Meditations on police brutality

By now I would imagine that most of my Gentle Readers have seen, or heard of, the incident at the University of California in which a student got tasered.

The part of the Internet that I frequent is all agog about this — on one side you have the inevitable screams of “Police Brutality! Woe!” and on the other you have the folks who are just as passionately defending the actions of the officers.

This will be no surprise to my long-term Gentle Readers, but I fall in both camps.

This little scene is an example of the unintended consequences of the “Californization” of the police in this country. It is what happens when — due to fear of lawsuits, fear of bad media coverage, or whatever — your officers are afraid to put their hands on someone.

During every arrest there are two separate periods of time. The first, which always happens, is the “talking phase”. This is when you speak to the arrestee. It is during this time that you talk to him, negotiate with him, make deals or whatever. This is usually all that is required to make an arrest.

The second phase is the “laying on of hands” phase. This is when talking to the subject fails. This is when you snatch ahold of the arrestee, OC him, taser him, beat the everloving whey out of him, whatever is necessary to gain control of the situation.

This doesn’t happen with all arrests — but, during the “laying on of hands” the talking part is over and done. There is no negotiation, making deals, or asking for co-operation once the talking has failed.

This didn’t happen during the California arrest.

You can quite clearly hear the officer asking the arrestee to get up — negotiating with him — after they stuck taser darts in him.

Sweet Shivering Shiva!

Once you taser him, you don’t ask him to do a damned thing — you get ahold of him and you make him do what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, in a desperate attempt to avoid the appearance of beating the stupid out of people, officers are trying to gain compliance without actually — you know — grabbing the subject and twisting things. Or — Goddess forefend — doing anything that involves impact trauma.

*sigh*

As it so happens, I have had a situation or two much like this one in my career. Allow me to describe one such, and then compare the two situations.

We got a call about a subject in an area where he was no longer welcome.

I show up, talk to the person who called in the report and then go inform the subject that he is no longer welcome and that it is time to leave.

He does not wish to go.

I repeat myself, and I further offer to help him return some things to their proper location so as to chivvy him along.

Again, he demurs. Rights were mentioned.

I inform him that if he does not leave, I will arrest him for Criminal Trespass.

His reply is short, terse, and anatomically improbable.

We have now departed the “talking stage”.

I inform the subject that he is under arrest, and I tell him to stand up and place his hands behind his back. I take a firm grip on his wrist and bicep as I do this and lift up, reinforcing my order to stand.

The subject attempts to jerk his arm out of my grasp, so I armbar him — incidentally causing his face to meet the table top right smartly — snap the ‘cuffs on the arm I have glommed on to and then crank firmly on the shoulder, while ordering him to give me his other hand.

There is some yelling and gnashing of teeth, but the subject becomes properly handcuffed and I take a firm grip on his arm to lead him to the cruiser, but he collapses to his knees and then to his side, shrieking, wailing, crying out to the Deity of his choice and begging aid from by-standers.

I reached down, locked in a come-along hold known as a “C-Clamp” and the intense pain combined with my tug caused the critter to jump to his feet.

We take about two steps, and then the critter again falls to his knees, while simultaneously shrieking, “I’m not resisting! I’m not resisting! I’m not resisting!”

This blatant lie caused me to get a firm grip on the hair at the back of his head with one paw, take a good twist of the back waistband of his knickers with the other and then cause the twain to meet — thus neatly executing a tactical application of the Ancient Chinese Thermo-Nuclear Death Wedgie.

The subject chose to walk the rest of the way to my cruiser, albeit on his tippy-toes and uttering shrill squeaks every step of the way.

So. What do we have?

In Texas — we have business as usual. The critter was offered a way out without arrest, when that failed he was given a chance to be arrested like a civilised human being, and when that failed he was snatched, hooked and booked. Five minutes, no muss-no fuss.

In California — Sweet Holy Jeebus! I have brutally smashed this kids face into a wood table top; I have sadistically picked him up by the upper lip; and I have squashed his squishy bits flat as he walked to the patrol car.

In Texas — the witnesses made statements along the lines of: “Next time he’ll listen”, “Bet he won’t do that again”, and “Cowboy up and walk it off”.

In California — Can you imagine what the Acolytes of Higher Learning in the Holy Mecca of Liberalism would have to say? “Police brutality”, “Torture!”, “Why didn’t you just talk to him?!”, “Oh, the humanity!”

