Use of police tasers - excessive force?

[TantricSoul]

Because she was breaking the law!
True, yet many laws are broken everyday where no arrest is made.

Part of the procedure for issuing a ticket is to explain that signing the ticket is NOT an admission of guilt but a promise to appear in court. It is specifically stated on the ticket itself. Refusing to sign is considered an admission that you might NOT appear in court, and the cops are therefore required to arrest you and place you in jail.
Even if she told them straightforwardly that she would not appear in court, what would the harm be in letting her make that choice and having the judge issue a bench warrant if that judge felt so inclined?

What are they supposed to do? Let her go? How does that work. If you refuse to cooperate, refuse to obey legal commands issued by the officers, we'll just shrug it off and say, "Oh, well. Have a nice day"? In this case, sure, why not? Sure beats risking her life and her unborn child. Obviously there was a choice by the officers whether to arrest or not, or they wouldn't have needed to summon a sergeant.


Preventing people from speeding in a school zone is, IMO, exactly the definition of serving the public good!
No disagreement here^... Using any forcible means to remove her from her vehicle, risking lives over paperwork and words, and having all this happen in a school zone, where children may have witnessed this event, is more in the arena of public good I was thinking of.

And again, what other choice did she leave them? Plenty, there are unlimited choices in any given moment, no one action is ever written into stone until the choice to act is made. Can you tell me a way they could have removed her from the car without risking further harm to her or her fetus? Perhaps summoning a female officer to the scene to mediate. What if she had just robbed a bank? We could talk in "what-ifs" forever. Even if she had robbed a bank, that's only money, lives are more valuable to me. Should they ignore the fact that she committed a crime and allow her to go on her way simply because she refuses to leave the car? This particular "crime" ... yes. Pretty certain that we needent worry about the "dreaded ticket non signers". There are other ways for the law to apply its consequences for her choices that don't risk lives.

Cops have a tough job to start with. Nobody wants to be stopped for any kind of traffic violation. Some who have been stopped have killed cops. Wonder how many killers were pregnant women 7 months along? There is no way for a cop to know whether or not someone is dangerous, or psychotic, or just stupid. I suspect that there is. I would much rather read an article about a deluded woman being arrested, after being forcibly restrained, than about her being killed in a shootout after she ran over a cop trying to issue a ticket. She suffered some possibly severe short-term pain, which apparently had no effect on her child These results were not guaranteed before they tazed her, they took a risk and put lives at stake, for what? (and which was probably a lot less severe than the pain she endured delivering that child) and endured some humiliation, because of her own actions. I think the cops behaved absolutely correctly in this instance.

I'm not suggesting lawlessness is ok, this incident was a result of the choices made by this woman, and the officers who had to do their job. I'm just taking the position that the punishment was dangerous, and didn't fit the crime.