As a follow-up to our post on Utah tasering from last week, this news conference in which officials claim the officer acted appropriately (well, when he used the taser. Everything else he screwed up, which is precisely the point- cops are using tasers instead of being good cops):
“We found that Trooper Gardner’s actions were lawful and reasonable under the circumstances,” Davenport said at a news conference, joined by Scott Duncan, commissioner of the UHP’s parent agency, the Utah Department of Public Safety.
The investigation was conducted by officials in the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the highway patrol. The officials have asked the Utah attorney general’s office to also review the case to determine if laws were broken.
***When Massey’s wife emerged from the passenger side, the trooper ordered her to get back in — “or you’re going to jail, too.” Moments later, when another officer arrived, one of them said, “Oh, he took a ride with the Taser.”
Davenport said that comment was inappropriate.
Officials said Gardner could have issued the ticket without Massey’s signature. The investigation found use of the Taser was justified because Massey had turned his back and put a hand near his pocket, Davenport said.
“For a law-enforcement officer, that is a very, very scary situation,” he said.
Nonetheless, the trooper now realizes that other options were available, Davenport said.
Got it? The Trooper screwed up, pushed the situation when he didn’t even need a signature, refused to make any attempts to defuse the situation, then didn’t behave correctly (turned his back on Massey), but the tasering was ok because it was a “scary situation” for the cop.
Ain’t being a cop great! You can screw up every part of your job, have your superiors admit publicly that you screwed up, and you are still justified doing whatever you want if you can claim you got ‘scared.’ It is time to take the toys away from the police and teach them how to do their jobs without the quick “fix” of the taser.
bob
The cops are pretty much out of control thugs now. The police state is here. Now.
Psycheout
Twitchy Massey tried to be a roadside lawyer and argue with a police officer when he should have saved it for the judge in traffic court. If the cop was lying dead at the side of the road after Massey or his wife gave Trooper Gardner both barrels you’d probably be asking, “Hey, why didn’t he just use his taser? What an idiot!”
Or you’d have just ignored it. There’s no righteous outrage or page views to be had over a dead cop.
Incertus (Brian)
When I read this yesterday afternoon, my reaction was “did anyone expect anything different?” It has to be a really effed up situation when an internal investigation turns up a cop doing something improper, especially when it involves a civilian who isn’t giving what the cops feel is the proper deference (read: ass-kissing groveling) to one of their own.
jake
Since I live in P.G. County, MD – Home of Officer Quickdraw McNervous – I hear this justification quite often. I understand that being a cop is dangerous and there is a chance you might get shot, stabbed or otherwise killed dead in the course of doing your job. So of course they’re scared but being scared ain’t an excuse for fucking up a job where going through scary shit is right in the description.
What if instead of a cop zapping a guy because he was scared (and apparently someone neglected to instruct him in the complex art of issuing a fucking traffic citation), a fire fighter refused to go in burning buildings because he was scared?
Is this sad? Yes.
Can he keep on being a fire fighter? No.
lutton
I’m here in Philly where a number of cops were shot recently, one fatally (and a couple retired cops working as armoured car personnel were executed in a hold up) and this is what I see of this incident:
The trooper took unreasonable exception to the drivers refusal to sign the ticket. It became a ‘you WILL comply and you WILL NOT question’ situation, when it did not have to become so.
He basically wanted to arrest the guy for debating him, knowing that even if the arrest did not stick, he just royally f*’ed the guy.
I believe that once he asked the driver to get out, both their fates were sealed. Had the trooper’s ego not been so big, he could have shrugged off the questioning and not signing, saying ‘let the judge sort it out; that’s not *my* job.’ “when he should have saved it for the judge in traffic court” applies to everyone, not just the accused…
Too often, cops take it personally when a citizen questions them or their authority.
RSA
Fixed.
And give the counterfactuals a rest, Psycheout. We might equally well argue that if it had been a cop impersonator who’d stopped Massey. . . well, who knows how that would have turned out?
Incertus (Brian)
Too often, cops take it personally when a citizen questions them or their authority.
And that attitude is too often backed up by their superiors, just as it was in this case.
bob
Our local community college advertises on TV. The ONLY program they advertise is cop school. What you get is 23 yr olds with zero life experience telling “free” Americans what they should do (reSPECT mah AUTHORITEYE!!!). No general education, no compassion, just blind insistance on blind compliance.
Paul L.
This internet thing is undermining the police.
Crap like this makes you feel that bob is right.
