Tasers being used in schools - Charlotte Observer

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http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/education/11776395.htm

I have no problem with the use of a taser in this case.....

they were way out of control. The Taser avoided serious injury from the brawl. It's too bad these students could not work things out.

...I wonder how you might feel if it was your son that was being tasered?

give him a taste of "Lightening". If my son was in an out of control brawl...yes indeed. It beats being shanked.

If the artical is correct that "the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer assigned to the school" could not seperate them... and they were in danger of doing serious bodily harm to eachother (which appears evident from the presedding) than the officer (which is who they said did this) would be acting appropriately.
And I would stick by that for my own child. It also sounds like someone should be charged with assult and both should probobly be charged with failure to obey a police order.

You might want to take into account that the alternative would be pulling a nightstick or drawing a gun. Once people are refusing a direct police order to break up a fight things can escalate quickly.
Would you have the officer stand by while one child hospitalized or killed the other? if not how far would you expect the officer to let it go before doing this?

I know this may be propiganda but if it is accurate I do not see the issue.

From the *sound of it* (people fighting so hard that a police officer can not break it up) I would imagine that if these were adults it would have been handled in a similar manner or even more violently.

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the above said...

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There are many cases where reduced leathality weapons are missuese, especialy in a school environment, and police officers in general (please no insult intended to any individual or specific departent) could definately stand additional non-violent restraint training and handleing of mental healt situations...

however the incident described does not appear to be a case of this.

RH

Glad I'm not your kid!

he posts in every anti-taser thread making statements the will probably upset alot of people.

I use a hose...they could have probably doused them with water and stopped it enough to pull it apart. This is SICK.

It's the roughest school in Charlotte. I subbed there for a short time when I still thought I wanted to be a teacher. There kids who would get up and walk out of class for no reason whatsoever. Discipline and demerits didn't work.

I feel sorry for a lot of the kids there, but many so many problems are just overwhelming. I'm sorry it appears to have gotten worse. Tasers won't help.

That's the scumpit I graduated from. Now you know where I got my "take no prisoners" mentality. It was a huge school and a lot of the kids who went there just plain got lost. Drugs and alcohol were easy to get, and this was the EARLY 60s.

Tasers may break up the fights, but kids who go to these oversized megaschools need a whole lot more than that.

for all of Charlotte's worst-behaved students, some of whom should really be in special programs. And you're right, no one knows what anyone else is doing there.

I was there in the early 90s.

At least it made you into a fine liberal, Warpy. :D

There should be a limit to the size of schools. Schools should have the opitimal number of students so that they are not just a body filling a desk. The key is that a student knows or suspects that what they do is seen and reported.

I believe that not more than 500 per grade or 1500 in the school whichever is less.

They should be able to manage the students. Provided they don't have too many troublemakers.

and we had the largest graduating class ever--close to 1000.

I've heard that the school has slowly gone done hill over the years, but I wish there was another way to handle out-of-control kids then to shock them unconscious.

It's just not right.

however bad the student's behavior, adults feel the need and have the ability to taser children.

In the city's "worse" school, one would think they'd have some bulky guards on staff. A couple of adults, one pulling the kids head back by the hair, for instance... adults pulling the other kid to safety... adults forcing the agressor to the ground even if they'd have to sit on him... OKAY that I would understand.

Subjecting anyone's body to 50,000 volts, except in the most extreme of situations (riots where rioters outnumber law enforcement maybe, and definately understandable if some kid was armed with a weapon) stinks to high hell IMO.

And I agree. This is barbaric.

But barbarism is hardly unknown to us. And so I would caution a society that...

a) is enmeshed in multiple systemic torture scandals
b) has in recent memory witnessed major police department abuse scandals on both coasts
c) warehouses more human beings per capita than any other developed nation under hideous conditions
d) is currently illegally occupying a foreign country
and e) is undergoing a cultural upheaval led by punitive Christian fundamentalism

...that equipping its authority figures with electronic pain-givers is like giving heroin to a junkie.

I sent an email to CNN about this subject today.

It boggles the mind to think that a 5 year old African-American BABY girl (yes, at 5, to me they are babies) was handcuffed by the police in pre-school... boys at 15 tasered for schoolyard fights... and America waits with baited breath for the next episode of Runaway Bride.

After I read your post, I thought to myself... is there any greater sign of a truly demented and cruel society? Where is the outrage?

They said the OFFICER assigned to the school could not break up the fight. Restraint training is great and a tough school should have a well trained staff...

but sitting on someone can (and has) killed people just as easily as a taser. Pulling on peoples heads can easily cause a neck injury. I think a lot of people here would be just as upset if those things had been done.

I agree that it stinks... but giving it an assumption of an accurate account... it sounds like it may well have been a perfectly appropriate acction.

RH

when fights broke out without the convenience of shooting 50K volts in to a child's body?

My my my... times were tough back then.

In order to remain a civilized and sane society, we better draw the line on what is acceptable force to use on schoolkids.

