State Legislator Says 11-Year-Old Tased By Cop Deserved It And Her Parents Probably Suck
from the christ-what-an-asshole dept
TODAY IN GARBAGE HUMAN BEINGS:
Cincinnati police officer Kevin Brown’s decision to fire a Taser at an 11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting from a grocery store in August immediately drew criticism from city officials and advocates.
But Ohio state Representative John Becker had a different take. Had it been his daughter, he announced in an August newsletter, “I’d be ashamed and embarrassed that she did something stupid enough to get herself tased.”
This is even worse than the police union’s take on the incident, which referred to the completely expected backlash as “kneejerk.” But, hey, I guess deciding to tase an 11-year-old in the back — one who reportedly was all of 4’11” and 90 pounds — couldn’t possibly be portrayed as a kneejerk reaction by a law enforcement officer. When force isn’t truly needed, we can be sure some cops will deploy it anyway.
But Rep. John Becker’s take is the hottest take of all. Anyone tased by a cop — even an 11-year-old — is a person who brought that crackling, barbed punishment down on themselves. There’s no reason to question the wisdom or necessity of the Taser deployment. Rather, we should question ourselves. And perhaps society. But mostly ourselves.
Becker also addressed police shootings in his newsletter. If his child were shot by police, he wrote, “rather than blaming the cop, I’d be blaming myself and endlessly soul searching to figure out how I failed as a parent and why my kid grew up to be a punk.” He added, “Based on the evidence of what I see on television, it often times appears to me that justice was delivered to the dead punk.”
“Based on the evidence of what I see on television…” Holy shit. This is an elected representative. And he thinks the TV is giving him the “evidence” he needs to make snap judgments on tased kids. Blame the victim. And blame the victim’s parents.
The police chief — in a surprisingly reasonable statement — said the Taser deployment was “unnecessary.”
Back to Becker:
Becker also told The Appeal that if police tase a child, “it could be an indication of a parenting problem.” He added, “If I were to do research, I would expect to find that kids that come from two parent in-tact [sic] supportive families are less likely to get in trouble with the authorities than kids that came from tougher environments.”
“If I were to do the research…” Would this be research beyond the television watching that’s given Becker such keen insight into officer-involved shootings? Who knows? Becker’s certainly not going to do the research. He’s just going to stick by his electro-guns and blame victims of cop violence for being raised badly or otherwise being harmed by the disintegration of the nuclear family unit — the 2.5 children born to married heterosexuals who have managed to weather an escalating divorce rate, porn, video games, movies, television, the internet, social media, Satanism, multiple pagan-based holidays, postal rate hikes, alternate sexual orientations, public school indoctrination, Daylight Savings Time, mandatory vaccinations, HAARP projects (known and unknown), President Obama, Brown v. Board of Education, morning-after pills, weird Twitter, the removal of prayer from schools, the Simpsons, artistic expression in general, and whatever else has reduced the American way of life to a hideous nightmare where punk kids manage to live their whole lives without being deservedly tased by blameless, saintly police officers.
Becker is an idiot, but let’s pretend the research he didn’t do actually says what he thinks it will say. Even if a majority of kids tased/killed by cops are raised by single and/or inattentive parents, that doesn’t justify force deployments that far exceed the danger presented by the developing situation. This 11-year-old was tased in the back by an officer who was taller, weighed more, and had the ability to summon any number of additional officers if it appeared this preteen was going to, I don’t know, grow a foot, add 100 pounds of weight, and produce an arsenal of weapons before the officer got the mild shoplifting situation under control.
If you agree with John Becker, you’re probably John Becker. Or a cop who hates using force reasonably or responsibly. But you’re definitely not the sort of person who can be trusted with government power.
Filed Under: children, cincinnati, john becker, kevin brown, police brutality, tasers, victim blaming
Comments on “State Legislator Says 11-Year-Old Tased By Cop Deserved It And Her Parents Probably Suck”
Valid logic...
Based on extensive experience watching “Orange is the new black” and “Cops”, I think….
Link is broken. The website automatically switches it when you hit the bottom of the page. For some reason.
Techdirt
Keeping you informed on what should offend you since 1997.
Re: Techdirt
ya ya, we know you religious reich wing types like your children raped by your priests.
Who cares if they get electrocuted too.
Re: Techdirt
If ‘child is tased, politician said they had it coming’ doesn’t offend you then that says a lot more about you than it does about TD.
Re: Techdirt
I just have to restate what’s already been said – if this doesn’t offend you, without needing to be told, then you’re one hell of a despicable human being.
I wonder if he did the research would kids “that come from two parent in-tact [sic] supportive families” grow up to be adults that use government authority to abuse little kids?
Delivering justice
The fact he thinks it’s the job of the cops to “deliver justice” is rather terrifying. His terrible parents shouldn’t have let him watch all those Dirty Harry movies when he was a kid.
Re: Delivering justice
Dirty Harry was a much better cop than one who tases kids, he needed a reason to bend the law, and put himself in the way of danger. It seems that US cops take the cop from Russ Meyers Super Vixen as a role model.
Re: Delivering justice
Agreed. And it’s why I keep repeating my mantra “Due process is not an impediment to justice;” people like him totally believe that it is.
That’s right, people, they honestly seem to believe that working within the law which affords us our civil rights gets in the way of delivering justice. But it’s not even their job to deliver justice, it’s their job to uphold the law, and they can’t or won’t do that for some reason. Wasn’t there a town somewhere in the world that fired the whole damn lot and replaced them? You might have to do this town by town, city by city, district by district, until you have cops who do their job, not the job they think they’re supposed to be doing, which appear to be different things. /end rant
Re: Re: Delivering justice
It all depends on how you define the word “justice”. Sadly there are some common definitions that are rather different to the one you’d prefer.