In Texas, my actions required a one paragraph Incident Report that the Sheriff barely glanced over.

In California, particularly if the the little swine is non-Caucasoid, my boss would be under relentless media attack; special interest groups would spend a wheelbarrow load of money to metaphorically pillory me; and politicians not anywhere near my chain of command would be be subtly coercing my boss into doing “something to placate the voters”.

Pfagh.

Unintended consequences. California doesn’t want it’s cops beating people — it’s just not civilised or “forward-thinking” — and they have used relentless Media pressure, legal pressure, and political pressure to eliminate police brutality.

Unfortunately, in their drive to destroy any appearance of police brutality in their State, they have lost sight of the fact that application of force is a bedrock part of peace officer duties. Application of force is the toolbox in and on which we base all of our duties.

They have redefined ALL laying on of hands by officers as police brutality.

As a result, they have officers who are terminally reluctant to grab ahold of a subject, and will do anything necessary to avoid any action that might even look in the slightest bit like an Old School Beatdown.

There is a huge gulf between laying hands on a non-complaint arrestee and kicking the spam out of him. This huge grey area is where Peace Officers exist and work.

When I have a subject in custody who refuses to stand up, I ask him twice — maybe three times — to stand up, and if he demurs, then I get ahold of him and I stand him up. And he’s not going to like the experience.

Those officers asked the subject to stand up. He refused. They don’t want to touch him (police brutality). So, what does that leave them? OC? Ye gods. What else? Whack him with a baton? Talk about police brutality! So, what’s left? Well, the taser doesn’t involve rhythmic swings of the arm (with accompanying thuds and grunts), it doesn’t require the officers to twist anatomy the wrong way, and it doesn’t require much of a scuffle in which the subject might wind up with bruises that would have to be explained in front of a Review Board consisting of people who don’t know the first thing about scuffles.

Taser, it is, by default.

And then they asked him to stand up. And he refused. So they tasered him again. And then they asked him to stand up. He refused. Same choices as last time — they tasered him. Again. And then they asked him to stand up …

*sigh*

Do I blame the officers? Yes. I blame them for not walking into the library, telling the little whelp that it is time to leave and when he refused, arresting him, handcuffing him — dragging him to the floor if necessary — and frog-marching him out the door. Five minutes. I’ve done it before.

I also blame them for failing to adapt and improvise a way to deal with the little twerp that didn’t involve four seperate taser discharges while officers stood around and asked him to comply with orders.

Yet, at the same time, I blame the special-interest groups, the Media, the lawyers and the politicians for creating an atmosphere where repeatedly tasering a subject while demanding compliance looks — and seems — preferable to simply hooking him up and dragging him out the door by his nostrils.

Just my two pennies worth.

LawDog

This is God's way of saying, "Don't do it."
There I was ...

40 thoughts on “Meditations on police brutality”

  1. Dog, you’re absolutely correct.

    As I wrote on my site; the officers did not follow proper continuum of force; but your point that they are hamstrung by the political environment is well taken.

    This whole thing should have been resolved with an arm bar, a pair of cuffs, and a comealong.

    The little twerp would’ve shut himself up right quick if he was properly handled, instead he starts screaming about the patriot act; and because of the screwed up politics, and blatantly improper training these officers; they tase him repeatedly, something far more brutal, and dangerous.

  2. It seems that I agree with Mr Chris as well as Mr LawDog.

    A big round of Texan applause for both of you!

  3. http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/2006/11/when-police-behave-criminally.html“>When Police Behave Criminally

    I recognize the pressures the officers were under; I just dont think ti’s a valid excuse.

    Also, I’ve heard comments to the effect that

    1. The kid was an ass and deserved it
    2. The kid was deliberately provoking the tasing in order to establish a brutality case

    The first, whether true or not; is still no excuse. The second is patently ridiculous for anyone who’se ever been tased.

  4. Don’t forget the Flying Kneedrop in the event of a down and kicking subject….

  5. “Ancient Chinese Thermo-Nuclear Death Wedgie”

    Alright then… I’ve learned not to wear underwear when I plan on getting arrested.

    Besides the fact that officers may feel their choices on how to handle a situation are limited for fear of someone screaming about police brutality, I think it also results in a lot of peope not taking anyone seriously when they fuss about it. At this point, we could have a true case of police brutality and lots of folks would shrug it off as some liberal yellin’ about the cuffs being on too tight. It’s the old story of the Little Liberal Who Cried “Meanie”.