Pretty soon the government is going to okay testing pesticides on todllers if this keeps up... OOOOPS they did that already.

As their potential lethality is hardly a secret, no one should applaud Tasers.

Each shock gambles with the victim's health. Beyond such reckless disregard, their casual usage sends a corrosive message: society is made to understood, one scream at a time, that the state's authority is maintained by pain. Fear of authority has its uses--e.g., crime deterrence depends on it--but a free society won't remain so for long if its authority figures routinely dole out pain. That's count one.

Count two is the disproportionate use of pain to stop a school fight. Talk about overkill! Fighting isn't nice, granted. Shocking human beings is much worse. Such pain can hardly be justified outside of all but the most grave contexts, and yet Tasers are now being employed as if they were a panacea to banal commonplace ills. Again, we are a free people, in theory, and nowhere have we consented to be made to suffer harm equivalent to torture simply on the whim of a capricious authority.

You are right to point out that other forms of restraint can lead to harm. There may be no ideal solution in certain instances, but the use of Tasering is a wretched fallback.

A school that apparently has a bad reputation as reported by responders to this story should not have just one security person.

Personally, I don't think there should be police officers or security personnel in schools but if there are problems then there should be sufficient manpower.

Reduce the school size - reduces the number of confrontations.

Maybe big schools need to be redesigned so that interaction is reduced between graduating classes or curriculum pursued.

to let the kids fight.

Unless someone has a better idea.

Figure out who is at fault, charge them with assault and battery and send them to the juvenile justice system.

High school kids are old enough to experience the kinds of consequences that adults face when they break the law.

High schoolers have PARENTS who will pitch a fit and file a lawsuit if their kids are allowed to fight. Besides, we can't allow kids to fight in school. I don't like the idea of tasering them, but letting them fight doesn't work for me either.

Kids that fight should be removed from school as soon as the fight is over.

Parents will pitch a fit when their misbehaving little hooligans are kicked out of school as well. The school officials, like other public employees, should be legally protected as long as they are acting in good faith.

But fights among children have been going on since the dawn of man without adults resorting to electrocution to solve the problem.

I'm not against expulsion, community service and any number of punishments we have used in the past.

Tasering a child (an unarmed child) is not a solution.

You think that the problem is parents who pitch a fit and sue? That's their right. But it is not the right of law enforcement to use tasers and possibly risk a child's life.

Call in the coaches and wrestling team or whatever it takes... but only a sociopathic and morally bankrupt country will allow tasers used on unarmed kids.

is only one reason fighting is not allowed. We do promise to keep their kids safe.

Personally, I don't like sending kids home with any marks or bruises they didn't have when they came to school that day.

I agree that fights should be stopped. It is hard to believe a taser is actually necessary.

To assume the duties and responsibilities of a parent

From Latin, meaning “in the place of a parent.”

how far do you let it go before you must take some action to avoid serious injury or whatever?

At what point exactly is extream force justified?

If the report is accurate that other meathods were tried that sounds like a prity serious fight. In a tough school there could have been all kinds of safety concerns with leting it go on.

There are abusive cops who misuse stun guns and other weapons when other means are availible... but that does not prove this was a case of abbuse.


It *Could* be... but unless I get more inforormation I have no actual evidence to second guess the decision on. So... unless additional information comes to light I will not call it abusive.

RH

I could be mistaken, but I've never heard of anyone having a heart attack from being hosed down.

For centuries there have been fights at schools. They have been handled before w/o tasers. Why now?

I have a wish list I say every night before I go to sleep. My newest on that list is that Taser, Inc. (or whatever its formal name is) goes OOB..........Soon!

A couple of buckets of cold water could do the trick.

And to avoid a possible lawsuit... warn them in the student handbook of possible consequences.


If I was in the business of school security I would be developing a ongoing relationship with the students. Maybe a program setup that would included in orientation explaining the what happens when they step out of line and the consequences.

If there is an argument between students... if they cease immediately after being warned with a look. No consequence and it will be ignored.

If it requires a verbal command. They will be verbally rebuked and warned of further action if it happens again.

If it requires use of a whistle. They will be escorted to separated locations for the duration of the day or half-day and put on their permanent record.

If there is a fight and they don't separate immediately. Discipline should be????


Do schools in general offer any type of mediation for disputes?

I find it hard to believe that no one was able to break up the fight.

Yep, we need more information here.

the "toughest" school in the state has one police officer?

ive gone to a small rural school my whole life, and i shudder at the thought of seeing armed police officers roaming the hallways on a regular basis, but it sounds like this particular school is understaffed.

no child left behind?

If it's necessary to have armed guards or rent-a-cops or police on a secondary school campus, things have already gotten out of control. That's completely unacceptable for a learning environment.

I believe the solution is to isolate the troublemakers and put them somewhere else.

sickening...just sickening....

How can you possibly try to say this was right??? There is no good reason to Taser a 16 year old for a brawl. NONE.