Ok guys...is this one justified?

The sword says yes. 

Hell, they would have been justified in immediately proceeding to lethal force. The fact that they restricted their use of force to a taser, even after it had already failed once, was unquestionably courageous, though perhaps not the best judgement- having already been tasered, the man came at them with a sword. I'm astonished he wasn't shot.

No obviously not. He died.

Are you joking? You can't kill a man, what do we just ignore innocent until proven guilty now and go straight to death sentence?

jmac3 wrote: No obviously not. He died. Are you joking? You can't kill a man, what do we just ignore innocent until proven guilty now and go straight to death sentence?

The man swung a sword at the officers, you're telling me if you had a gun on you and a man went at you with a sword you wouldn't pull it out a shoot him? This was 100% justified, sad it ended in tragedy but either way, he's lucky they did not go straight for their guns and shoot him.

Did you read the article?

Because he pulled out the first set of leads.

ParielIsBack wrote: Did you read the article? Because he pulled out the first set of leads.

Yeah I'm sure he did. How convenient there is no evidence that can support that claim

That's one of the real problems I have with the Taser. People with heart problems aren't visually distinguishable. That being said if I were ever in a situation where a cop had a Taser pointed at me I would do everything in my power to avoid being shocked. I know my heart problem probably wouldn't be a death sentence if shocked like that, as it is only minor at this point, but it still exists and I would not put myself in danger.

Are any other forms of less than lethal force still used or have all cops gone Taser happy?

High Voltage wrote: That's one of the real problems I have with the Taser. People with heart problems aren't visually distinguishable. That being said if I were ever in a situation where a cop had a Taser pointed at me I would do everything in my power to avoid being shocked. I know my heart problem probably wouldn't be a death sentence if shocked like that, as it is only minor at this point, but it still exists and I would not put myself in danger. Are any other forms of less than lethal force still used or have all cops gone Taser happy?

I do think that the Tasers causes cops to disregard the use of other non-lethals.

But I've also seen cops use billy clubs and pepper spray on people, even though they're carrying Tasers.  Generally, that only happens when they want people to move out of an area, rather than arrest them, though.  I'm not sure either would have helped in this situation.  Having a man blinded by pepper spray and wildly waving a sword around doesn't seem like a great solution to me.

In any use of force continuum this would qualify for the officers using deadly force, they attempted to just use less than lethal force to subdue the man.  They would have been justified to use lethal force in this circumstance but chose not to.

In addition all police officers loathe mace, it not only gets the suspect but will most likely end up on you or those around you and even if you avoid it while spraying it you will still end up on the ground wrestling with a five alarm bad guy.

Jmac, please stop using up my air.