  6. Lawdog, your tactics seem reasonable.

    I’m confused about the California case though, how could the guy get up immediately after being tasered?

    Isn’t the effect of the electric shock loss of muscle control?

  7. Y’know, if I was in the position the Police found themselves in I think I’d have cell-phoned the President of the University on the spot and said something like:

    “We have a little twerp here who doesn’t want to show ID and won’t leave voluntarily. We know perfectly well that if we lay hands on the moron you’ll be all over us about Police Brutality no matter how well it goes. You have a choice. Either you get your Liberal ass over here and give us explicit permission – in advance – for each step we take from here on in (and you can try to persuade this fool that he isn’t as clever as he thinks he is), or you can forget any Police ever coming on campus again while you are President, for any reason. You can preside over anarchy. What’ll it be?”

  8. I suspect the only way this problem can be sorted out, short of mass indoctrination of the citizens and media, would be for the rank and file to agree to no attempts at an arrest for less than felony use of a weapon. Then they can point out that they only have two viable options, given the current state of affairs: they can talk, or they can shoot with guns. I think after the politicians see the results on the streets, they will learn that the officers must be able to utilize appropriate physical applications of force to cover the middle ground between words and bullets. Unfortunately, you wont get any to agree to the attempt. Which is a shame.

  9. The ironic thing is that at the same time we have Police departments using Ninja-cops to serve arrest warrants for outstanding parking tickets and bust up multi-dollar, less than an ounce drug cartels.

    Go figure.

  10. Reason 1002 I always read this blog:
    “Ancient Chinese Thermo-Nuclear Death Wedgie”
    You just don’t get wordsmith craftsmanship like that anywhere else…

  11. I have repeatedly advised young people who think they need to argue with cops not to do so. I’ve told them that when dealing police officers, comply with their orders. If you have a problem with the orders or how the officer acted, take it up with his department after you are no longer in contact with the officer. Unfortunately, some have not listened to me.
    By being polite and honest, I’ve received 4 verbal warnings on traffic stops in the past 10 years and one ticket. It’s amazing how much smoother your life goes when you are polite and honest.

  12. Those were campus cops, not LAPD. from personal experience, these are not the highest level of law enforcement personnel…

    Then again, LAPD has gone over the top JUST a few times. People in LA are on a short fuse for yelling “Polce Brutality!” for a good historical reason.

    One of those situations where no one behaved properly. Poorly trained/stupid cops + Stupid kid = Stupid incident.

  13. “Tabatabainejad, 23, was shocked Tuesday night after arguing with a campus police officer who was conducting a routine check of student IDs at the University of California, Los Angeles, Powell Library computer lab.”
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061118/ap_on_re_us/student_stunned

    So this was a case of “papers please” and Tabatabainejad decided, NO this is not nazi Germany this is America, I’m not going to co-operate with your gestapo like mentality. Of course being a “peace officer” you choose to side with the nazis. Your mother must be proud.

  14. I would like to say – and this might be an unpopular view – that the officers involved should be fired. Even if it is proven that they acted within their bounds, what is the net result of their choice of actions? The UCPD is being slapped with at least one lawsuit, which will cause them a giant headache, and end up costing the TAXPAYERS (ie. myself and other Californians) a large amount of money.

    It’s a fact of life that in the age of video cameras, the police have to act in a way that will put themselves in a positive light in the eyes of the PUBLIC, not just their immediate superiors.

  15. it’s probably best they fire the staff, tell the children to go home and turn the land into an industrial park. This would turn a tax pit into a source of revenue.

  16. This is reminding me of some of Col. Jeff Cooper’s observations… he said most all police officers are really quick to handcuff *everybody* before they even begin to see what happened. The Col. was saying the most successful law enforcement outfits in the history of the world didn’t have such policies… no Roman citizen was ever shackled and the Mexican Rurales under Pres. Porfirio Diaz thought it impolite to remove a suspect’s sidearm. Col. Cooper didn’t say anything about dealing with crazy ignorant people though.

    I agree something other than what happened needed doing about that idiot in the UC incident. Lately, though, in general I’ve been hearing more and more instances (I’ve lost track of what happened when) of police instantly coming out with “(do whatever we say) or we’ll taser you” before they find out what the problem was or before the citizen knows there was a problem. And in general, whatever happened to people communicating and talking things out so there ain’t a problem to start with.

    mustanger98 on THR

  17. Sorry, Bro. Dawg. I’m with the detractors here.

    I know that if I tasered someone in handcuffs, I would expect to get fired, sued, and probably prosecuted.

