TASED & CONFUSED: The video of a UCLA student being Tasered by police after refusing to show ID at a campus computer lab made a big splash on YouTube and major news outlets a few weeks ago. Locally, police officers routinely use the Taser because it is a non-lethal (but still damn effective) method of restraining dangerous suspects. For example, on Nov. 15, two officers located a man suspected of several parole violations. The suspect initially gave a false name, but when the cops matched his face to a picture he "violently resisted their attempts to take him into custody." At one point, both officers and the suspect ended up on the ground fighting, and at another the suspect "was able to break free and a brief foot chase ensued." The chase ended electrically for the suspect, as the officers used the Taser to take him into custody.
TASE OF OUR LIVES: Two incidents of Taser use from Oct. 28. In the first, officers in unmarked cars spotted two young men sitting in a car on Clifton Avenue in Tampa. Per the report: "Officers smelled burnt marijuana and observed the suspects smoking what is commonly known as a blunt cigar." The officers took up positions and moved in quickly to apprehend the pair. Post arrest, one suspect managed to break free and make his escape through a nearby house. Officers caught up with the suspect in a bedroom, where "he was tased during the course of the arrest." In the second incident, police responded to a report of a burglary at Gilder Coin Shop in Tampa. The business had been robbed twice in the previous few weeks, and this time the first units arrived on the scene with the robbery still in progress. As is the pattern with these cases, a foot chase soon ended with the suspect on the receiving end of an incapacitating jolt. In both cases, the suspects were unharmed post-Tasering.
TASE AND NEUTER: What's good for humans should be good for our friends in the animal kingdom, right? Officers arrived at a Tampa home in response to a report of dogs fighting and found a "Pit Bull standing over the other dog … both dogs were severely injured but the Pit Bull was continuing the attack." An officer hopped a fence, approached the dogs, and "deployed his [Taser] against the Pit Bull who fell to the ground, which allowed the other dog to crawl free and be retrieved by its owner." Animal control officers removed the pit bull from the scene.
From the files of the T.P.D.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2006.