Simon_Jester wrote:You're right, why would I criticize someone for a narrow legalistic approach that ignores a wider issue? That doesn't make sense. Of course they're right to demand my "concession" on their narrow legalism and declare victory rather than engaging on the wider issue.
It's almost as if I have conversations and like them to be far-ranging, and like to be free to bring up social topics of some actual importance. Instead of doing it just to keep score on some sort of winnable point tally that gives me an incentive to make narrow but irrelevant statements of fact and then dare anyone to do anything that might be interpreted as questioning them.
Sorry, did my social criticism get in the way of your attempt to pick up warm fuzzies by scoring a point by asserting something basic about what police procedure is as if it were a subject for controversy?
Multiple times you made statements contending that tazing him was unjustified. Here is but one example:
Well, you're arguing that it was urgent enough to justify zapping him.Simon_DontTazeMeBro_Jester wrote: And yet once someone spotted him panhandling and said "hey, police, it's that guy," the need to arrest this mentally disabled unarmed man was urgent enough to justify electrocuting him.
If it sounds as though you're objecting to me because when I state the facts in that way, it sounds sarcastic. Like there's some niggling sense in your mind that maybe I, or someone else, actually might reasonably question whether or not hitting a fleeing, mentally disabled unarmed man with a tazer because he's now in need of arrest where it wasn't worth sending a squad car to pick him up at a known address for many months prior.
How dare I imply such a thing?
Is that really all you're upset about?
[Note that the use of 'electrocuting,' specifically, was unintended hyperbole on my part because I honestly didn't know that 'electrocute' was a verb used only for lethal electric shocks. That much, I freely concede.]
You have still not understood, or rather ignored, why I even said that.Oh Simon, the reason I'm beating my chest going "Concession accepted" is because you conceded the only dispute we really have. We both agree that shooting Butts was unjustified and that the officer should be harshly punished. And we agree that police abuse is a problem, and something to be addressed. I know you'd like to pretend you weren't making the argument earlier now that you realize it simply makes no sense. Let me refresh your memory.
You admit that had the arrest attempt taken place at his home or work, and if he ran that tazing was "totally fair". I've asked you to justify why the Walmart parking lot is supposed to be some sort of "safe zone" in which under the same circumstances no tazing should take place. You have essentially waived it away.Simon_DontTazeMeBro_Jester wrote: Tazers hurt. If it's worth hurting someone to bring them in, it's worth doing a little legwork and making a few phone calls to bring them in six months sooner. And yes, if he ran or resisted as a result of the arrest attempt that happened at his home or workplace, it would be totally fair to taze him.
So once you concede that point, then you and I really have nothing further to argue about here do we?
[To recap, my argument is that if the arrest were being done in an orderly fashion that indicates Butts as an important enough target to justify violence, then the warrant should have been followed up on. Not left to sit there while Butts went about his business as though it didn't matter if the warrant was served or not. There's nothing special about Walmart, but there's something very special about that attitude toward policing, that serving a warrant only seems to matter when the person it's being served against commits a disagreeable but legal act in public]
Now, how can I concede to you that you were 'right' in an argument that consists of you saying "X" and me saying "I have a problem with the entire system that gives rise to us invoking X," and you saying "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION X WHEN X IS CLEARLY TRUE" and therefore entirely missing the nature and cause of my problem with X?
That's just encouraging people to be fools and wander away from conversations feeling like they've "won" because they're too obtuse and willfully blind to social issues to notice anything other than whatever legalism they feel like spouting that day.
KS already explained to you how warrants are enforced. If its important enough for him to be arrested, its important enough to prevent him from fleeing using normal protocols. Use of a tazer would have been as reasonable as attempting to tackle the guy, and arguably safer. Your argument seems to boil down to "Well if he ran just let him go, because maybe you can catch him later", which isn't exactly a good precedent for law enforcement to set. Why wouldn't he always run under those circumstances? "Oh damn, he refused to let us arrest him, guess we can always try again later guys!". And Butts may not have been the sharpest tack in the box, but obviously he was deemed fit enough to stand trial on the burglary charge on which he violated his parole. He knew enough to know that he shouldn't have run from the police.
And again, your failure to be concise is astounding. Like most of your posts, this one was 3/4 of unnecessary bullshit and maybe 1/4 actual content.
