SMBC Comics Forum

Laws? Pah, I'll ignore the law and they'll ignore me.

I fought the law...well, you can guess how it ended.

Seriously though the police in my country are incompetent.

Do they still not carry around guns? Because that stereotype is adorable.

Well they've got tasers and stuff.

In America, we tase you for no reason whatsoever. Because we can.

Here in Canadia there are currently a number of cases going through of people suing police/RCMP officers for using tasers. And of course the whole Dziekański inquiry that's still ongoing.

Long story short, tasers are not well liked up here.

I believe that tasers are useful less-lethal instruments, but that police restraint concerning them is often lax.

I think I agree with that. But it only works if the tasers are to be used either as a last resort or instead of something potentially lethal like a gun. Using them liberally is ridiculous, especially since they do cause death in rare cases.

Also, the links as usual don't work for me. But I'm assuming you linked to two sequences on the Colbert Report where he pointed out a law enforcement officer using a taser in a completely inappropriate situation, like the soccer mom who asked not to be tasered in front of her children?

Right. Police need to know that there's a proper time to tase someone, and there's an improper time.

It's as you said. The links are about cases of totally unwarranted taserings. One of them was a man who rushed into his burning house to warn the people in his basement. When he came out, he was tasered by police, allegedly for misconduct during an emergency. Another one is the one you mentioned with the soccer mom.

Uhh there have been NO cases of police tasers causing death! All of the people who have died after being tasered have suffered from "excited delirium", a condition that just suddenly appears sometime with no cause and leads to instant death. It is only a coincidence that it only happens when a cop tasers someone.

Yeah, I read that on the wiki page too.

Ah, well I heard about it on the news a lot when Dziekański got killed.

SPOILER ALERT: The cop is going to get away with it.

If Canadia's justice system is anything like America's, then probably.*



*Not that I don't believe in the American justice system for the most part, but no system is perfect.

Just for fun I thought I'd look up excited delirium. Apparently it's really highly debated in psychiatric circles. It's also not a recognized mental disorder and it's not even listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association.* Delirium however seems to be real, it's marked by confusion and agitation and can be triggered by drugs or predisposed medical conditions, but it's uncommon for people suffering from it to suddenly die, in fact this never happens to patients being treated in hospitals.

Personally I'm not buying it. It just seems a bit convenient and the science community doesn't seem to be backing it.

*The psychiatrist's handbook that CBC decided to quote