Is it appropriate to use a Taser on non-violent protesters?
The best thing about this question is the use of the word “appropriate”. Tasering a non-violent protester is so far beyond “appropriate” that you have to question the very sanity of the reporter. Then again, if you’d just talked to Detective Eric Johnson, perhaps you might start questioning your sanity. According to the Brattleboro Reformer story about the hippie tasering :
“We are a very busy department,” said Johnson, who said he sympathized with the protesters but disagreed with their decision to not leave the property when ordered to by police.
“If we go to a scene and ask you to please leave, just leave and move to a public place,” he said. “Our responsibility is to enforce the law,” adding “if I ask them to leave and they don’t, what am I to do?”
How about arrest them? Drag them off the property and put them in the cooler for a couple of hours, while they consider the next victim of their civil disobedience Jones?
The video shows the aftereffect, though it’s not too illuminating, except for the end when the taseree comes round and smiles at the camera.
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