Park Ranger Tases Guy Walking Dogs Without A Leash
from the watch-your-back dept
In the latest example of questionable taser use, a man walking his two dogs off-leash at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area was tased in the back by a park ranger, who was apparently trying to make an example of him. The problem was that the guy, Gary Hesterberg, was walking the dogs at Rancho Corral de Tierra, which used to be an off-leash walking area until it was just recently incorporated into the National Park. When the park ranger confronted Hesterberg and asked for his identification, for reasons unknown, Hesterberg gave her a fake name, and then tried repeatedly to leave. Finally, when he started to walk away, the ranger shot him in the back... because she was trying to "educate residents of the rule." Then, he was arrested "on suspicion of failing to obey a lawful order, having dogs off-leash and knowingly providing false information."It seems that the use of a taser in this situation was excessive and unwarranted. The guy wasn't threatening the ranger in any way, and even if he had lied about his name (not that lying should be a reason to tase someone), the ranger wouldn't have known that at the time, since Hesterberg only gave his real name to the authorities after he got tased. Did the ranger accomplish her goal of "educating" visitors of the park rules? Yes, if educating means "scaring into submission." As Eric Cartman would say, "Respect my authoritah!"
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Filed Under: dogs, san francisco, taser
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(Yogi was never the same after the invention of Bear Canisters....)
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Assertion
If the state doesn't demonstrate their ability to be violent, people might stop believing the state is in charge...
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Going overboard
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Despite the propaganda of Taser International these devices are not always non fatal.
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Re:
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Re:
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Re: Going overboard
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"A man wakes up one morning in Alaska to find a bear on his roof. So he looks in the yellow pages and sure enough, there's an ad for "Bear Removers."
He calls the number, and the bear remover says he'll be over in 30 minutes.
The bear remover arrives, and gets out of his van. He's got a ladder, a baseball bat, a shotgun and a mean old pit bull.
"What are you going to do," the homeowner asks?
"I'm going to put this ladder up against the roof, then I'm going to go up there and knock the bear off the roof with this baseball bat. When the bear falls off, the pit bull is trained to grab his testicles and not let go. The bear will then be subdued enough for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van."
He hands the shotgun to the homeowner.
"What's the shotgun for?" asks the homeowner.
"If the bear knocks me off the roof, shoot the dog."
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Re:
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Use of force rules
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It seems as we give them more ways to handle situations, they find more reasons to use their new found toys and powers over others. It also seems the more toys we give them the less critical thinking is done beyond mace/tase/shoot on a quick option menu.
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The trouble with tasers
However, this does raise a larger point. My problem with Tasers lies exactly in their mostly nonlethality. It was obvious to anyone who's paid attention to history that they were going to be abused simply because they won't kill most of the time.
And look what's happened. When they were introduced to police departments around here, we were constantly assured that Tasers would only be used in situations where a gun would otherwise have been used. That type of usage is, I think, wholly uncontroversial and makes it an easy sell.
Nowadays, however, Tasers are not used that way. They are, instead, used to torture people into compliance even when they aren't an immediate threat. Many use of force policies even approve of this.
In my opinion there is rampant abuse of Tasers, both sanctioned and not, and this abuse is at the level where it would be the largest benefit to the public at large to either forbid their use, or treat their use as no different than using a gun.
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Re:
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Re: Assertion
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Re:
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no excuse
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Re: The trouble with tasers
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maybe write the guy a citation for the no leash violation and tell him to put the dog on a leash or go home.
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Re: no excuse
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Re: Re: The trouble with tasers
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Milgram in real life
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Bust gone bust
If the judge throws this out of court, I would not be surprised.
If the DA charges this guy and not accept a plea, I would not be surprised.
If this park ranger continues tasing people with impunity, I would not be surprised.
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Re:
Thanks Sir and once again on behalf of the Ranger Service I apologise for the confusion."
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taze === electrocute
Then it will make sense to everybody.
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Re: Re: no excuse
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Next up...
zzzzap!
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Re: no excuse
Attempted Murder? Really? With a non-lethal weapon? Sorry, the ranger should NOT be charged with attempted murder.
Charge with Assault, or Assault with a Weapon. Charge with use of excessive force or even false arrest.
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he probably deserved it
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Re:
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Re: Re: Going overboard
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Re: The trouble with tasers
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Overuse of tasers
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Re:
What else is there to do?
Beat the people who walk dogs unleashed?
She could have recorded the encounter so a next time it could be used as proof to sue the guy.
The lesson to society here appears that all rules no matter what they are must be enforced by violent acts.
I could understand if the dogs posed a threat to others, if they were aggressive or something but none of that appears to be the case so why it is ok to use violence for something so stupid?
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BIG-LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT!
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I predict...
