Welcome back warriors, in today’s topic we are going to go for a two-fold item. What I mean is we will be talking about the use of force and mental health. So I found a video titled Virginia cop Charged after bodycam footage shows him repeatedly use a Taser on a man. Spoiler alert he definitely tased him a lot.
So as you can see in the video the first officer on the scene is dealing with a man that is clearly suffering from a mental illness of some sort. The man is heard saying he needs to go to detox. So at this point, things are ok the officer trying to keep the guy calm, and bam here comes super cop out of and just tases the guy. (F.Y.I. I don’t think that dude was a super cop. In this author’s opinion he seems to be affected by mental illness himself, probably due to steroids.) After he tased him the first time you could tell the first officer on the scene was confused. You can clearly hear him ask if he did that because the guy was wanted. But the initial officer did not get an answer to his question. So I’m going to assume he wasn’t. It is important to remember that unless there is an imminent threat to the officers, the man, or the general public, said officers must first try to deescalate the situation. This is something that the second officer totally disregarded. Honestly, the second officer showing up to the scene like he did put everybody there at risk. Ok, so you get it, deescalate if you can, and always use the least amount of force to accomplish your mission.
Well unfortunately the situation was escalated when the officer tased the guy. So at this point what do you do? Well now you have a fight on your hands, so you got to get in there and try to restrain this aggravated suspect now. And that is exactly what everybody did officers and E.M.S. as well. At this point, you might wonder where the excessive force comes in. Is it when they keep tasing him? Maybe. Once again it is my opinion that the exessive force comes in as soon as the initial tase happens. After that, well I think everyone did what they had to do to get the suspect under control. With the exception of tasing him again and again. obviously, that was not helping with getting the suspect to comply.
Now if you take anything away from this it should be that 1. deescalate if possible. 2. Use your ladder of force. Just don’t roll up and tase a person.
This wraps up today’s blog. As always comments and questions are welcome. And remember to stay safe out there.
