Suppose it took more than 5 seconds for you to set up your phone to record a police officer. Does that give the police officer the right to arrest you and tase you?
Did you not watch the video? He's constantly messing with the phone, even when he's down on the ground about to be cuffed.
This doesn't answer my inquiries about how using a phone constitutes a reasonable threat or even a reasonable suspicion. Revise my hypothetical situation involving YOU and and 5 seconds of phone interaction and adjust the time upwards because the time is unconsequential. Suppose a police officer is talking to you for 15 minutes and you are using your phone for the entire time because your old phone technology only allows you to record 30 second clips at a time. Is that suspicious? Is that a threat to the officer? In most cases the answer is clearly no.
Throughout this entire thread you have been insisting that the version of events that you have pictured in your mind must be true and factual because to you they are the most likely explanation for the evidence we do have. But examine what the officer said about the cell phone. He thought that the boy could have been calling for backup to threaten the officer's safety. Is that the most likely reason for a person to be using their cellphone during a traffic stop? No. It's not in the top 10 reasons Family Feud would list as a reason to use a phone during a traffic stop. This one quote from the officer may indicate that he has serious paranoia problems.
It is unreasonable for police officers to escalate traffic stops to violence and tasing because people are using cell phones.
I know you disagree with me about this, but ask yourself: Why do I grant the police so much freedom to violate your body over such flimsy excuses?
I was using my cell phone but he didn't know I wasn't calling in a hit on him so I deserved the tasing. I was reaching for my reading glasses but he didn't know that I wasn't reaching for a hand grenade so I deserved to be slammed into the asphault. Etc.
If the officer hears the boy say out loud into the phone "There's a police officer here with me on route 9, please send the gang to help me take him out," he could reasonably conclude that the boy was a threat. The officer may not presume that every outgoing message is a coded threat just because the boy is texting and the officer can't see what he's texting. The threshold needed for officers to investigate a crime is reasonable suspicion. A paranoia that every outgoing text message is a threatening request for a posse to come attack the officer does not meet the "reasonable" threshold.
He's describing the situation--that's really all that's needed if he's talking to someone of such a mindset. The phone can be traced by someone with access to the account.
You clearly think people routinely call in hitmen to execute police officers during traffic stops. You may ignore what I wrote to you above. Introspection may not be as helpful to you as I hoped.
As for a backup taser--you still don't get it. Tasers aren't self-defense weapons, period! They sometimes see use in a standoff, otherwise they're a compliance tool.
You don't have to treat a taser as a self defense weapon to want to have a back up. They are single use weapons and there are a lot of people out there.
The point is that you are suggesting it's use as a self-defense weapon. That's why I'm saying you don't get it. It's not a matter of whether he has a backup or not. (And there's basically no reason to carry two, anyway. Tasers are single-shot but reloadable--pop a new cartridge on and it's good to go.)
No the problem here is that you assume that the missing 10 seconds of video footage consists entirely of "self defence situations" when you have no objective evidence of what happened during those 10 seconds. I'll say it again. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I know you think you know. But you really don't. You don't know if the two were flung apart after first contact leaving one of them dazed and the other one prone on the ground (It doesn't matter which. The ensuing tragedy could happen either way) You don't know if one of Michigan's infamous black squirrels (considered bad luck by the superstitious) jumped onto the Officer's face while the boy was tripping over the mound where Jimmy Hoffa was buried.
You assume the boy attacked and they were engaged in close combat only because you trust authority figures nearly blindly.
OMG, You don't know that they were at extremely close range because there is no objective evidence as to what happened during those 10 seconds. So many assumptions you have! There ARE situations where pepper spray is preferable to a taser! I know it and you know it. Those missing 10 seconds could have contained one of those situations because again, we have no objective evidence as to what happened.
We know he was being injured in those 10 seconds--the kid had no ranged weapon so that means they were at contact range for a good portion of the time.
We actually don't see the Sgt. get injured in any portion of the video so we have no objective evidence as to what injured him or when he was injured. The officer's injuries could be self-inflicted, during or after the shooting. They could be accidental injuries sustained from a fall. Again, We don't know. You don't know.
Calling it "confusion" doesn't make it not resistance.
You seriously don't think police should make allowances for confused citizens? Citizens who are deaf? Citizens who don't speak English? Citizens with mental disabilities? Citizens who recently recieved a concussion? Citizens who are near death? Citizens who are simply confused? All of these people should be tased into pain-compliance when they don't immediately follow the commands of police officers?
No--I'm saying that keep pretending his resistance was due to confusion. The only thing he might actually have been confused about was getting face down rather than just kneeling.
I take this response to mean that you DO believe that police officers should make some allowances for confusion. Well that's some small example of compassion. Good for you.
But in this case that allowance was irrelevant because the video demonstrates active resistance with no possible component of confusion.
No possible confusion in someone who just had someone pull a weapon on him and threaten him, kick his phone out of his hands and twist his arm behind his back only to then insist that he put his arms behind his back. That must happen every day for this kid so of course he knew exactly what was going on and exactly what the officer expected from him. I see now that confusion was impossible in this situation.
