Why would you tazer someone who's sitting on the edge of a cliff?

Because you want them to fall. Either that or you belong in diapers and a helmet, NOT in a uniform with a badge and a gun.

I'm posting this in the political madness forum because it takes a crazy political structure for something like this to happen.

The guy is completely surrounded, the many officers are all in full body gear and pressing in on him, and the ONLY possible place for him to go is down.

You can not say there weren't better ways to resolve this...



Since he was a porn actor, there's going to be jokes about it any time it comes up, and it's kind of sad that this is the most publicity he'll ever get.

But good thing the press was there, I'm sure this wont give any struggling artists any bright ideas...

it kind of sad the police are becoming increasgly like gestapo. look at oscar grant and the g20 pittsburgh

well, i'm not playing devil's advocate, because i do agree with you, but he was wielding a samurai sword.

but how ******* stupid do you have to be? these cops killed this guy, no question.

www.youtube.com...

all i have to say is "the jackie chan and chris tucker of porn". hilarious.

I've been to a few jumpers in the past and even if they had a weapon, as long as they were no danger to anyone else, we would always try and talk it through. No matter how long that took.

If his guy had a sword then fair enough, the stakes are raised, but if he's on the edge of a cliff he's not a threat to anyone if they don't get too close.

It's difficult to comment if you were not there, and often it's a judgement call that can be right or wrong.

I've grabbed two jumpers in my lifetime, one a lady in Germany and one was a 10 year old kid in the special school i worked in. Luckily they both turned out fine, but it could have gone very wrong indeed.

This was a last resort when they were obviously on there way out the window. The little boy in fact was in the air as i caught the back of his dressing gown and dragged him back in. A horrible situation to deal with that gave me more sleepless nights than some of my forces incidents.

It was a judgement call though, and i was close enough to grab the person as safely as one can in that situation.

A tazer though, from a distance....on a cliff? Thats one i would not want to be even thinking about. Sounds callous but i'd rather the guy jumped of his own accord than taze someone you don't know for sure is going to jump.

I'd rather walk away and give him a ton of space as long as he was not a threat to anyone else.

Tough call to make, but going by what i see here, i'd have given the tazer a miss.

If you can avoid taking a life, then i think you should be prepared to wait it out for as long as it takes. Cops get paid no matter how long they are there.

CX.

Here is some background info on the story....

Detectives in California are hunting a porn movie actor suspected of killing a colleague and injuring two others with a samurai sword used as a film prop.

Stephen Hill, 34, fled with the weapon after the attack at a movie firm's production centre and tape warehouse in an area known as "Porn Valley" near Los Angeles.

The dead man has been named in reports as Herbert Wong, known in the industry as Tom Dong.

Police say one man was attacked and two others tried to intervene. Mr Wong was stabbed in the chest and died in hospital.



Source: Po rn Star On The Run After Samurai Killing

A porn actor wanted in California for allegedly murdering a colleague with a samurai sword has jumped to his death after a standoff with police.

Stephen Hill plunged around 50ft off a sheer rock face after being stunned with a taser gun.

Officers from Los Angeles Police Department had been negotiating with him for several hours on Saturday.

Television footage of the incident showed Hill scrambling off the edge of the cliff feet first as police moved in.

"He jumped down off the cliff after he was tased," LAPD spokesman Bruce Borihanh said.

It is unclear if the 34-year-old died from being tasered, the fall or possibly landing on the sword he had with him. An investigation is under way.

Source: Porn Star Jumps To Death After Killings

CX.

Makes about as much sense as sending SWAT teams in when someone calls 911 saying that their neighbor might want to commit suicide.

I can just hear the commando wanna-be rambos yelling at the suicidal person:

Don't kill yourself or we'll shoot!

This actually happened in my town. I have to ask... what the ---- were they thinking?

Why did they taser a guy who couldn't possibly hurt anyone but himself?

[edit on 7-6-2010 by 30_seconds]

They are a bunch of horse asses!

Notice how they walk up to the man who has fallen 100 feet to the ground...

Guns pointed and ready to kill! Cops need to wakeup faster. They are creating a very vicious enemy! The public...

Well, a taser is designed to incapacitate suspects. They were probably trying to take him down so he didnt do it. Unfortunantly for them it didnt work

But well done, just more ammunition for all the cop haters here, too bad the are so blinded by ignorance that they assume all cops are bad. But.. oh well.....

I agree that they could have gone about this a different way.

It looked like his back was turned towards them and he was sitting down.

If he was moving towards them then I could see the need to use the stun gun but that seemed like they jumped the gun.

It is hard to tell if he fell off because he lost control of his bodily functions or if he decided he would rather die than be taken into custody.

