[Swimmer]

Hitting someone with a flashlight in policing is tantamount to shooting someone. The only time either, (hitting with a flaslight or shooting someone), is acceptable when the use of force necessary to subdue someone includes causing serious injury or death because you fear for your life.
I refuse to be trained to use the Taser for several reasons. One being 56 years old it just might cause my heart to stop. Tasing someone is part of what is called in police training "the use of force continuum". Someone resists an officer has the right to use force one-step higher than the "lawbreaker uses" uses. Simple resisting, might just get a response of greater physical force. It might result in spraying, which couldn't be done in the auditorium where Kerry was speaking, because a mass casualty response by the local EMS people would have been necessary. The spray would have wafted into everyone's tear ducts. I have sprayed people with OC spray who started fighting when an attempt at taking them into custody failed, because they didn't want to be arrested. In my almost 34 years on the job I haven't had to wrestle with many, but when a close interpersonal contact was necessary it never lasted long. I wrestle rather well. Very few people I ever arrested ever needed medical attention, very few. Probably less than the fingers on one hand. Respect breeds respect even in this forum.
Moving on.....to say that everyone might as well wear collars I believe is to reason that we are all lawbreakers that need to be harnessed in. I don't think you are a lawbreaker and I know many people here and I know they aren't. I don't believe that when it comes to free speech with regard to this instance the tasing was unreasonable. The tasee had his turn at the microphone and was ask to relinquish the microphone so someone else could speak with Kerry. The liberal democrat who hired the audtorium and arranged to have Kerry there was in charge. The officers were probably there as security for the college and moved on the wise guy only after the liberal person in charge wanted the officers to take over of the situation. It wasn't an open air event staged in public (say outside on the quadrangle), it was inside a hired hall. You don't get to tell someone what your going to do in a hall they hired. One of the officers was female, and female officers can use a higher level of force earlier than than male counterparts, because they simply cannot be expected to subdue people as quickly or safely as thier male counterparts. The free speech issue cease to exist when the wise ass became disorderly and resisted the officer intentions to remove/calm the situation. The w-a enjoyed the interaction with the officers until he was tased. I believe listening to him, he also wanted to be tased. He saw it coming, he could have ceased his acting out at any momemt up until he was tased. He could have went limp and let them cuff him, butt he didn't. And his friend got it all on film just as they planned.
Tasing at first was introduced as a substitute for shooting someone. I always had difficulty with this theory, because in training your taught that if someone is 21' from you and attacking you only have a maximum of 1 1/2 seconds to react. Now if someone is attacking you with a knife, from 21' away and if I have a choice of what I am going to save my life with, am I going to choose a taser that shoots two little darts at someone and not all that accurately or am I going to choose a Glock that I have fifteen chances of stopping someone with. This is all under the God forbid I ever have to do either with theory.
Basically, what I am saying is that newer officers, officer that have been hired in the last ten years have been trained to spray/tase lawbreakers earlier, sometimes almost immediately, in thier officer/lawbreaker interaction, than older officers. Older officers, still use thier charm/wit/good looks, seriously, and when that fails, you do what you have to do.