Hm. In Montpelier, a city with a lively night scene and its share of poverty and drugs, the police department’s desire to purchase and deploy Tasers sparked (sorry) a lengthy public debate and a six-month study.
Next door in Berlin, a smaller and more spread-out community with no real town center, the select board has unanimously approved the purchase of four Tasers.
For a police department with seven officers.
Or, as the Times Argus (story presumably paywalled) put it:
Select Board members haven’t yet seen a policy outlining when they should and shouldn’t be used and don’t know precisely where the money to pay for them will come from, but they did agree this week to buy four Tasers for their seven-member police department.
Great. No policy. No budgeted funds. On top of that, former Select Board member Paul Irons noted that, before its vote, the Board had only heard a presentation by a Taser salesman. He suggested that “a true public hearing” would be valuable. But the Board felt otherwise. And Selectman Pete Kelley offered this pearl of wisdom:
“If you let me shoot you once with my .45 (caliber pistol), I’ll let you Taser me all day,” he [said]. “It’s much safer than a gun.”
Good point, Mr. Kelley. Maybe you’d like to be pepper-sprayed for a few hours while you’re at it. Do I have to say this again? Tasers are touted as a safer alternative to guns, but too often in real life, they are used as less-safe alternatives to nonviolent intervention. Give a man a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Well, the Berlin police will soon have four shiny new hammers. So if you happen to be visiting their fair town, whatever you do, don’t act like a nail.
(Addendum: When I wrote this, I neglected to check the “Recommended Posts” column before I hit “Save.” If I had, I would have noticed Norsehorse’s diary on the same subject. I didn’t mean to pre-empt his diary.)
… or be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or …
In other words, stay out of Berlin if you value your safety.
Crime has nothing to do with it.
In Hardwick the police chief bought tasers simply because he got free taxpayer money. One officer had been injured in a fight with a drunken idiot and that was used as the reasoning for the slightly-less-deadly-than-firearm weapons.
Well, Hardwick finally used their tasers for the first time – on the same drunken idiot!
The taser company trains police to use these weapons as often as possible claiming that they do not harm the victims. The reality is that they are almost as deadly as firearms.
Crime has nothing to do with it.
In Hardwick the police chief bought tasers simply because he got free taxpayer money. One officer had been injured in a fight with a drunken idiot and that was used as the reasoning for the slightly-less-deadly-than-firearm weapons.
Well, Hardwick finally used their tasers for the first time – on the same drunken idiot!
The taser company trains police to use these weapons as often as possible claiming that they do not harm the victims. The reality is that they are almost as deadly as firearms.
From the TimesArgus. The public access videographer had run out of tape and started asking questions of the select board.
The taser salesman said everything was fine, who is the select board to question his assertions?