    The guy was surrounded by enough cops to carry him out with no fuss; “political environment” be damned. If they were concerned with practical politics, they certainly took an interesting –and less than effective– approach to minimizing negative publicity.

    Threatening onlookers with, “If you keep asking for badge numbers, you’re going to get tased too!” is not good PR.

  18. Do I blame the officers? Yes. I blame them for not walking into the library, telling the little whelp that it is time to leave and when he refused, arresting him, handcuffing him — dragging him to the floor if necessary — and frog-marching him out the door. Five minutes. I’ve done it before.

    I also blame them for failing to adapt and improvise a way to deal with the little twerp that didn’t involve four seperate taser discharges while officers stood around and asked him to comply with orders.

  19. They ended up dragging him out in handcuffs anyway, so why the fuck didn’t they do that first and avoid the whole “condemned by bad video” thing?
    Stupid kid.
    Dumb cops.
    Bad video.
    Gotta love it.

  20. LawDog for president!

    I’ll head up your “exploratory commitee.”

    🙂

  21. To Anonymous who references Nazis:

    I used to manage the computer labs of the business school on a major public campus. My staff & I would routinely request to see student IDs from anyone we were suspicious of. Every registered student agreed to this when they signed up for the lab.

    Why, because computing resources were limited and non-students were not paying for those resources. Not to mention, 90% of the time non-students were using the lab, they were playing video games, hacking the PCs, using stolen credentials, surfing/uploading porn, etc. Not too mention that asking them to leave either required me personally (I am not a small person and folks generally decide to listen to me) or the campus police.

    MadRocketScientist

  22. Dear Monday Morning Quarterbacks,

    Allow me to offer your gentle readers a little more information. One thing you should know off the bat: the taser was used in drive stun mode only. No darts. So for those of you who think young dumbass was immobilized, sorry, not true. A drive stun is like a stun gun, just a little sharp pain to aid in compliance, not unlike someones aforementioned nostril dragging trick, which may work for you, but is not included in everyone’s control hold training or approved pain compliance policy.

    For the guy who said college cops are not the best in your experience? Hmmm, one wonders what that experience might be. UCPD officers are largely college educated, well paid (better than many other agencies in CA and most across the nation) enjoy the best retirement benefits in the state and receive the same training as (in fact train with) all of the other police in CA. We have POST standards here ya know. UCPD policy allows for the use of the taser in drive stun as a pain compliance technique that is no more serious than pressure point control or pepper spray as it has no lasting effect and is even less likely to cause injury than your standard pain compliance comealongs, which have been known to seperate shoulders, break wrists, etc. Here in CA we are under much greater scrutiny, largely thanks to the LAPD. No bad on them, but we all know how the tape got handled with Rodney King and how that changed the world for all of us.

    Unfortunately, we are gun shy about “putting hands on” as you say, but this is an inescapable fact of politics in our area and time. Think of some of the famous cases that have captured public attention in Los Angeles, Riverside, Inglewood, San Bernadino, Cincinnati, New York, etc..It is a problem, but it is a problem that our leadership refuses to address with any backbone, and it unnecessarily increases the risks to officers who hesitate because they are unsure if their leaders or the public will back them.

    Someone said the officers should be fired EVEN if they were acting within policy. WHAT THE HELL HORRIBLE PLANET ARE YOU FROM? These are men with wives and kids who depend on them and you would throw them out like trash because this kid acted the fool and they and their families should be sacrificed on the alter of meaningless politics? What message does this send? To idiot spoiled students who think they dont have to obey the rules that were designed for their own safety? Because they were raised by the 60’s peace love and protest crowd who taught them to back talk authority and that nothing bad can ever happen to them?

    Now that we have mentioned those rules, the dumbass was in the library after 11pm. All students are asked for id at that time because like most universities, UCLA is haunted by predators that would victimize our vulnerable population if they could and the public is barred from the libraries after this time as a precaution. Dumbass was asked for id by student employees, who only called for PD after he was abusive to them and refused to leave. Then he gave th cops the same treatment, but apparently didn’t like the results.

    So in the end, while there is always more than one way to handle an incident and hindsight is twenty twenty, these officers were within policy and gave dumbass some 73 opportunities to bahave appropriatley and he decided to demur. I dont care how you use it, force is not pretty and will always appears worse than it is on camera, particularly if the suspect is a drama queen as in this case. The fact that the only high profile civil rights attorney he could snag is Yagman is telling as well.

