Don’t Tase Me Bro
The incident at a recent
Philadelphia Phillies game in which a teenage fan had run out onto the ball field
and was simultaneously tased has sparked a bit of controversy (pun
intended).
The
fleet-footed 17 -year old managed to evade and quite frankly run circles around
the group of police and security officials whom were faced with the daunting
task of corralling him. That is, until a portly police officer managed to line
him up in the crosshairs of his trusty taser gun and subsequently fire a bolt
of electricity into the boy’s derriere, stopping him dead in his tracks.
Some have questioned the use of
force on the kid especially considering a 34-year old man ran out onto the same
field the very next day and was not subdued by taser. Whether or not it was to
avoid further conflict or just because the middle-aged man wasn’t nearly as
elusive, we may never know.
Just a few days later, an
intoxicated fan at the Players Championship golf tournament had to be taken
down by taser after resisting arrest. It makes me wonder why it is that nobody
protests instances like these. Is it because the man was 36-years old, visibly
inebriated, or a combination of the two?
Taser International, a worldwide
distributer of various law-enforcement and military-grade taser products states
that tasers can be safely used on anyone weighing 60 lbs or more. However, the
excruciating pain that high-grade taser guns has been known to cause has
provoked some to constitute their use as a form of torture and in some cases
these “non-lethal” weapons have put people down for good, especially those with
prior heart problems.
For these reasons alone, I can
understand the concern people may have regarding the use of taser guns. The
other side of me thinks hey, if some crazy (often times wasted) sports fan
wants to act like an idiot and get his 30 seconds of fame by doing cartwheels
and somersaults on the baseball diamond then law enforcement should continue to
be granted the right to end the nonsense in any non-fatal way they see fit.
Hell, they can even utilize those gas-powered t-shirt cannons that team mascots
use to fling souvenirs to the bleacher creatures they call fans.
Think of it this way, would you
want drunks running around your workplace? Nobody knows for sure what these people are
capable of once they’re on the field and they’re potentially putting
multi-million dollar athletes in danger. They could be hopped up on LSD and
confuse a player as some sort of demon they need to dispose of.
Ugly incidents have happened before
so despite the entertainment value that a deranged fan taking a pleasure stroll
across a playing field, court, or gridiron adds to the overall experience; I
cannot honestly disagree with the use of force on the sporting event hoodlums
rather I condone their use in order to cease the madness and keep sporting
events safe and family-friendly.
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