Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!mcnc!unc!oliver From: oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: A new self-defense idea! Message-ID: <208@unc.UUCP> Date: Sat, 11-May-85 23:51:35 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.208 Posted: Sat May 11 23:51:35 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 14-May-85 07:49:49 EDT References: <355@idis.UUCP> <1602@ut-ngp.UUCP> <544@cadovax.UUCP> <358@mmintl.UUCP> Reply-To: oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) Distribution: net Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 57 In article jhull@spp2.UUCP (Jeff Hull) writes: >In article <358@mmintl.UUCP> robg@mmintl.UUCP (Robert Goldman) writes: >>As I understand it, a very real concern about the taser is that it may be >>used as a torture device. I'm afraid I don't know the details about this, >>but it's a sobering thought. > >Unfortunately, it's more than a thought. It's happening! There is a >case in Los Angeles right now. Quoted from the May 6 Newsweek: As 18-year-old Mark Davidson told it, he was walking down the street when six police officers nabbed him and took him to the 106th precinct house in Queens, NY. There, he said, one officer held him down while another jolted him with an electric stun gun while he confessed (falsely, he claimed) to selling $10 worth of marijuana. Davidson revealed 40 burn marks on his body [picture with text], and later three other men charged that they, too had been subjected to assaults and beating at the 106th - all the while shrieking so loudly that others in the station house must have heard them. By the end of the week, four officers had been arrested.... The allegations were just the latest in a rash of police-related incedents.... The month after month litany includes the fatal shioting of a woman after a minor traffic collision; two more fatal shootings of apparently defenseless suspects and an appalling hit-and-run on Saint Patrick's eve .... Last year 81 New York cops were arrested on criminal offenses - up 45% from 1983; 22 have been arrested in the first four months of 1985 alone.... end quote Ah yes, and these are the people to whom I am to give up my sidearm, for my own good. I will never forget that while I was in medical school three or four cops decided to beat up a drunk outside the downtown general hospital emergency room. When the ER nurses and a surgery intern began to fear for the man's life, they restrained the policemen from continuing to kick the unconscious vagrant. They were all arrested and charged with obstruction. ... or walking downtown late at night and having a cop pull up and say to you, "Boy, they's only three kinds of people here at this time of night: niggers, faggots, and theives. Which one are you?" But what's a friendly roust between friends? In fond remembrance of the cops that always confiscated but never busted, Bill Oliver