Gun owner receives apology from police chief
Troopers Serving Warrant Next Door Shoot, Kill Fenced-In Dog
jack fate
Yeah, except Massey 1.) never physically threatened the police officer (being a dick is not against the law and not an imminent physical threat to anyone) 2.) he did not have a gun. So spare us the “both barrels” horseshit. That’s not to say it isn’t a legitimate concern for police officers, but it’s no excuse either. Unless you’d prefer the police just tase everyone from the get-go.
But power-abusing, trigger-happy cops are ok? I can now see why you just figured out Giuliani is an authoritarian. Honestly can’t see why that bothers you, though.
alphie
A disproportionate number of criminal justice system workers seem to be wingnuts (and wingnut bloggers).
Every arrest is a little Iraq invasion to them, complete with the same logic behind it…
Psycheout
John Cole, I want to apologize for my earlier outburst. I was out of line.
I just found out earlier this morning that Tom Tancredo, the man who brought the subject of “illegal immigration” to the forefront, which in large part was responsible for Sam Brownback being smeared as “Senator Switchback” which in turn certainly led to his dropping out of the race . . .
HIRED ILLEGALS HIMSELF!
I’m really angry right now. So I apologize for taking it out on you. I hope you accept my apology.
I need a drink.
superdestroyer
But the question everyone should answer if how much more crime are you willing to accept if every action the police takes is nitpicked to no end.
Instead of being superman, it would be very easy for the police to just sit in the cars and let crimes happen. Judging by the very high crime levels in places like PG County, some people are willing to tolerate a very high crime level so long as the police are properly supervised.
alphie
Super,
If a teacher rapes a student, would it be “nitpicking” to complain about it?
MNPundit
This semester I took Criminal Procedure 1.
My attitude toward cops went from angry and a little afraid to incandescent rage and pure terror.
Tom in Texas
Fred Weary, a guard for the Houston Texans, was arrested and tasered last year for driving suspiciously and resisting arrest. He was driving slowly and failed to display a front license plate. In the complaint, officers said he “was acting suspiciously and looked at (them) on several occasions.” He was also apparently belligerent because he asked why he was pulled over.
The charges were quickly dropped and Weary is currently suing the city. He wants do donate the money from the lawsuit to charity and is attempting to force a review of HPD’s taser policies.
Andy K
Hey, why don’t the police just taser those scary speeders the moment the window goes down? Who knows if that driver isn’t ready to lunge out with a Bowie knife?
Or better yet, how ’bout we mount all police cars with rockets? Why even worry ’bout the potential dangers that are sure to occur the moment the violators pull off to the shoulder?
But, ultimately, I think we’ve gotta rethink the whole idea of allowin’ private citizens to drive automobiles. And leavin’ their homes. And breathin’. ‘Cause if the world was populated with no one but cops, no one would would be hurt. Right?
Psycheout
Nuke them from orbit, that’s the only way to be sure.
Johnny Pez
John, you may want to create a new category to cover taser-related posts. I suggest “Don’t Tase Me, Bro”.
Andy K
Goddamned right, Psycheout! We must all, for our own safety, die. An occasional 50,000 volt jolt just ain’t gettin’ the job done.
bob
We should all die because psycheout found out for the eleventy-millionth time that Republicans are projectors of their own deeds onto others.
dslak
As an American currently living the UK, I’ve sometimes been worried about the fact that police here are usually unarmed and often don’t inspire much fear in people. I do really appreciate the fact that they have to fill out a form simply to ask a pedestrian what he or she is doing.
Andy K
Short of the annihalation of the connivin’, cop-hatin’ human race, I think we should strip the Masseys of their citzenship and make ’em galley slaves on the Great Salt Lake.
And while we’re at it, save a spot on the bench for Trooper Gardner, not for goin’ to the taser, but for not usin’ it soon enough. Bad example, allowin’ the plebes to get even one word in edgewise.
Delia
This cop was afraid for his own safety? I don’t think so. This wasn’t East LA or the Bronx or New Orleans or all the scary urban jungles we’re all afraid of (along with terr’ists and other things).
I grew up in Utah. I know that sagebrush country. Massey was a respectably dressed Utah white guy traveling with his pregnant wife and his baby. You see families like that all the time traveling around in Utah. Ten years ago I was driving up I-15 in the middle of the state with my teen-age daughter and I blew a tire. A family much like Massey’s stopped and the guy changed my tire for me. They’re not scary people. They don’t go around shooting cops. These cops aren’t developing the social skills to deal with situations. It’s the old “if your old tool is a hammer . . .” maxim. In fact, they seem to be a fair projection of the Bush foreign policy . . .
jcricket
It’s really an odd feeling. As an upper-class whitie who grew up in the suburbs, I always gave the cops the benefit of the doubt, and I never thought to question their general explanations for events.
