I’m sure that most people already realize that this is a supremely dumb thing to do, but that doesn’t reduce the number of chases that we have.
Tonight we had a guy shoplift from Kroger and then run. When he got pulled over, he took off on foot. He led everyone on a merry chase for fifteen minutes or so before someone ran him down and tazed him.
Which is one of the reasons you don’t run: you’ll get freakin’ tazed. And that is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. For those who are only vaguely familiar with how this feels, imagine the worst muscle cramp you’ve ever experience. Now imagine that cramp in both arms and both legs. You’ve got some idea of what it feels like to get tazed. The electricity quite literally forces your muscles to cramp up.
Then they have to have paramedics come out to surgically remove the tazer barbs, which are basically spiked fish-hooks designed to stick in you and not come out no matter how you thrash.
When discussing this stuff, I sometimes wonder just how humane it is to use tazers and pepper spray. Then I realize that it’s much better to be tazed than shot. I’m glad we’ve got methods for subduing people that are relatively safe for everyone involved. The person being tazed isn’t fighting (resulting in damage on both sides) and while being tazed is enormously painful, the pain stops when the current does.
Why post all this? Because I’m tired, and this was the first thing that came to mind…
Thomas