http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/16/police-shoot-man-with-taser

I think this is just plain awful and a beautiful reminder of the amount of power the police have gained in this country at the expense of our human rights.

Definitely not. It's one thing to forcibly detain someone because they are being unruly/resisting arrest, but it's another thing to be overly forceful and seemly enjoying it.

The problem is, we don't see the run-up to this. If he had been violent, before they got him on the ground, the taser might have been called for. Without knowing the full facts, I wouldn't like to condem the officers concerned.

It is possible that they overreacted, but from the video you cannot tell.

remember the police force will use force to police and all Police Officers Lie In Court Expertly …

They showed the footage on the news last night - I think the head punches seemed rather over the top. By that time he had been subdued.

I agree with the headpunches might be OTT, but the whole situation has been taken out of context, where is the video of the beginning of the incident?

Not having seen the incident on video I can't comment, but I'd have to agree with Dave on this. Do we really know the full story?

There's a little more background on the Beeb site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nott ... 101763.stm



From the footage, the man is obviously either drunk, drugged or both, and is quite a hefty fellow. If four officers couldn't hold him down to cuff him, then use of the taser may have been justified. As the story says, no-one has made a complaint and Notts Police have voluntarily submitted the case to the relevant authorities.

*shrug*

Really?

Once is enough. The guy's on the floor and a second round of electricity is clearly unnecessary. He's not going anywhere. Also, whatever he did to police officers or other people earlier doesn't justify being beaten. The police are paid and trained to deal with people like this. Just because one of them gets beaten, doesn't make it ok for their colleagues to exact revenge on the perp.

Am I surprised given the state of this country? No. Am I appalled? Yes.

Well, yes, I found it appalling, too.

But when you watch the footage it doesn't actually come across as all that aggressive on the behalf of the officers. At one point, two officers are trying to hold the man on the ground to get handcuffs on him, but he just rolls over and takes them with him.

While I don't like to see excessive force used by anyone, if four officers couldn't subdue the bloke what else could they do? It's not like they could pull out their .38s and hold them to his head, is it?!

On the one level, I agree that our police "service" now seems to revel - if the press is to be believed - in oppression. On another level, if one of your colleagues had been assaulted and you were trying to arrest a drunk and disorderly on suspicion of grievous bodily harm, and D&D is resisting, you need to use sufficient force to get control of the situation before the crowd (that rapidly gathered) turns ugly.

Hence my *shrug*. Going on the evidence we have, I can't make a value judgement either way.

wimpy cops sorry pigs who cant take a single man down with their own hands, cowardly cowardly pigs

I suspect most police officers could take a man down on their own. However, it would invariably involve a pretty vicious fight and substantial injury to both sides. Overwhelming force is vastly better for subduing someone with minimal injury to either side.

Decent equipment helps as well! My brother was invalided out of the force 2 weeks into his probation period, trying to get a prisoner out of the back of a 3 door patrol car!

Here at least they have to be 4/5 door, or more usually a Bully wagon (VW Transporter).

+1

Well I think there are too many of these kind of videos doing the rounds at the moment. Regardless of what happened before, two rounds of tazing and pounding a guy in the head are never justified in my view.

If one of my colleagues had been injured, I would be angry sure, but that doesn't give me the right to let that anger cloud my judgement. These people are supposed to be there to protect and serve US, not to beat us up. In that regard, the circumstances should be less relevant.