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We all saw the videos of University of Florida student Andrew Meyer being Tased repeatedly by security at a speech given by former presidential candidate John Kerry. A search for the word “Taser” on YouTube yields a plethora of results demonstrating the use of Tasers by police and security personnel on citizens. According to Amnesty International, from June 2001 to June 2007, there were 245 incidents of death after being Tased. The issue deserves serious consideration.
There are several problems with the ways we’ve seen Tasers used. First off, there is a serious variable in every situation where use of force may be warranted – the suspect’s health. It is impossible to know ahead of time whether or not a person has any sort of condition that would result in a serious risk of injury or death as a result of being Tased. In most cases, Tasers are used not for self-defense or to deter the subject from using force, but to gain compliance. It is simply not acceptable to risk serious bodily injury or death in order to gain compliance. Patience should be the virtue of the day in these situations, not haste.
Aside from the inherent unknown health risks, the appropriate use of “non-lethal” or “less-lethal” weaponry should be put under scrutiny as well. Non-lethal weaponry should be used in place of lethal weaponry, not as a pre-cursor to it. In other words, police and security personnel should not use “less-lethal” force in any situation that does not warrant the use of lethal force. They should only use the force available to them in situations where their own safety or the safety of others is in clear, direct and immediate danger.
However, this is not what we’ve seen in countless news reports and amateur videos. What we’ve seen is police and security personnel using less-lethal weaponry in situations where they were at no risk whatsoever, simply to gain compliance. This kind of power should be used in self-defense or the defense of others – not just to make an officer’s job easier.
I want it to be known that I am not against the use of less-lethal force or even lethal force by officers when the situation calls for it. That being said, the power of police and security personnel is given legitimacy by the consent of the people that they are supposed to “serve and protect.”
When that power is exercised against civilians, the officer or officers should be put under the finest-lens microscope that the people have at their disposal in order to determine that said exercise of power was called for. If it is found that it wasn’t completely necessary, then that officer should be charged for the same crime that another civilian would be charged with, because his use of power was not legitimate. Let those who have the means of lethal force be made to defend their use of it, instead of leaving the burden of proving the abuse of power on the shoulders of the victims.
The use of less-lethal force by officers against civilians when it is clearly unnecessary is at best a case of terrible misjudgment on the part of the police, and at worst a blatant abuse of the power that “We, the people” give legitimacy to. Until the best possible checks of that power are in place to prevent its abuse, maybe “We, the people” should be more concerned with taking away some of that legitimacy and less concerned with buying “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” T-shirts.
Mario Moretto is a third-year international affairs major with a concentration in anthropology.