Certainly not all cops, or even anything close to a majority, are crooked or taser-happy. But when there is one, that cop is then protected by his/her buddies. The cops could do a lot to improve their image by actually policing themselves. The whole “blue line” thing is ruining their credibility.
jcricket
Oops, deleted my middle paragraph that said:
But now, after all the incidents I’ve read about, it’s enough to make me understand where minorities are coming from with their natural mistrust of police and the feeling that cops have it out for them.
slippytoad
I think law enforcement types reading this ought to understand that as the biggest dick on the planet arms race escalates you are likely to encounter more and more guns in people’s gloveboxes, and frankly the willingness to use them.
I think American mayors ought to also take note of these continuing alarming developments and do something to rein in their out-of-control police departments, before it’s too late.
Anne Laurie
JCricket, a paranoid progressive might even wonder if part of the Bush crime family’s wide-ranging assault on the Constitution involved “training” nice upper-class white suburbanites like yourself to be properly fearful of anyone wearing a uniform. You can’t implement a truly authoritarian state unless the population is scared/resentful of every uniformed drone, and unless every uniformed drone is scared/resentful of all non-uniformed citizens. So over-arming street cops, encouraging paranoia on both sides of the taser, and amping up the whole “thin blue line” us-against-them mythos is one more step towards turning what used to be America into an armed camp where a tiny minority gets to decide which rights the rest of us do, or don’t, have at any given point in time.
jcricket
I think Radley Balko’s been pointing out the mayors are funding the SWAT-ification of America’s police force, to the inevitable detriment of those that see the police as a force for good, instead of jack-booted drug-enforcement thugs.
jcricket
Don’t think I haven’t thought the same thing. Remember the whole “I am John Doe” thing the the wingers posted? That’s the final step, when citizens are encouraged to turn in the traitors/commies/darkies/thought-criminals.
D. Mason
They’re thugs, I view cops as no different than crips with state sanction. Any violence carried out against cops falls squarely into the lap of criminals like trooper Gardner.
Kirk Spencer
Happened exactly as I predicted. In fact, if you go back to the first posting you’ll see mywalkthrough of what the officer was thinking and so why it was a threatening situation – which appears to be exactly what guided the decision above.
Now I’ll add some additional lines of suspicion as to what’s going on there. First – I betcha Gardner’s received death threats. Having seen some of the online posts of such this is a sucker bet, but it’s still such. This means he’s considering or being counseled about options which include relocation. And authorization to carry additional weaponry. And he’s going to be legitimately paranoid. If you can’t see the trouble that may cause down the road – whether he stays on the force or not – then I humbly request you not involve the rest of us in your inevitable confrontation with reality.
Second – I betcha Gardner – if he continues on the force – gets additional training in how to handle a traffic stop WITHOUT reaching that “Oh Crap” point. He did a lot of things wrong, things that led to the situation. Ugly analogy: A pilot fails to check fuel, fails to note hydraulics are weak, fails to update compass, fails to notify emergency airfield when trouble develops, but manages to get the wheels down and make the emergency landing without killing anyone. No hammer for using a restricted airfield, it was the correct decision under the circumstances. For the REST of the stuff there’s a hammer. Gardner’s not getting a citation for using the taser. For the rest of the stuff, and probably out of our sight, I betcha there’s a lot of ugly going on.
Third, I betcha the UHP is reviewing its training and policies for these stops – but NOT the taser policy. The basic rules are legit. The fact Gardner let the situation reach the point where it was needed makes the people in charge worry that he was an example instead of an exception. So, review and examine.
The damn taser is overused and abused. There are a host of reasons for this, and some of the reasons can’t go away without a lot of bad consequences. But more than one abuse is going to be a situation like this – one where a seasoned officer with effective people skills would never have needed the thing in the first place, but the yahoo doing the job let it get to where it could be and is used. Which means that in more than one case the issue isn’t taking the tool away, it’s getting rid of the yahoo. Or better yet – keep the yahoos out, and train the ones who COULD be yahoos so they’re not.
jake
I think, like 49.99% of the fuck ups this country has endured, the assholization of your friendly neighborhood PD is an unintended consequence of letting a Monkey with a Mandate into the White House. In the same way the military keeps dropping its recruiting standards to meet their goals, I believe the PDs around the nation are dropping their standards to get more bods in uniforms. DC was desperate for cops before Sept. 11th and brother, does it show. Post-Nineleven a lot of good cops got better jobs working counter-terror. Or maybe they were also in the N.G. and are now fightin’ ’em over there.
