This is a very weak attempt to appeal to authority...
You're right, I should have replied to Gumboot's original attack on my competence to draw conclusions from the video with "that's a fallacy, knock it off", rather than allow the thread to turn into a keyboard commando competition.
There were punches thrown in the beginning of the video. The officers then tried to wrestle the attackers. The video then shows the injured officer trying to wrestle someone obviously stronger then him and pulling out the taser. And then the attack from behind.
I did miss that at first - the man tasered did throw a couple of body punches. Can you give the exact timestamp, if you can see anyone else throwing punches? I just looked at the video again and could not see any.
It seems to me based on what I can see that the police on the scene agreed with me that the situation was not terribly dangerous, rather than agreeing with the JREF keyboard commandos who are arguing with hindsight that this was a terribly dangerous situation. The police didn't get out gas or tasers except to deal with the one guy who I can see throwing punches, and only then after attempts to restrain him were going nowhere.
As I see it the police were behaving entirely appropriately. They were dealing with mild, unarmed violence with mild, unarmed violence, and then they upped the ante to a mostly-non-lethal weapon when that wasn't getting results.
They just didn't know that they were trying to electrocute someone with a heart condition. So from their point of view they were using mostly-non-lethal and appropriate force. From the son's point of view they were using lethal force, and he responded to that perception. According to the 60 minutes story that was in fact his legal defence, that he was responding to the use of the taser and that he feared for his father's life.
The taser was an appropriate response, the flying headbutt was not. He could have held the police, shouted that his father has a heart condition, put himself in front of the taser, etc, etc... He chose a dangerous attack that paralyzed a man.
I agree that tasering the father who was throwing punches was entirely reasonable, given the existing guidelines for taser use as I understand them. The issue is whether it's reasonable to headbutt a police officer who is apparently in the process of electrocuting one's father who has a heart condition. Generally speaking my understanding of the law is that the use of reasonable force up to and including lethal force can be defended on the basis that you are defending someone else from a credible risk of being killed.
That's why I think the jury's finding, based on what we know at the moment, is not totally ridiculous. I wasn't on the jury or present at the brawl so I'm not claiming any special knowledge, but I think the people claiming this ruling was totally off the wall are just venting their emotions rather than expressing an opinion based on any understanding of the law.
Few years back a guy here died after receiving a single fairly soft punch to the head during a road-rage incident after a near accident. Single half-hearted punch was enough to knock him down, where he hit his head. Bam. Dead.
You simply cannot afford to dismiss any physical violence as harmless. Particularly not if you're being exposed to it on a daily basis. All it takes is one unlucky blow and it's all over.
You do realise this is exactly the argument-form used by the most brain-dead postmodernists?
Almost any violence is potentially lethal, yes. However it does
not follow from this that it's intelligent to treat throwing a fist the same way we treat firing a machine gun. You can still make useful differentiations, and you can still condemn someone for using a degree of force (with corresponding degree of risk) that is inappropriate.
Let me fix this next bit for you, fixed bits in bold:
I find it quite disturbing that people are attempting to dismiss this violence against the police as of no consequence. That's a sure sign that your society has a major issue with violence. Once it's okay to bash Police officers who are tasering people with heart conditions, it becomes okay to bash anyone who is tasering someone with a heart condition.
Oh no, it's the end of civilisation!
If Robert McLeod had a "dicky heart," why was he out drinking alcohol with his sons, and getting all riled up and fighting in the first place?
I would guess it's because he's an idiot.
Idiot's lives, however, are just as protected under the law as the lives of law-abiding and sensible people.
Cite your evidence that Robert McLeod's heart attack was the result of being shot with a TASER. I'm aware deaths have resulted when a TASER was used, but I haven't seen definitive evidence to show that a TASER was the sole cause of anyone's death. It may be a contributing factor and/or the sole factor, but one needs to understand how a suspect was subdued and/or restrained, if they had drugs or alcohol in their system, or had a pre-existing medical condition making them susceptible to a heart attack. Robert McLeod's heart attack could have happened independent of the TASER.
Proving that any A caused B in the past is practically impossible, especially for a B like a heart attack that, for all we know, could have happened at exactly the same time even if he had been having a nap at home.
However that's not the point at issue. The point at issue is whether it was reasonable to think that tasering him could cause a heart attack. If that's reasonable, then treating a taser as a threat of lethal force is therefore reasonable.
For someone who claims an interest in violence and the academic study of it, you seem to be ignorant of how quickly violence can escalate.
We have to deal with reality, not with what reality could have been.
If you feel no one could get hurt as a result of "roughhousing," how come Constable Matt Butcher ended up partially paralyzed and about half-blind?
Because both sides escalated the use of force beyond roughhousing.