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Re: The trouble with tasers
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Re: he probably deserved it
the guy probably was being a dick and this woman was straight up embarrassed and couldn't handle her shit.
she is the type of person who would cut off her nose to spite her face. this person has no business being in the line of work she does; unfortunately, i feel most aren't up for the task
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Re:
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Re: Re: no excuse
The deadly weapon part is shakier, but any halfway decent lawyer should be able to make a case that a taser can be used to kill people, even if only by misusing it.
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And the ranger was not enforcing the law. She was not in the middle of trying to ticket him, she wasn't even saying why she should listen to him. Law enforcement is not entitled to absolute authority, if they tell you to do 1000 push-ups, you do not have to mindlessly obey.
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"The rules are the rules, I can see your dogs are unlikely to attack the wildlife here, but I must ask you to please leash your dogs."
"If you won't leash your dogs, then I have to ask you to leave."
The point to being an enforcement official is not to start a confrontation every single time, but give em the benefit of the doubt the first time you encounter them. When I was a noise control officer I found it much easier to cheerfully tell people they needed to lower the volume. The few times that didn't work, pointing out the process that was about to occur (I give you a Notice to Reduce Excessive Noise, next 72 hours if I have to come back I do so with police and we take your stuff) worked. For those few that didn't, pointing out the next time I came back would be with the police - well, those who are obnoxious generally know the cops by name, and don't want to meet them for various reasons.
I had exactly one instance where I had to call for police and nearby guard support, and that was a liquored up young man who learned confronting police officers about why they are on his property is a fast way to play the handcuff game. That's ONE instance in just under a year, while dealing with multiple DRUNK partygoers four nights a week...
Give someone a taser, they're just going to think they have to use it.
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Re: I predict...
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Look at the situation: a guy was walking his little dogs without their leashes. He and the dogs weren't hurting anyone at all. He'd merely broken a rule.
Enforcement of rules for the sake of enforcement of rules is simply idiotic.
I suppose you could argue some slippery slope nonsense about one broken rule begetting more and larger broken rules, until we descend into mere chaos.
But let's be serious.
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Maybe someday we'll just be able to ask people pretty please, but until that time...
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Priorities, people...
Walking your dog without a leash = tasered
Sharing culture with internet links = extradition and trial on foreign soil
Operating a cyber locker = Full on SWAT assualt by Seal Team 6 (who were complaining that they couldn't use deadly force...)
Steal millions under a fake investment Ponzi scheme = police escort to shield you from the media
Bribing politicians and laundering money/prostitution = Job as a media political analyst
Stealing BILLIONS via mortgage backed securities and eviciting hundreds of people from their homes = Government fines you 10% of your ill gotten money.
Sounds fair to me...
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"end of story" - tool - you don't even have the whole story. Ranger needs training. There's your fucking story.
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Fucking retard.
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Re: Priorities, people...
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Re: Re: no excuse
Just a quibble. A taser is not a non-lethal weapon. Tasers can and do kill. Even police departments are shying away from "nonlethal" in describing them as using "less lethal" instead.
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Re: taze === electrocute
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Re: Re: Re: The trouble with tasers
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Re:
Walking away from someone that is telling you nothing is not a crime.
Internet tough guys? That's nice. You can take your supposed expectation of subservience to N. Korea and deserve it.
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Let me explain.
No let me summarize
The use of force was NOT justified there was no threat to anyone except the threat presented by the ranger.
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Re: Priorities, people...
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Re: Re: no excuse
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Re:
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Tazing people in the park...
But I guess they never consider that angle.
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Re: Re: taze === electrocute
Anyone got a better word?
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Re:
And grow a set of balls. Douchebags like you are why law enforcement thinks they can get away with this.
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No excuse
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Re: Re: Re: taze === electrocute
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I for one welcome our machine overlords...
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Manditory Friendliness Law not passed yet.
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Re: Tazing people in the park...
what the park needs now is some hunt & kill drones set to automatically kill any human (or dog) that enters the area and put ranger Sarah in charge, she already seems to have a history of abuse^h^h^h work experience.
http://halfmoonbay.patch.com/articles/name-the-ranger-apologize-and-assure-us-we-won- t-be-unreasonably-tasered
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Re: @ Anonymous Coward
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dipshits
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Tazer Ranger...
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Re: Re: Tazing people in the park...
Why is it people think you are not allowed to be an asshole or that it's wrong to be an asshole to a cop? I guarantee cops it isn't illegal for cops to be assholes, so where does this come from? If you take your ticket and co-operate with an reasonable request, there's no reason you can't freely say what you think of the situation and the performance of the officers.
Is it a good idea to be an asshole? Of course not, but if you don't care about the officer using discretion and giving you a warning instead of a ticket, or any of a thousand ways an officer can cut you slack, then go for it.
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Re:
Mission accomplished. I feel absolutely certain that was the goal.
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Re: Priorities, people...
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Not sure if that carries over into the National level though.