  23. FWIW, Patterico’s Pontifications has an update and some commentary regarding one Mostafa Tabatabainejad, with a link to screenshots of of this hapless individual’s ever changing ‘Facebook’ profile.

  24. One of the things that I was wondering about was what if he was sick or hurt by the tasering what good would it do to keep tasering him. I am disabled and if I were tasered I would not be getting up and would have to been hauled out by an ambulance. All the stores I have read up to now have said that he was Tasered 2 times, is this growing and changing as the story moves though the Internet.

    charliehorse43

  25. To Chris Byrne, in regards to “1. The kid was an ass and deserved it… whether true or not; is still no excuse.”

    Perhaps if being an ass invited harsher treatment by our law enforcement personnel, there would be fewer asses in this country.

    IMO, peace officers should be obeyed ALWAYS. If the officer gave even one opportunity for someone to comply peacefully, to not take the opportunity should be carte blanche to subdue by whatever means is necessary.

    I do not believe in allowing the government to rule society with an iron fist, but when the law has been broken, the perpetrator must be made to stand trial for his or her offense.

    In the end, please, people, treat our officers with respect, do what they say the FIRST time they say it, and then no one will have to be tasered or atomic wedgied.

  26. Having worked in a Public Library for 16 years & having had to stre down drunks, pot heads, and “51/50” moon-units, all I can say is that I appreciate all the many uses for an Unabridged dictionary. Use your imagination.

    I’m glad that the taser used was not applied to his ANATOMY as in one instance I read about….

    Then again, such use might have encouraged yon idiot to show his ID & COMPLY WITH POSTED RULES.

    Sad to say, the UC system doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to send him to Sudan,where he can study real brutality for credit (assuming he lives…).

    The videotape should be played on NATIONAL TV in its entirety, without comment. Perhaps this would discourage others from acting stupidly, too.

  27. I have a very difficult time with the concept that the police MUST be obeyed simply because they are the police. That is what they do in China, Egypt, Belarus, and any other police state you might mention.

    Pain Compliance? Say what? If I gave the same level of “pain” to a police officer then I would fully expect what happened to Rodney King looked like a pat on the back. Your “pain compliance” is just a fancy term for “assaulting the prisoner”. If you seriously believe it is acceptable to use “pain compliance” then you are not a good cop, regardless of how much education you have. Torture is unacceptable at any time and unjustified all the time.

    The worst problem isn’t what a police officer faces every day. It is what happens to that person when they put on the uniform. If you can use your head then great. If you need to resort to “pain compliance” then you’re a loser.

  28. You’re right. But you’re also wrong.
    I refuse to believe these cops were thinking about the political climate – they are clearly too stupid. They were just plain stupid, simple. You as a cop, have elaborated perfectly how force escalation is supposed to work. These donuts quite obviously weren’t even thinking about that – why would they resort to potentially lethal force (I don’t care what anyone says about “drive stun mode” – high voltage electric shocks are more dangerous than ju-jitsu, PERIOD) before actually trying to do what they ultimately ended up doing – dragging the guy out with force. That is where your argument falls down – the very force you claim they were “afraid” to resort to because of the “political climate” is what they ultimately ended up doing anyway. Your logic is correct, but your conclusions are flawed. The more apt conclusion was that these guys were just dumb thugs, and I don’t think anyone will lose any sleep over them getting sued into next century.

    Some of the best bouncers I have ever seen at nightclubs have DE-escalated situations simply with polite, authoritative language and non-violent persuasion. These guys couldn’t even concieve of such a skill.

  29. A word about pain compliance.

    Proper pain compliance techniques focus on [i]compliance[/i], not pain. All of the various “come along” holds have one thing in common: the pain stops instantly when the subject complies by moving in the desire direction.

    That’s quite different from stunning someone who is already in handcuffs, when that person has no ability to stop the pain by complying. That’s not a pain compliance technique; that’s applying pain until you decide to stop.

    I recognize that the student in this case was a drama queen, eager to assert his status as a victim. Rather than minimizing the opportunity for drama, the UCPD officers played right into it.

  30. sometimes u have to put urself in teh person’s shoes.
    “The UCLA police officer videotaped last week using a Taser gun on a student also shot a homeless man at a campus study hall room three years ago and was earlier recommended for dismissal in connection with an alleged assault on fraternity row, authorities said.”

