Background from the NYT article:

A patrol car’s dashboard camera shows Jesse D. Buckley just after he was stopped for speeding on a rural Florida road. Being pulled over is no one’s favorite experience, but it completely undid Mr. Buckley, who said in an interview that the prospect of paying a $175 ticket was just too much given his personal and financial troubles at the time.

“I just cried,” he said. “I needed to cry. I just couldn’t stop crying.”

He refused to sign the traffic citation, and he was arrested. Hands cuffed behind his back, he sat down on the ground by his car, sobbing.

Moving this video to bamdrew's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

That is a pickle. You can't just let him sit there all night. I guess it is a matter of how much we want to offer people in the way of latitude. If he called for backup earlier to get others to help him get in the car, then you would have to expect that those police couldn't be doing something else. I remember one time we called the cops after my friend got jumped and it took 3 hours for them the get there and take a statement. If police have to tip toe around people who don't comply with lawful orders then it results in the rest of us not having police around when we need them. It is a tuff call, but I think the officer made the right choice, though, not an easy one.

It stinks, because I have been in his shoes (the "victim"). But you can't refuse a lawful request and expect to get away with it without recourse After the first taze, he should of gotten the point.

That man is *really* in touch with his feelings.

Oh I don't think that this is a "pickle"; just call a second car and wait so another person can help pick him up and put him in the car. I've seen cops sitting around all day so they don't get an excuse to tazer someone over and over as an incentive.

Yes, I understand your sentiment, but if all things used 2 police instead of 1 it could be crippling to response times robbing everyone of a level of justice. Once you refuse an officer, you are now placing yourself in his discretionary power, a dangerous place to be as they are armed with multiple flavors of pain. I think the real question is does this constitute excessive force. I would have to say no, so much so that it still didn't compel him to get into the car and he had to further escalate by calling other officers.

It isn't a black and white situation, so there is a great deal of personal opinion in something as charged as this.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Yes, I understand your sentiment, but if all things used 2 police instead of 1 it could be crippling to response times robbing everyone of a level of justice. Once you refuse an officer, you are now placing yourself in his discretionary power, a dangerous place to be as they are armed with multiple flavors of pain. I think the real question is does this constitute excessive force. I would have to say no, so much so that it still didn't compel him to get into the car and he had to further escalate by calling other officers.
It isn't a black and white situation, so there is a great deal of personal opinion in something as charged as this.


You make a really good case for leaving this country permanently and letting the psychopaths destroy themselves. Seriously. Just twisted. It's this whole collective right of everyone to have a "level of justice," what the hell is that? It's totally ambiguous. Totally non-descript. Those concepts of rights and duties allow any true injustice imaginable. Collective rights don't exist.

It's not excessive force because it didn't work? Amazing.

It's OK for a police officer to tazer someone because they're taking to long, and the cops MIGHT be doing SOMETHING ELSE, that's more important? WHA?! Really?!

Yeah, this is sad and ridiculous. Pain will not always motivate someone. Tazing the guy 3 times was incredibly excessive, and I hope this guy gets rich off it.

Physical force against someone should only be used to prevent physical violence, period. Whether it be against person or property. Sitting there crying wasn't hurting anyone.

After enough refusal to get up and get in the police car, a second car should have been called to assist, and the person driving should not only have been charged with the crime of resisting arrest, but also, if found guilty, charged the MONEY that it took to waste both of those police officers' time.

If we simply make the criminals fund the police officers' time and resources that they waste, then our tax money can go to funding the additional officers needed on the streets to compensate for the amount of crime we have.

It works for the medical world. You pay for all time and resources used, down to things like tissues and electricity. The guy above should pay for wear and tear on the cars, gas, police officer time, the booking, time in the cell, bathroom access, everything.

^ First of all, I don't believe in collective rights, you are putting words in my mouth. I don't believe in any natural rights whatsoever. However, I do think there is something called justice. I think "true" justice is unobtainable as we lack the needed tools for it. You can't always punish people in the appropriate degree for the crimes they commit and certain situations are convoluted enough to lack any means of creating rules to manage them. Your over idealism clouds the practicality of carring out any "real" justice.

Furthermore, you go on and state there is no room for ambiguity yet don't clarify some universal idea of justice that apples to all peoples notion of it. Justice for some is retribution, for others, it is repayment, for others it is punishment and yet still others it is rehabilitation, and for most it is some hybrid of all of those. What you fail to point out in your objection to my claim of the officers side is how he violations instead of fulfills this "true and pure" for of justice that you seem to have an idea of that I don't.

Practically speaking, I would love to have seen this guy get moved by a score of police officers into the back of the car, but if you had to get scores of cops for every speeding ticket that went bad, you and I would get no police protection to speak of...they would just get mired down in the business of people tapping into the knowledge that they can just sit and cry out a ticket and hope the cop has to let him go because of a lack of man power at the present time.

In a perfect world of unlimited resources, maybe this COP would of had more options, but this isn't that world. He made a call, and the first tase I think was a good one. I think there is still room for argument that the subsequent tases were excessive.

As a rely to Wax as to the use of physical force. Physical force against someone should only be used to prevent physical violence, period. Whether it be against person or property. Sitting there crying wasn't hurting anyone.

Would this also include tackling a purse snatcher who can only be brought down by a good old fashion tackle? If so, then the only thing a criminal would need to do is be non-violent and fast to elude capture. Perhaps I am oversimplifying? Perhaps you could elaborate. Fact is, that force is the tool of police. It is that force that they yield that we call upon in our time of need. In most cases of domestic disturbances, people call the police even though they have legal authority to do very little...why? Because police represent the force. Police only exist because force is needed to keep the laws in order.

While it can be directly seen that he was a threat to no one including himself. He still didn't comply with the officers lawful order. Not knowing the details of the police department in question it races only the ideological question of if police are allowed to initiate aggressive force on a passively resistant force. This is highly controversial and up for debate within the justice department. I don't mind getting downmoded for this, it is controversial to say the least.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ufbponld.htm
Bureau of Justice Statistics
U.S. Department of Justice

I don't think the idea of making criminals pay for the extra costs is a bad idea either, but that doesn't magically make more officers available to us when they are used in a way like suggested. The same would go in a hospital. If someone ruins a heart for a heart transplant, well they should still have to pay for it, but that someone who needed it is now either dead or has to wait for a new heart that doesn't come. That person is robbed of the heart who has committed no offense ( it isn't a perfect analogy here, but it is close).

That is my basic thought on the matter, should the person who calls the cops because his house has a crook in it have to wait longer because they are dealing with someone who resisted arrest(which is a forceful action of will instead of violence but force nonetheless). Someone is not going to get their fair share of justice...who will it be?

Imagine for a moment that the tazer is a club or a fist. "Mr. Buckley get up or I'm going to punch you in the face".

Or what if the driver was semi-paralyzed? How would the cop get him into the squad car?


A weapon was used on a passive, restrained, non-violent, non-threatening person as a means of expedience.

I don't see how anyone can claim this is anything but excessive force.