Chicago police to expand use of Tasers

[n2doc]

March 10, 2010 12:25 PM
The Chicago Police Department will be expanding its use of Tasers by adding one to every beat car in the city and allowing patrol officers to use them for the first time, officials said today.

There are currently 280 on the street and about 380 will be added.

Sergeants and field training officers are the only personnel who carry the weapons now. Officials argue that beat officers, the first responders to fights and other dangerous confrontations, need the weapons.

Officers are getting eight hours of training and the department is designing follow-up courses.

Officers are allowed to use the weapons only when confronted with an active resister - making a movement to avoid arrest - or an assailant.

(The move comes as Illinois State Police investigate the death of a man in Midlothian overnight who died after being hit by a Taser following a traffic stop.)

-- Annie Sweeney
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/03/chicago-police-to-expand-use-of-tasers.html

[Bluebear]

1. Yay! Eight whole hours of training!

:silly:

[ManiacJoe]

2. So, what is your suggested number?

[Bluebear]

4. Gee I don't know, you're the maniac firearm enthusiast, you tell us :)

[ManiacJoe]

11. 8 hours seems reasonable to me,

given our lack of data about the actual training course.

[KansDem]

8. Yeah, "Point...Pull Trigger..."

"Now what do we do with the remaining 7 hours 55 seconds?"

[Bluebear]

12. Getting Stories Straight 101

:)

[Jim__]

3. "making a movement to avoid arrest " - at least there are solid standards for their use - n/t

[piratefish08]

5. no 'wiggle room' there, huh?

[Echo In Light]

6. Not 'officially'

[izzybeans]

7. Great our police routinely torture people, the last thing they need is

another tool to brutalize people.

Seriously, we have issues here in Chicago and the police are one of them.

Instead of being made to stand naked and being pounded on with batons on the feet, legs, an torso, they'll just tase people in the drunk tank. This is after being driven around in circles in a darkened paddy wagon for hours.

My train stop for work routinely has people asking what part of town they are in because they were just let out of jail. At night you can see the wagons driving around with prisoners in them.

I have no patience for many Chicago cops. There are a lot of good ones, but corruption is so wide spread they are all tainted with it in some way. I don't trust even the good ones with a taser. None of them.

These are the old stories, the new ones are just being uncovered: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/police-torture-in-chicago-jon-burge-scandal-articles-by-john-conroy/Content?oid=1210030&/

[formercia]

9. They won't be able to burn off the donuts.

At least, when doing a tune-up, they get a little exercise.

[KittyWampus]

10. tasers seem to work better in theory than in real life