Anti-Taser campaigners determined to end trial
10 September 2006

Anti-Taser campaigners say they won't be letting up in their efforts to get the weapons out of police hands. Police used the Taser gun for the first time since the trial began last week on Friday night to subdue an 18-year-old following an incident in the Auckland suburb of Western Springs. A police statement said the man suffered only minor lacerations from the probe contact and no injuries when he fell.

The man was to appear in Auckland District Court charged with assault with a weapon, threatening to kill, possession of an offensive weapon and possession of a knife.

Police have threatened the use of Tasers on at least three other occasions without employing them. Anti-Taser campaigner Marie Dyhrberg said efforts to stop the three-month trial would continue.

"Coroners reports in the United States have said Taser use was a contributing factor to deaths," she said. "There's no rush for us to use them while their impact is still being investigated overseas." She said lobbying efforts on Police Minister Annette King would also continue.

"She has said Taser use is an operational matter and not a policy one and should therefore be left to Police," Ms Dyhrberg said. "But this is a significant change to policing. It is controversial and in other jurisdictions the Government would have a say."

Ms Dyhrberg also called for police to ensure they did not treat media releases on Taser-related incidents any differently to other cases. "It's fair that police don't release all details of every incident so as to ensure a fair trial," Ms Dyhrberg said.

"But it's common for details of incidents to be released to media so we will want to ensure that the details that are released are no different when a Taser is employed than for any other incident.

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NZ Police have just introduced a trial of using Tasers as a part of their meagre policing arsenal. Unlike other countries where the police carry and use firearms to subdue lawbreakers, NZ police officers don't routinely carry much in the way of weapons, even if their customers often do. Now, the introduction of the taser means those officers faced with armed offenders can deal with the situation upfront without having to call out the Armed Offenders Squad to shoot these fine, upstanding bastards before they can throw a knife or a wheel rim or, as in the case above, cut an officer open with a weedeater.

Nasty things, weedeaters. They can take an eye out or ya foot off, you know. Or worse.

Greens Party Chief Moron Keith Locke seems to think the Police shouldn't have given the poor chap a shock; they should have just let him trim their hair to regulation length, even if he took an eye out or a limb off in the process. After all, the poor boy was only drunk and violent, armed and off his face, he wasn't meaning anyone any harm or anything... in other words, don't use controlled violence to disarm someone who has drunk far too much alcohol and become violent, with every intention of causing grievous bodily harm to those unlucky enough to be sharing oxygen space with him.

Someone should show Keith Locke what a taser can really do compared with a weedeater and give him an oportunity to make a qualified judgement on which is less harmful. Honestly, they should have just shot him.

And the moron with the weedeater.

In a similar vein of "let us do the thinking for you" and following on from an earlier post about the need to legislate for the lowest common intellectual demoninator at the expense of human intellectual development, this beautiful Victorian cot was up for auction on Trade Me.



I say 'was' because the BDMM mentioned earlier made sure it was removed from the site, because it didn't fit the current legal definition of a cot that is safe for use.

Fuck me, it's a bloody antique.