AEmer wrote:
It might be a tragic accident that couldn't be helped, but it sure looks like negligence to me - I think he could've made a much better decision if the policies were right.
My point was it was a tragic accident that totally COULD'VE been helped. Clearly if she hadn't been tazed she might not've fallen, but until we sit down with the statistics, we can't say for sure that the sort of policies that would lead to things like this NOT happening wouldn't also have knock-on effects on other situations, potentially in a negative light.
Bear in mind: if the cop had just
grabbed her and she'd fallen and hit her head, one might equally expect people demanding to know "why he had to be so physical when he had a perfectly good tazer, coz ffs man, he outweighs her by like 150lbs!!!11".
It's only if we have statistics to show that physically restraining fleeing individuals is better (on average) than tazing them, that we can make a call. And even then: it's
on average. Even with a well-implemented policy that considers all the factors involved, sometimes the response will be the wrong response. And a policy that DOES consider all those factors is going to be ludicrously comprehensive anyway, and runs the risk of being so context-specific that it's even more unwieldy than my attempts at AI programming:
"Suspect is fleeing!"
*checks suspect's sex*
*checks suspect's bodyweight*
*checks suspects current state of inebriation, calibrated for past case-history*
*determines suspect's mitigating factors (handcuffs, shoelaces, etc)*
*looks up suspect's likely hazard factor on a risk table*
*compiles*
*machine says TAZE*
"oh, nvm: she's fucking miles away now."
So, for instance, do we actually have evidence that the cop was not trained in the correct use of the tazer? Hell, do we even know if this counts as incorrect use? Apparently there were sufficient caveats in the definitions of appropriate tazing that he officially was entirely within his rights to zap her. So there's that. And it's not really negligent homicide: if he'd grabbed her and she'd fallen and hit her head, would you call that negligent homicide? If she'd run past him and he'd tripped her to stop her, and she'd fallen and hit her head, would you call that negligent homicide? If he'd tapped her on the shoulder and she'd had a heart attack, would you call that negligent homicide? Negligent homicide is more "deliberate stupidity that leads to death", like if he'd put her in the back but not checked whether he'd closed the door, then sped off at 90mph and pulled a sharp turn, flinging her onto the road.
Though clearly it's a tricky issue.