So, What’s Your Point?

The Houston Chronicle ran a headline story posted by Roma Khanna, “No HPD officer ever disciplined for Taser use.” ( linked via title bar )

“In fact, no officer has ever been reprimanded for discharging the 50,000-volt Taser at a suspect, even though many of the suspects were never charged with a crime, according to the Chronicle's review of more than 1,000 Taser incidents since December 2004.”

I read the article and came away wondering, “So, what’s your point?”, noting that the purpose of the Taser was to control a situation in which some other force would have been used, force which would have caused longer lasting injuries or even death.

Performing the duties required of a police officer often require snap decisions in order to complete an arrest, decisions that will be reviewed by supervisors at many levels. If at any point it is found that any rule or regulation has been violated disciplinary proceedings are started; even when the rule or regulation violated had nothing whatever to do with the incident being investigated. Statistically speaking, “the more than 1,000 Taser incidents since December 2004”, would indicate that the officers used remarkable judgment each and every time; that’s 100% compliance, not only with the guidelines set forth for the use of Tasers, but also would include every other rule and regulation that would have influence during those incidents. Again I ask, “So, what’s your point?”

I’m thinking of sponsoring a piece of legislation, one that would require that Taser like devices be installed in the keyboards of every computer. These stun guns would always be armed and ready to discharge 50,000 volts of mind numbing electricity whenever the operator persisted in making a mountain out of a molehill; especially bloggers and journalists with nothing better to do than take pot shots at folks doing a really good job.

I had one of these installed on my computer as a means of testing the functionality of such an instant editorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…sorry about that, mmmmyyy fingers are still a little jjjjjjjjjjjjuuuuuuuuuummppppppppppyyyyy from the shock.