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Always Florida!
In my professional experience, past a certain point of inebriation drunks tend to do dopey crap without provocation being necessary on any level. The mere act of asking them to do something, no matter how polite will result in child like refusals and, more often than not, violent resistance to any attempt to enforce requests.
These people simply cannot be reasoned with.
Correct. That is why you have to trick them. As soon as you try to order them or ask them to comply with some request of yours you are starting to lose because they are starting to win by not complying.
Once you've established that it's going to take more tricks than you have in your bag you call in some guys to help you and just outnumber and overpower the guy. Tasers, pepper spray and guns just make officers feel more powerful than they are and these "tools" end up getting used inappropriately or vindictively.
I think one of the things that an article in another thread said was the difference in vantage point between "peace officer" and "law enforcer". The former is a problem solver but the latter is just hired muscle to get people to comply by whatever force necessary.
Again, not always possible to call in backup ahead of time.
Correct. That is why you have to trick them. As soon as you try to order them or ask them to comply with some request of yours you are starting to lose because they are starting to win by not complying. That's why you don't want to get into that cycle. Once you've established that it's going to take more tricks than you have in your bag you call in some guys to help you and just outnumber and overpower the guy.
Tasers, pepper spray and guns just make officers feel more powerful than they are and these "tools" end up getting used inappropriately or vindictively.
I think one of the things that an article in another thread said was the difference in vantage point between "peace officer" and "law enforcer". The former is a problem solver but the latter is just hired muscle to get people to comply by whatever force necessary.
What a stupid story. It starts of with the headline:
Man wearing Darth Vader mask attacked trooper
Unprovoked attack occurred near Orlando construction site, officials say
so let's read the story and see what happened.
Apparently this drunk guy was in the street and when the trooper "asked" him to get out of the road so he attacked the officer by verbal insults and by lying down.
From this dangerous lying down position the evil Darth Vader "attemtped to punch and kick the trooper" so the trooper logically had to taze and pepper him.
Look at the video and the street is full of flashing light vehicles and half a dozen troopers getting him off the road. That's an expensive way to get someone of the road. Huge Fail - and huge fail on the reporting too.
Looks like someone was playing the "provoke a dope" game to justify the spending of tax dollars.
I was only going by the article. The first thing the guy did was to lie down in the street. Right at that point you have all the clues you need that he is well in his cups plus he is also currently harmless and at a disadvantage if he wants to try something. I just assumed that the trooper had a car he could put in the street for the sake of traffic control and then he could call in his buddies.It's not clear from the article that any attack took place until the officer tried to haul the guy to his feet. He had a pretty safe (personal) situation except for traffic and could have waited for backup.
You seem to be arguing against yourself by bringing PCP into it. The guy was lying down and therefore was no immediate danger to the officer. If he IS on PCP then the officer should not go near him without sufficient back up because pepper spray isn't going to do anything. The tazer should work but he's going to have to take his finger off the trigger to get the cuffs on and then you are back to a PCP freak you can't control. A guy on PCP requires more manpower (or lethal force).PCP is an extremely dangerous drug that can give a person super human strength or capabilities
That is a problem with the FHP. Perhaps they should be more responsive to the need to support their troopers. But, as to that response time -FHP backup, might be an hour away.