5 comments

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  Francis L. Holland

  11 months ago

  Thanks so much for covering this issue!
  
  Police always say that they shoot Blacks because they think we're dangerous, right? I recently did some research into what police do when they see a six-hundred pound bear walking through a shopping center. You know what they do? They call the game warden and the game warden comes and shoots the bear with a tranquilizing dart, and then the game warden carries the bear back to the woods. Alive, and not in need of emergency medical care. They don't electrocute bears with 50,000 volt electrocution devices. Should police treat Black peope so much more brutally and dangerously than they treat 600-pound wild bears?
  
  When I compare that to what they did to the guy in MO, stun-to-kill, it's clear to me that the police are more concerned for the welfare of wild animals, like bears and moose, than they are for the welfare of Black people who are members of the human public.
  
  If I called the police because my cat was stuck in a tree, would the police electrocute the cat to make him fall out of the tree? Of course not! That would cause an uproar! But, if I called the police to tell them my uncle was in a tree, would they taser my uncle. Clearly, for some reason, they would think that was a perfectly normal response to seeing a human being at risk. Taser him!
  
  They've done it to pregnant women, mentally ill people in bathrobes, deaf people standing in their own kitchens in a bath towel, and the causin of Mychal Bell, assassinated by repeated electrocution while he was in handcuffs in police custody.
  
  I once read in the newspaper of a case where a man who was in prison had a kitten in his cell. One of the prison guards took the kitten and twisted his head off. When they asked him why he had done it, he said it was "a judgment call". Clearly, there are some law enforcement people in our society who need to have some of their "judgment" latitude taken away.
  
  I personally believe we need to work toward there should be a moratorium on the purchase and use of police pre-trial and extra-judicial electrocution devices, until we can discover why so many people (at least 300 in the US and Canada) have died from their use, and why a third of those who are electrocuted require hospital treatment afterward.
  
  I believe there should be a moratorium on the use of electrocution devices by police until we can discover whether and why Black people are being disproportionately electrocuted in situations in which whites are not electrocuted.
  
  I believe there should be a moratorium on police pre-trial and extra-judicial electrocution and execution of members of the public, at least until the US Supreme Court has decided whether, in the year 2008, it violates the due process and other Constitutional rights of the public to repeatedly electrocute and potentially execute people who have not been charged with or convicted of a crime.
  
  (Can it be arguably unconstitutional to electrocute and execute those convicted of murder, but still be constitutional to electrocute and potentially execute those convicted of nothing at all?)
  
  There should be a moratorium on police pre-trial and extra-judicial electrocution of members of the public until it can be determined whether electrocution devices are being used as instruments of torture rather than as instruments of law enforcement.
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  Villager

  11 months ago

  Excellent information! My post in support of the Day of Justice should be appearing about 8am this morning. Hopefully, we will awaken an awareness in the minds of our blog readers about the 'use of force continuum' and about need to keep LEOs and politicians on point when it comes to using a taser...
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  TruthSeeker

  11 months ago

  That link for "Canada" doesn't work. I think this may be the story intended:
  http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Search/1070260...
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  baratunde aka jack turner

  11 months ago

  thanks. fixed it!
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  SjP

  2 months ago

  I invite you and your readers to drop by SjP;s where the origin of this so-called non-lethal weapon that has taken the lives of so many is provided.
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