Either way, the chances you’ll encounter Chicken shit slacker at a traffic stop have increased. Chicken shit slacker doesn’t want to deal with you. If you do anything that takes away from his valuable ass scratching time he’s going to be pissed. He’s also going scared of you because he’s scared of everything. Check his pupils when he sticks his head in your window. If it looks like he’s been gobbling acid, speak to him as you would a fretful child. Be firm, speak clearly, keep your hands on the steering wheel and thank the unseen force of your choice for the camera on his car.
Now, did Bush intend to put more chicken shit slackers on the street? Nope. Just chalk it up to the wide reach of his Sidam Touch.
craigie
You know, I’d really, really like to believe this.
But I don’t.
faux facsimile
There are two solutions to this growing problem: either change the laws so individual cops can be held criminally liable for abusing their authority in cases like this, or assume every cop is a power-crazed asshole and behave accordingly.
Since politicians and police departments around the nation have worked to eliminate the former option, I guess choice #2 is our only possibility.
jcricket
Yeah, read any of the Seattle papers about how the police policing their own is working out. Short version: Police regularly overruled their own internal investigations whenever they found in favor of citizens.
Or witness the internal problems within the LAPD they’ve been trying to overcome for decades.
lutton
>>Gardner let the situation reach the point where it was needed
yup…by the time he even thought of the tazer he was already three or four steps down the F*ed up path.
He really needed to be able to let go of the fact a citizen was unhappy with him.
You can’t be in a job dealing with the public in tense situations and let your ego get in the way.
lutton
>>You can’t be in a job dealing with the public in tense situations and let your ego get in the way.
PS…just wanted to add: that’s a skill I don’t think I possess. I’m not saying it’s easy.
But my wife does possess that skill. She works with the public on a daily basis. That public changes on a regular basis. That public has very strong opinions and concerns regarding her performance. But she does not let their interactions get out of hand…she hands off the issue to others if necessary.
Conservatively Liberal
There are good cops, and there are bad cops. Generalizing does not help the good ones. Take that cop whose video clip of a traffic stop where the driver screamed at and verbally abused the cop repeatedly resulted in the driver safely driving off.
That cop handled the situation with absolute grace and civility. I would have tased the asshole. In this case though, the cop fucked up royally in unnecessarily tasing someone. If he is that trigger happy with the taser, you can bet that this cop is a real asshole who expects citizens to ask ‘How high?’ when he says ‘JUMP!’.
I have been pulled over by both types, and unfortunately I have met more bad cops than good ones in my lifetime. With the Blue Line protecting them, they are abusing the public for their personal amusement.
Delia
Yeah, and with their fabulous new taser toy available, they have new and better ways of carrying out that abuse.
Police Brutality: It’s Not Just For Minorities Anymore.
Psycheout
Speak truth to power! Stick it to the man!
Time for your medication, nutbar.
Psycheout
Bombshell…TNR ‘fesses up: The Beauchamp stories are bullcrap
Heh, indeed.
dgbellak
The Taser use was okay but everything leading up to it, and thus enabling it, was wrong? The UHP seem less like protectors of the peace and more like shillers for Taser International.
Craig
On one hand, this cop seemed to use the tazer card pretty quickly in a situation that didn’t seem to warrant it yet. Also, if he was so concerned for his safety, he certainly didn’t express it afterwards to the guy being arrested or to the other cop who showed up.
On the other hand, the guy put himself in an iffy position by not following specific orders, walking towards his truck as if he planned to get in and possibly drive away, and put part of his hand into his pants pocket. Like it or not, if a cop gives you a simple order to do something, you’d better do it and check your attitude for the time being. If you don’t, you give him, and later, his superiors, enough leeway to try to excuse it, which is what happened.
Badtux
When I was a child I ran all around the neighborhood (not a good neighborhood) with no problem beyond the requisite old man hollering “you darned kids get off of my lawn!”. Police officers back then were armed with .38 revolvers and, if things got really rough, pump-action 12 gauge shotguns. Most cops went through their entire career without ever pulling the revolver out of their holster or even unsnapping the holster. There was no such thing as a SWAT team. When cops served warrants, they went to the front door and knocked and presented the warrant, they did not burst through doors with assault rifles at ready and enough firepower outside to blow away a small army.
