"Two wrongs may not make a right but a thousand wrongs make a writer.”

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Tazing

Tazing is the newest tool being used by police officers to subdue miscreants, or just those hard of hearing or perhaps of less than stellar IQ. Bums and derelicts and so forth. Tazers are the American counterpart to the English bobby's nightstick. But I wonder . . . is tazing done offhand and with little forethought because unlike a gun, it isn't generally fatal and can thus be utilized without dire consequences and sleepless nights? I work with a fellow who has a friend who says he uses his tazer all the time, at least once a day. He's a little guy and so would-be criminals and brash back-alley hoods don't take him seriously when he tells them to do something. He says he only tells them once and then . . . zap. They're jerking on the ground, cracking their head on the sidewalk, bleeding and pleading for mercy. Zap.



He shaved his head when he went to the police academy. He keeps it shaved. He worked hard to get a permanent position on a respectable force. His mother is proud of him. He deals with prostitutes and drunks and addicts, but every night it's the same trailer park, the same street corner, and the same party story. There's no making a difference because there's no money for rehabiltation or for education for those who fell through the cracks. He works weekends and holidays. He works on his birthday and on his mother's birthday. He works on everybody's birthday, and he keeps seeing the same people caught up in the same vicious cycle of criminal behavior. But now he has a tazer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"There's no making a difference because there's no money for rehabiltation or for education for those who fell through the cracks."
That is the truly scary part, isn't it?
Love your blog, Yvonne!
xoxo
Laura Wilcox

Yvonne Osborne said...

Thanks Laura! I love getting comments from readers like you. Yes, out society is becomming truly scary. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon have armed guards in banks and on street corners like they do in Central America.

Yvonne

Yvonne Osborne said...

Hey, Laura, I just realized you're Melissa's Laura! I was searching my memory bank trying to think of who Laura Wilcox was. Duh. Thanks for reading!
Yvonne