    “HERE it is from a cop. the main things i want to emphasize are that he wasn’t allowed to touch him in the first place because we already agree for the most part about the tasering..
    “…rules for any controlled encounter (one where you aren’t in danger from the get go) include finding out what the issue is, telling the subject what he/she needs to do, and explaining what will happen if they do not. There is almost never a need to place your hands on anyone for any reason until you are ready to take them into custody..” HE WASNT ARresting him at first, he was asking him to leave…

    “This “officer” grabbed the guy’s arm while he was leaving. Bad move, even if it seems like a little thing. Physical contact constitutes use of force, and any trained officer knows this is a big line to cross. I don’t care if he didn’t leave immediately…”

  31. Lets be honest, if a white jewish girl had bee doing the same thing, she wouldnt have been tasered. If she had, a medium-sized palestinean village would have been bombed by now.

  32. I hate people who think the rules dont apply to them . Just because yuo do like it dont mean you can ignore them

  33. “I don’t care what anyone says about “drive stun mode” – high voltage electric shocks are more dangerous than ju-jitsu, PERIOD”

    Than you’re ignorant. The voltage needs to be high to make the current flow, because human has a high resistivity. You feel pain not because of high voltage but because of the current. X26 taser manages current of about 2.1 mili amps (mA)

    BODILY EFFECT DIRECT CURRENT (DC) 60 Hz AC 10 kHz AC
    —————————————————————
    Slight sensation Men = 1.0 mA 0.4 mA 7 mA
    felt at hand(s) Women = 0.6 mA 0.3 mA 5 mA
    —————————————————————
    Threshold of Men = 5.2 mA 1.1 mA 12 mA
    perception Women = 3.5 mA 0.7 mA 8 mA
    —————————————————————
    Painful, but Men = 62 mA 9 mA 55 mA
    voluntary muscle Women = 41 mA 6 mA 37 mA
    control maintained
    —————————————————————
    Painful, unable Men = 76 mA 16 mA 75 mA
    to let go of wires Women = 51 mA 10.5 mA 50 mA
    —————————————————————
    Severe pain, Men = 90 mA 23 mA 94 mA
    difficulty Women = 60 mA 15 mA 63 mA
    breathing
    —————————————————————
    Possible heart Men = 500 mA 100 mA
    fibrillation Women = 500 mA 100 mA
    after 3 seconds
    —————————————————————

    Please compare the values for AC current, taser is using alternating current, since this type of current requires less power to flow through human body.

    Once the current starts flowing the taser drops the voltage to 1,200, and eventually is reduced to almost negligible level to maintain that current.

    Remember, those things are powered by a 9V battery, you won’t be able to get much juice from it.

    Also the difference between regular mode and drive-stun is that the victim is not shoot with the darts, so the current is applied to the surface of a skin, it doesn’t penetrate the body as much, so the person don’t fill that much pain.

    I can understand that high voltage seems scary, since we have 110/220V in our sockets at home and we know that touching it might kill us. The thing is that sockets at your home are capable of delivering high current (most fuses have 20 amps (A) limit). The current is closely connected to the voltage and resistivity. current = voltage / resistance.
    Your body has specific resistance, so amount of current that flows actually depends on the voltage.

    The tasers use high voltage to overcome resistance and make current flow. Once current starts flow (as I said before) the voltage drops to maintain low current (also they’re not even capable to provide high voltage high current, because they’re batterry powered.

  34. I was tasered once, repeatedly, by an over anxious Irvine Amphitheater security guard who couldn’t wait for me to crawl out from under that chain link fence.

    It was annoying, him jabbing it into my chest for like a minute. Don’t know if the jabbing or the voltage or both is what stung. Maybe it was a dying battery. And they were good guys once we were out from under that fence, they let us go with only a token amount of verbal abuse. Sure hope that guy got a new battery or his money back though, cause his taser was a joke. Looked pretty cool though.

    Another time, drunk, I grabbed what turned out to be 2 capaciters in a control box for one of those dinasour oil pumps. Threw me like 20 feet, my hands still grasping the ripped out capaciters. AC, thankfully. DC and I might be dead. Now that HURT. My buddy (equally drunk) claims he saw smoke coming off me. Give me a 9 volt battery amped up anyway you want it anyday, and I live in OC CA, my dad was a cop here and I fear cops. I will always comply, because cops have power, period.

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