Police take down pregnant woman, then use taser on her

Police Taser Pregnant Woman outside police department doors. Notice the woman had already been needlessly tackled to the ground, face down, when the officer then deployed his instrument of torture. Link, with video

UPDATE
From the Winnipeg Sun:

The woman went to the police department on Nov. 18 to ask officers to take custody of her one-year-old son, said Michael Etter, Trotwood’s public safety director.

The woman told the officer she was “tired of playing games” with the baby’s father, Etter said.

The woman refused to answer questions, became frustrated and tried to leave with the child, Etter said. The officer feared allowing her to leave could jeopardize the child and he decided to detain her to get more information.

He said the officer grabbed the woman, got the child away from her and forced her to the ground. When she resisted being handcuffed and tried to get away, the officer used the stun gun on her, Etter said.

2nd UPDATE:

Video from brietbart.tv, an interview with the tasered woman.

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Authoritah at the traffic stop

This piece is by far the best commentary on the traffic ticket tasering incident currently making the rounds at youtube.

It is not a crime for a citizen to demand that a police officer justify a traffic stop. Massey, who admitted to driving 68 mph in what he apparently thought was a 65 mph zone, was reasonably cooperative and genuinely puzzled by Gardner's claim that the driver had missed a sign posting a 40 mph construction zone.

Gardner assumed a hostile posture when Massey made his further cooperation contingent on being shown that he had violated the speed limit. Which is to say that Gardner immediately sized up the motorist as an enemy combatant (no other term is adequate) because Massey refused to behave as a cringing, docile serf.

Read the whole thing, and bookmark Grigg's site in your daily reading list.

Tasers = torture.

Time magazine attempts to address the uncontrolled increase in the use of Tasers by law enforcement for reasons other than self-defense.

Early concerns about Tasers centered on the issue of safety, but the controversy has recently taken a new twist, focusing on the conflict between civil rights and police procedure. Though the device was initially developed as an alternative to lethal force, it has become a go-to weapon in situations of noncompliance even when the use of firearms would not be considered — like the incident with Meyer, who agreed to 18 months of probation on Tuesday in order to avoid criminal charges of resisting arrest. "I think because it's electricity, and because of past use of electricity in torture across the world, there's a thought that law enforcement could use [the Taser] to the same end," says Lt. Dave Kelly of the Phoenix Police Department. "In other words, not to use it to gain control over somebody but to punish somebody, to create pain for someone."

Because these devices are being deployed more frequently in situations where the officer is attempting to force compliance with unexplained orders, it is necessary to consider the ramifications if parents or teachers were to start using them on their children to make them behave. If you have a problem with parents zapping their kids with 50,000 volts every time the kid opens his mouth out of turn, then you have a problem with law enforcement using these weapons in the same manner. So stand up and let them know you.don't.approve. of these uses.

Unfortunately, the only way law enforcement can be reigned in is for Tasers to become commonplace in citizen's hands on the street, and let society and particularly law enforcement experience their indiscriminate use. THEN you will see some municipal action to reign in these instruments of torture.