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Zapping An Old Guy
You can look at the story from every angle possible, but there is no defense of the RCMP in this case.
Using a taser on an 82 year old man connected to oxygen, who just had by-pass surgery, while he was lying in his hospital bed is unconscionable and inexcusable.
Not one, not two but three RCMP officers were in the Kamloops hospital room at the time of the incident.
He had become delusional and grabbed a butter knife, so nurses called police, and then the "yahoo brigade" went into action.
This does not help the image of police and does not go far in defending their use of tasers in other legitimate cases.
I am still picking my jaw up from the floor after hearing about this news story.
As a nurse who works in mental health and has had to be involved in physical takedowns and restraining of dangerous and threatening indiviuals there were a number of other strategies the officers could have and should have used.
It was a butter knife. He was in a hospital bed attached to oxygen and most likely both bed rails raised. He was not coming after them and therefore did not pose an iminent threat. They could have attempted to deescalate him by chatting with him for awhile even if he is delusionl this is sometimes possible. They could have distracted him by making a loud noise or throwing something. They could have thrown a blanket(s) over him as a barrier between them and the knife. So many alternatives were available to the handling of this scenario. I am interested to see how the rest of this story plays out.
omg what was he going to do jam them with it? (pun intended) ~ really you mean to tell me they could not have just held him down and gave him a sedative. And regardless of what kind of mindstate he was in I am sure that's what negotiators are for, or did anyone think a simple phone call to a family member might be effective...
Ban Tasers.
If it's a serious offense just shoot the bad guys with real guns.
Cops would be much less apt to shoot if they knew the consequences were going to land them in hot water.
It seems the police are becoming more reluctant to get in a scuffle so it's a lot easier to just "tase" the offender rather than subdue them by traditional means.
Is this story for real?! This sounds like a Reno 911 skit! Three times no less!! I'm still undecided about the use of tasers for reasons like this. I know that officers need as much protection/enforcement as possible, but I think tasers are giving them a false sense of power, causing them to misjudge situations like this one.
It's appearing more and more that the RCMP detachements in BC. are giving their Constables carte-blanche on the deployment of their Taser sidearms.
thank god they had tasers and not revolvers!
I missed where it was a butter knife. It said knife.
This was obviously brute force and again the situation was not properly evaluated. These guys probably thought, the rules say we can taser if he has a knife, so taser we go!
It is simillar to the guy getting gunned down in NY before his wedding. The cops thought they could use deadly force and they did and shot 60 times. No gun was found but these guys were innocent. And people wonder why so many people don't trust the police anymore.
Once was too many ...but 3 TIMES!!..they should be dismissed immediately!...
Tasers should be banned! They are often in the hands of people who have poor judgement and people (who are not threatening others with death) die who otherwise would be still alive.
Oh goodness... I can't believe this.
These people in BC are going crazy with their tasers, aren't they? If that man was in a hospital bed having just had bypass surgery hooked up to oxygen then he wasn't going to be moving fast so there was absolutely no reason to taser him. This story is just scary... It makes me wonder what they might have done if they had have had guns.
Is it possible, even remotely, that hiring practices for emergency services has become so focussed on political correctness that they aren`t always hiring the best suited for the jobs?
Hey Fred ..we're new and so are you ..good luck..we link you up on our messageboard daily and we talk about your website daily!
Good Luck Man...2 guys north of Toronto who own a microphone and a visa card.
Big Daddy & Newfie Don
I wrote a post about this on my own blog and actually had some guy comment that I've obviously never had a knife pulled on me. He went on to say that 3 officers couldn't have subdued the old man because one of them may have been stabbed. Um yeah ok. The guy is lying on his back, he's in his 80's and he's hooked up to oxygen. You're telling me nobody' can grab an arm or knock the knife away from him? Please. I'd hate to see how these officers would have reacted in the days before Tasers came along.