Bathroom Tasering

Another day, another unnecessary tasering by police. This time it occurred in Alabama. A disabled man, deaf and with the mental capacity of a 10 - year old, was sick, and locked himself in the bathroom of a Dollar General. He was in there over an hour and store workers called the police, since they didn't know why someone was occupying the bathroom for that long. 

When police arrived, they tried to get in the stall but the man didn't respond. So they broke it open, pepper-sprayed him, and then tasered him. Their excuse for tasering a man in a bathroom stall -- he had an umbrella. Really. A police spokesman actually said that "officers were justified in using force against Love since he had an umbrella."

"The officers really worked within the limits of our level-of-force policy," he said. "We had no information about who this guy was."

Their level of force policy is a complete joke. You have multiple officers versus one unarmed guy in a bathroom stall, who according to the report did nothing other than try to keep the door closed. Even if the man wasn't disabled in any way, there was no need to taser him. 

Once again we see that a police policy on tasers, this time that of the Mobile PD, protects police officers instead of the public. As I've written before, if multiple officers can't subdue a single unarmed man without tasering him, they don't belong on a police force -- period.