Some Savannah-Chatham Police officers will soon have a new weapon at the ready, designed to help keep the peace.
The Savannah City Council approved buying 57 new tasers for officers.
That supplements the number of tasers already in use.
Trainers say just having this “non-lethal” weapon at the ready makes a difference.
“A lot of officers that are having the tasers are carrying them on the street right now, their feeling is they see the suspect’s eyes go down to their belt and see their taser and their whole demeanor changes,” explains Gary Taylor, SCMPD Training Director. “It gives them an added tool on their belt to use instead of going hands on with someone and when we don’t go hands on with someone we reduce suspect injuries and we reduce other injuries. Helps the officers and their confidence dealing with situations that they have the tools to that we give them options. We give them multiple options to handle multiple situations.”
Only officers with two or more years of experience are allowed to carry the tasers, and they first have to go through crisis intervention training to identify who is a threat, and when to use the high voltage weapons.
via New Tasers For Savannah-Chatham Police | WSAV TV.
First question: Why is “non-lethal” in quotation marks? (Now if the new anchor woman had hooked her fingers as quotation marks when she used the term, that would have been wonderful!)
The reporter should have at least thought about the issue when he put in those quotation marks. And he should have made it a part of the story. All he’d need to do is google news and he would have found evidence that tasers can be fatal and lots of evidence that they are abused.
But the reporter already knows they can be abused; that is what he says they are for.
Think of it. Normally, a cop will only get into a confrontation with a “suspect” (which is what exactly?) if he thinks it is worth the risk. But we can’t have that. We need to give the cop an extra tool so that he is quicker to respond.
I’m not denying it is theoretically possible for a taser to be used properly and help a policeman do what needs to be done. I’m saying that 1. The media is full of reports of egregious abuse and holding police accountable seems rare; and 2. that if the media is not interested in putting highly relevant information in front of the public when doing this kind of story, then I don’t think the police are going to feel much need to act responsibly.
Reading this puff peace is like watching Mirror, Mirror, only with Kirk not noticing that Spock is now sporting a goatee.
No it is worse. Because this journalist is writing ad copy for Spock’s agonizer.
To mix scifi references:
No, Padme, not even applause. Just an unnoticeable press release.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” –George Orwell.
