deadly force. Lazy, fat, incompetent and sadistic bastards.
...say I decided to go to your favorite grocery store, drop some X and disrobe. Your all OK with that then?
No, and you ask as though you think there is reason to believe more than one of the members that has posted in this thread so far would answer yes to that question.
Your children wouldn't mind?
I can't say as I don't have children, but depending on their age I presume they would be curious and perhaps a bit scarred by the whole incident, not least of which as a result of what would undoubtedly become quite an emotional scene. Parents would probably be going berserk, children would be crying, a store security guard and perhaps a couple of hero type male patrons would tackle you and hold you down until the police arrived. I'd argue that we would all live in a better world if we didn't get so freaked out over mere nudity, but society being what it is it's reasonable to expect that people abide by it's norms and this guy certainly should not be the poster child for an absolution of bodily shame.
when an exercise in personal freedom step on the rights of others a should a line be drawn
Agreed. And when the cops overreact and brutalize a human being, a line should be drawn.
Who knows what the guy was on. He was clearly out of his mind.
I think Xtasy is probably a good guess, but you're right... we can't know and the cops could not know either. It is not unfair to take into consideration the fact that the wizard was behaving in a way that was consistent with intoxication on some substance or another when assessing the officers' decision to escalate to the level of force of a tazer. Certain drugs can give otherwise ordinary human beings superhuman strength and ability to tolerate pain. People in such a state can be very dangerous, even to three well armed, burly cops. Nonetheless, I think these officers should have made a much more serious attempt to take this guy into custody physically before resulting to a tazer. No doubt a lawyer could make the argument that the use of the tazer was in fact intended to prevent the injuries that might have otherwise occurred if the officers had continued to try to subdue the guy physically. Maybe so, but not if these donut eating sadistic slobs had any sort of professionalism.
And you would personally guarantee, on this turds behalf, that he would cause no harm to others?
I can't imagine anyone would answer yes to that. In fact, I would probably give this guy a fairly wide berth. He seems harmless enough though and most of the crowd seems unafraid for their safety. For that matter, the cops do not really look the least intimidated. Rather, they look pretty relaxed.
I understand your point of view, but I stand by the statement that using a taser on this guy was grossly excessive.
At what point should police officers, performing a public safety function, put themselves (and possibly others) in harms way
After when they did and if they do not want to put themselves in harm's way then they should have picked another profession.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.