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The obey an order laws include "lawful" for a obvious reason. Being that she couldn't detain him for complying and she did not state any further business with him such as writing a ticket, there was no lawful reason for him to stay, he wasn't wrong. Her order for him to stay was unlawful, and he is not required to listen to that order. Many people WOULD listen to that order because they're afraid of cops escalating a situation as happened here, and without bystanders it is a "he said/she said" argument that the citizen is very likely to lose in a court.
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Maybe someday we'll just be able to ask people pretty please, but until that time...
If a normal person shoots someone who only had a knife, they're charged with using excessive force, since they had a more powerful weapon than the other guy. Never mind that the guy was high on drugs and intent on killing you.
So explain to me why it's OK for a park ranger to shoot an unarmed guy in the back as he was walking away from her.
Tasers and pepper spray are supposed to be used for subduing violent suspects with less chance of killing them. They were never intended to be used just because an officer (or park ranger) feels they're not getting the respect that they deserve.
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Re: Re: no excuse
Attempted Murder? Really? With a non-lethal weapon? Sorry, the ranger should NOT be charged with attempted murder.
Charge with Assault, or Assault with a Weapon. Charge with use of excessive force or even false arrest.
If the average person were to use a taser on a member of law enforcement, they would be charged with "Assualt with a deadly weapon". Nobody would say "Oh, he only used a non-lethal weapon." In most places in the US, tasers, and even the less effective stun-guns that you have to press against a person, are listed as "deadly weapons".
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What's with
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Re:
She was the douchebag for turning a simple, non-dangerous violation of the rules into a major incident. Maybe if she had simply explained that the rules had changed, rather than being on a power trip, the guy wouldn't have just walked away from her.
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Re: Re: The trouble with tasers
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Re:
The victim (hint: it's not the one with the taser) should have told the park ranger to go fuck themselves, spit in their eye, then pissed on her shoes.
At least then the taser attack would have been earned.
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Man walking unleashed dogs
Business is growing food = National Forest, not National Park.
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I hope
Perhaps that might send a shiver down the spines of these power-hungry freaks.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
> had a knife, they're charged with using
> excessive force, since they had a more
> powerful weapon than the other guy
Not sure where you live, but that's not the case in any state in the USA. The relevant standard isn't 'whose weapon is more powerful', but rather if a person is in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury. Once that standard is met, *any* weapon may be used to mitigate the danger in self-defense.
And yes, being confronted with a knife-wielding attacker would make use of deadly force reasonable, including the use of a firearm in defense.
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Re: Re:
> it is not okay for police to shoot people
> in the back while trying to escape.
In some states it is. It's called the 'fleeing felon rule'. If a suspect has just committed a violent felony and is fleeing the police and is armed and the cops can articulate that if he were to escape, he'd be an imminent and continuing danger to public safety, then they are justified in shooting him as he flees.
Most states have done away with this rule, but it's still legal in a handful of states.
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Re: no excuse
> assault if not attempted murder
Oh, please. Stop being ridiculous. She didn't attempt to murder anyone. Murder is an intentional crime and there's absolutely no evidence that the ranger at any point intended to kill the dog walker.
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Re: Re: Re: no excuse
> on a member of law enforcement, they would
> be charged with "Assualt with a deadly weapon".
But they wouldn't be charged with attempt-murder, which is the point under discussion.
The issue isn't whether the weapon is 'deadly' or not. Anything can be a deadly weapon depending on how it's used. The issue is whether the person had the requisite mens rea, or intent to kill.
In this case, there was zero evidence that the park ranger intended to kill the dog walker.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: no excuse
Personally I think she should be punished by unpaid leave, have a record of this incident and apologize profusely for what happened to the guy she harmed and put at risk by being irresponsible.
She was not there to teach people a lesson, she was there to enforce the rules and she accomplished that the moment the guy was evading the park with his dog, that should have been the end of it.
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Re: Re: no excuse
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If the dog had bitten a small child then...
Let's all please try to consider the other side of the equation here.
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Techdirt Commission on Higher First Post Standards
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Re: he probably deserved it
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Re:
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Re: If the dog had bitten a small child then...
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Re: Re: If the dog had bitten a small child then...
Then the owner will claim that he/she did not know that the dog had defecated, and therefore does not have to clean up the mess.
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Re: Assertion
Use it or lose it, is a well established in legal case law.
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if you are breaking the law, which he was, and being questioned about it, no, you do not have the right to walk away from the LEO
since from the mouth breathers on this forum, all of you were standing there the entire time and know every minute detail of the event...tools......keep drinking the koolaide sheeple
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not enough info
Contrary to some of the statements here, you are not allowed to walk-away or refuse to be questioned by a sworn officer. It is true an officer should have probable cause to detain you. However, just because you disagree with his reasoning or feel otherwise, you cannot refuse to comply. Under the law, you are required to comply. If you feel the officer unfairly targeted you or behaved inappropriately there are legal and civil avenues you can pursue at a variety of levels.