Either way as harsh as it sounds I don't feel remorse for him because he felt the need to take other peoples lives before the incident.

Originally posted by jeh2324

Notice how they walk up to the man who has fallen 100 feet to the ground...

Guns pointed and ready to kill!

Tell me about it, i thought the same. I'm surprised they didn't poke him with a stick before checking his pulse.

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
But well done, just more ammunition for all the cop haters here, too bad the are so blinded by ignorance that they assume all cops are bad. But.. oh well.....

No only 90% are garbage beyond words.

Originally posted by OzWeatherman

too bad ... they assume all cops are bad.

rightfully so in my opinion, if there is a single good cop in existence then it is his duty to expose any bad cop, if he doesnt then he himself is a bad cop simply for his silence, its like my sig says quoting einstien, the world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do harm but because of those who stand by and do nothing.

Stupid pigs.

Am I mistaken or do the pigs approach the body with guns drawn even though he has fallen down the cliff.

reply to post by starwarsisreal


Real quick, the Pittsburgh G-20 rioters deserved everything they got. They were rioting scum who should have just been shot on site. The cops were in my opinion very nice to them.


This guy, well, I have zero sympathy for people who want to commit suicide, I would have told him to jump.

If you are at the end of your rope and want to kill yourself, just crawl in a dumpster and blow your head off. Don't waste everyone's time by going all super drama and getting a ton of people involved.

Originally posted by acrux
Stupid pigs.

Until you need one. Yeah i know, like many people here....you'll never need one.

Am I mistaken or do the pigs approach the body with guns drawn even though he has fallen down the cliff.

No you're not mistaken, but yet again another example of people not having a clue about how police deal with things.

This guy had just fallen 50ft down a cliff, not freefalled to his death though, you can clearly see he drops a fair way, then slides and rolls a good deal of the drop.

People have survived much worse falls than that. Yes i know you can see he is clearly not moving, but he could be stunned, knocked out, anything but dead. Google "cliff survivors" and let me know what you come up with.

Now bear in mind he fell with a sword, a sword that he had allegedly already used to kill someone.

Tell me you wouldn't approach the guy with some caution?

It's called standard procedure with many police forces, they will have been trained to approach with guns drawn until they are certain there is no threat.

If i had a pound for every suspect i'd taken a knock from in the early parts of my career, because i thought "they didn't look like a threat". You learn the hard way and quickly.

I'm not being an apologist here, i still think it was a bit much tazing a guy on the edge of a cliff, but i just wanted to get across that the cops at the bottom of the cliff were just doing their job.

What would you be saying if they'd just left him, and he was stunned. The paramedics attend to him and he kills one with his sword? You don't even have to be able to walk to do that.

CX.



[edit on 7/6/10 by CX]

to op: are you sure he got tazered ? i dont see him cramping before he falls.

All you need to know that the media work hand in hand with the police is the title of that story link

PORN STAR JUMPS TO DEATH AFTER KILLINGS

No taser mentioned here. But in the story they say he "jumped after being tasered"

Sure, we all have perfect motor control after being tasered. What a loser! Can't even take a few thousand volts without falling down.

CX - Good for you for saving those 2 people! We have real heros here on ATS, humble ones who don't run in front of cameras and say "look at me everyone!". Good on ya CX!

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Thanks Although i didn't look like any hero afterwards, i was shaking like a leaf for the next few hours lol. Just part of the job i guess.

That's what i like about this place, many many members with a vast array of personal experiences which can bring a sense of reality to a story.

Some are not so vocal about what they've been through, some choose to share a little now and again, either way i like to think our histories can be respectfully understood by others, no matter what our background.

Back on topic, good point about the title of the news article ATA, that didn't really register when i first read that.

We all know that the news media will adjust headlines and facts to suit, but i wonder if news networks ever get instructions from higher up to go easy on certain subjects? (Tazers for example in light of the bad press about them?)

CX.

To be the heartless jerk here.

The guy already killed one person and wounded two others.

He was going one way or another, death row or rotting in prison. At least this way he didn't waste our tax dollars.

Originally posted by 30_seconds
Makes about as much sense as sending SWAT teams in when someone calls 911 saying that their neighbor might want to commit suicide.

I can just hear the commando wanna-be rambos yelling at the suicidal person:

Don't kill yourself or we'll shoot!

This actually happened in my town. I have to ask... what the ---- were they thinking?

Why did they taser a guy who couldn't possibly hurt anyone but himself?

[edit on 7-6-2010 by 30_seconds]

He killed his colleague, not exactly a harmless guy, you have to take action sometime, after a few hours of negotiating with a killer those cops wanna go home to their wives also.