Being a cop was a dangerous job then too, a couple of cops got killed in the line of duty while I was a kid in my medium-sized town, but that was back when men were men, instead of pussies. They knew it was a dangerous job when they took it, they did what was necessary to do the job, and all in all things just worked. Our town had far less crime then than it has now, despite the fact that the cops now are geared up with enough heavy weaponry to take on a small nation.
Funny, I felt safer then than I do now. But gosh, I’m told that I must have all these paramilitaries dressed in police uniforms running around with all these new-fangled high-powered weapons in order to “fight crime”. Funny that the crime didn’t start happening until after these paramilitary-style cops showed up… hmm, maybe because a cop hiding behind tactical armor with enough weapons to take on a small army isn’t, like, going to actually be on the streets interacting with the peeps, or if he is, will be looked at as some sorta robo-cop rather than some ordinary sod with a badge and flat feet?
But hey, you continue cringing in fear and demanding more heavily armed paramilitaries to “protect” you. Me, I prefer to deal with things in the manner of the grown men of my childhood, rather than cowering in fear like a coward, but then I’ve done things in my life that everybody was convinced would get me killed (like a parent-teacher conference at a crack house, armed with nothing but my grade book), so I guess I’m a little bit crazy compared to the current wave of pussified “Americans” like these cops that have to hide behind all these weapons to deal with the public…
L. Wood
Working back through the video, the cop, on camera, lied his axx off to the “back-up” cop he called, in that he claimed he had told the man he was under arrest, and he did not; He claimed he had warned him he might be tasered, and he did not; He also claimed the man was jumping all around so he had to taser him, a lie revealed clearly by the video. The motorist in fact thought that when the cop abruptly drew down on him in a weapons firing position that the cop was a psycho and that it was a gun in the cop’s two handed pistol grip. The video is edited to remove a second sadistic tasering of the man on the ground.
And those lies to the second cop tell us that his report had to be a complete fabrication to match that of the second cop’s report of what was said, so we know that the “exonerating” panel has to have ignored a fabricated police report. One can see the motorist faced an impossible dilemma, because this cop was a likely psycho, since from his perspective the cop had crafted the scenario for some bizarre purpose. (Remember that if a deranged or fake cop pulls you over, you aren’t legally required to let him rape you.)
“Crafted” you say? Yes. Watch the video from the beginning and you’ll see a veeerry slow driving cop pull off the roadway and actually block the view of the lowered speed limit sign to the overtaking driver, then swing out and pull him over. Then, as the irritated driver pointed to the 70MPH sign that faced opposing traffic (the 40 MPH sign was then facing back away from them), the cop pulled the taser as if it were his gun, having never mentioned “arrest” or “taser”. It was a sick minded and bored cop finding fun in a perverse antisocietal manner. The cop knew what he did. He had just to point to the sign he had just blocked to stop the questions, but he had something else in mind. And his buddies are covering for him.
mclaren
Just wait till the police start carrying around hand-held millimeter wave microwave agony ray guns. Boy, that’ll be fun. Instead of tasering someone, handcuff ’em, stand on their necks, and pain-ray ’em till they die screaming in agony.
Yes, indeedy, America has become an “obey or die” police state. The entire point is now no longer to ascertain whether a citizen violated the law, but to train ’em to recognie that whatever a police officer demands they do, they comply without question. So what’s the next step? “Kill your wife.” Fail to obey? You get tasered and pain-rayed to death. “SUck my cock,” orders the officer. And when you fail to comply? He executes you and your entire family. Once again, it will be found “The officer acted lawfully and correctly when asking the suspect to perform fellatio on him,” according to the official police board review. “Go out and buy me some coke and let me screw your daughter,” orders the cop. And you’ll have to do it. That’s the ultimate goal. The police are training the citizens to accept them as the new NKVD. Anything they demand, you must do, or die.
Wild exaggeration, right? I’m crazy. I’m hallucinating. I’m over the top.
How about this, buckaroos?
Man tasered for not producing insurance quickly enough.
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The Other Steve
People are complaining about SWAT and other such actions.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane. Vietnam. How did our military fight?
They dropped in a bunch of men by chopper, shot the hell out of the place, and then left on the chopper.
How did cops behave in the 1970s and 1980s? They stormed in, guns blazing, shot the hell out of the place, and then left.
See a similarity? Most cops tend to have military background, their experiences influence how law enforcement is done.
What lessons are brought back from Iraq?