Refusing to comply when stopped or questioned and attempting to flee; however peaceful, is an invitation in the use of increased force to detain you. Not to mention, suspicion was heightened when the person lied and gave a fake name.
I am not condoning the officer's or the citizen's actions as the story is vague at best. Making judgments w/so little info is an exercise in futility.
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Re: Priorities, people...
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Tasing in GG Park
Argue that we shouldn't have law enforcement ("somebody shot your child, stole your wallet, and fled? Gee, that's a shame") but if we have law enforcement, and there is a total lack of respect for it on the part of someone, they asked for what they got. I personally feel the Ranger should have been congratulated on enforcing a respect for the law.
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Think about this though, if you're walking away, the LEO doesn't have an opportunity to explain to you. If a cop comes up to you and says "Hello sir, I'd..." and at that point you leave, and he says "sir, wait, don't leave, I need to talk to you" and you keep going, what is he supposed to do? If he has a legitimate reason to detain (not necessarily arrest) you, is he supposed to chase you while trying to explain what he's doing? Before tasers, I'm guessing he would tackle and handcuff you, and most people would say "well duh, don't walk away from a police officer who just told you to stay put".
I'm not saying this ranger did a great job, but when she told him to stay there and he left, what would he expect to happen? LEOs are not trained to just let people ignore lawful orders. They're law enforcement officers, not law suggestion officers. I don't know if this order was lawful for sure, but it seems like she would have good faith reason to believe so.
Maybe a better headline would be "Park Ranger tases guy who leaves against orders". Since the dogs had nothing directly to do with the tasing.
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Re: Re:
If you just want to see a bear get tazed and suffer, then yes.
On the other hand, considering a simple tazer would probably just annoy and harm, but not incapacitate a bear, causing nothing more than the severe mauling, if not death of the moron wielding the tazer, if the reason you wanted to see that is to see say, the narcissistic, power hungry ranger from this story get mauled, that would probably fall under 'cruel, but still kinda funny'.
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Re: I predict...
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sounds like assault.
prosecute this dirtbag before someone decides that flipping the park ranger off while walking away is grounds for execution by sidearm.
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Re: Re: Re: If the dog had bitten a small child then...
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Re:
The castle doctrine says you can legally shoot and kill a law enforcement officer who's trying to tase you on public property?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
> Also FELON. I can't imagine that walking
> your dogs without a leash is a felony.
Yes, but we were no longer talking about *this* case. Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) made reference to movies and what the police can and cannot do. Since this case didn't involve the police, we were no longer talking about this case, but rather the broader legalities of when it is appropriate to use deadly force.
My comment addressed that, not this park ranger situation.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And yes, being confronted with a knife-wielding attacker would make use of deadly force reasonable, including the use of a firearm in defense.
I'm in the US, and while it's not strictly defined in law that you can't use a more powerful weapon to defend yourself, the standard is whether you used a justifiable amount of force to defend yourself. Unfortunately I can't provide any examples at the moment, but I have read news stories about people who non-fatally shot knife-wielding intruders in their homes and were successfully prosecuted for using excessive force. The argument went something like that the intruder posed a lesser threat because they only had a knife, which is a close range weapon, so shooting them from several feet away was excessive force.
Also, cop friend once told my father point-blank, that if he ever was in a situation where he had to shoot someone, to make sure that he killed the person. In fact, he told him to "empty the gun into him", and then say that he panicked and just kept pulling trigger. The reason being that if you have enough time to take careful aim, or shoot the person in a non-vital area to wound or incapacitate them, you weren't in enough danger to justify shooting them.
Also, some jurisdictions in the US have a "duty to flee" law, which requires that unless you're in your home, you attempt to flee from a violet attack rather than defend yourself, and that use of a weapon is only justified if you can prove that there was no way for you to flee.
It's a sad state of affairs, but the rights of victims have been under attack for many years now. Burglars can successfully sue you if they get hurt while breaking into your home or business. If you set up any kind of trap to kill or injure burglars, you will be charged with a crime, even if you've been robbed repeatedly in the past.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
> non-fatally shot knife-wielding intruders
> in their homes and were successfully prosecuted
> for using excessive force. The argument went
> something like that the intruder posed a lesser
> threat because they only had a knife, which
> is a close range weapon, so shooting them
> from several feet away was excessive force.
When it comes to knives, 22 feet is the minimum safe distance for someone armed with a gun. At 21 feet or closer, a person with a knife can lunge forward and cut you before you can raise the gun and pull the trigger.
Seems unbelievable, but we had drills in the academy that proved it soundly.
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Taser's Bring Out the Best
Like this one, http://badtadmd.com/?p=489 talk about invasion of privacy thanks to the taser.
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