Re: Re: Re: Delivering justice
The use of the word “punk” rather gave the game away; the peasants need to know their place, right? 🙁
Re: Frontier justice
I think it’s a form of revenge, justified
Modern justice is supposed to involve consideration of the facts, deliberation, determination of guilt and punishment, reparations or rehabilitation appropriate to, and in proportion to the original crime.
This isn’t that.
To be fair, what the US does is a mockery of the justice ideal, illustrated to some degree by an elected official regarding the tasing of an eleven-year-old child as acceptable.
White priviledge
John Becker seems to be a white male who has enjoyed the freedom of not ever being pulled over for driving while black, been stopped and frisked for same or had police automatically believe they needed to use force again, just for having dark skin. This asshole needs to learn how the people of his district are actually treated before he makes any statements in the future.
Re: White priviledge
I’m not sure how you figure. I don’t think abusive, irresponsible authority figures are rooted in any one race.
Tasers were supposed to be an alternative to deadly force but instead they are being used as torture devices.
He's a hypocrite
Take a look at his youtube channel for a nice example.
I clicked on a couple of his videos and at the end of each was him saying “Those are my thoughts, I’d like to know yours” yet comments were disabled, so his desire to know your thoughts is obviously false.
Police should be saying how they used restraint against this 11year old girl and didn’t shoot her in the back from 200foot away because she was black.
Research
If I did research, I would expect to find that cops that taze children had bad parents. Also they are bad parents.
I'd say that state legislator is the one that needs tasing...
Twice, by each of his constituents, directly into his empty nut-sack.
John Becker doesn't care about anyone.
Empathy, compassion, even concern about the interests of the constituency are all not prerequisites for political office. Becker was voted in by people who don’t know him, and he doesn’t know the people he represents. His re-election is not contingent on his pursuit of the best interests of his constituency. Why should it concern him that an agent of state brutally assaulted a child? A minority prole child at that.
It would surprise me if his district wasn’t Gerrymandered all to hell, and voting minorities sufficiently obstructed to assure his incumbency continues. Even if the opposition manages 66% of the vote he’ll keep his office. He has no incentive to even pretend to be concerned.
Have we yet admitted that what we live in is not a fair democracy?
Have we yet decided that we, in fact, want a democracy badly enough to force change?
Until then, we live in a no fucks given society. Becker is hardly an elected representative but an aristocrat. Becker genuinely regards the proles as beneath them. He truly regards the children of proles as larvae of vermin. And he has no need to even pretend to feel otherwise.
This is the norm. And until we change things drastically, it will continue to be the norm.
Re: John Becker doesn't care about anyone.
The guy certainly sounds like a pompous ass and so steeped in white privilege that he’ll never shake any of it loose, and it’s entirely possible that he’s all that you say. However, it seems more likely that rather than a stately aristocrat, he’s a sheltered upper middle class guy from white Middle America and his view of the world is just completely stifled by his environment. That doesn’t excuse what he said, I’m just contesting your view of his motives and thought process, somewhat.
I’ve known state legislators before, several of them before they joined politics. While they receive a salary from the state, most of them have jobs or businesses they return to throughout the year whenever the legislature isn’t in session. Becker’s state salary is 60.5k a year. The man’s a tax accountant. Regardless of your skin tone, if you bumbled into his office in early April with a shoe box full of receipts and a confused look on your face, I suspect he’d get you seated, ask if you wanted coffee, and get down to the business of honestly helping you with your tax return.
Here’s a Linklink to the page for Becker’s district. He represents a whopping 102k people, of which only 4.27% are black and .99% hispanic (as opposed to 12.7% and 17.8%, respectively, of the total U.S. population). In 2016, he was elected with only 44k votes, which amazingly was 76% of the votes cast!! The total campaign contributions for all 3 candidates that ran in 2016 in his district totaled up to less than his state salary for the year.
My point isn’t that he’s a great guy. I doubt seriously I’d invite him over for dinner or out to play pub trivia. My point is that he’s not some Washington fat-cat. His vaunted office is located in Columbus, OH – a city where the dominating landmark is the public university. He’s truly representative of his electorate, in that he’s just like most of them: white, middle class, conservative, Christian, straight, and sheltered. They don’t have to know him because they recognize him every time they look in the mirror.
He doesn’t showcase the jaded, elitist cesspool that we see in D.C. He’s a prime example of the pitfall at the other end of the spectrum of representative democracy – he’s a slightly better copy of his neighbors, which unfortunately may qualify him to help shape state level policy but doesn’t qualify him in the slightest to have an opinion on national issues like police violence, racial profiling, etc.
Parent problem
Only, the parents responsible for the problem are John Beckers.
This reminds me of
Laughably, this reminds me of when my cousin’s now ex- wife(5′ 4″, 90 lbs) was tackled by a 300+ pound security guard at target for attempting to steal a couple blu-rays. There were so many better ways to have dealt with that. In the end target paid for her medical bill to avoid the liability.
The police force attracts the unevolved caveman brains that think brute force is the only possible response to anything at all, no matter how trivial.
Re: Re:
Hey now that is blatantly unfair to cavemen. They had to figure stuff out nobody had done before and worked smarter whenever possible – see flint spearheads.
Re: '... all that and I get paid too? Sign me up!'
While I’m sure that accounts for some of them there are almost certainly others who join up because they see stories like this, see that the ‘punishments’ handed out are low if non-existent, and positively drool at the idea of a job where they get to abuse/molest/torture/kill people and not only get away with it but have a legal system and politicians like this one back them on it.
It would of course be unfair to imply that those two categories encompass all police, or even a majority, as I’m sure a good percentage of them do join up with honest and good intentions, the problem is those around them who do fall into the above two categories seem to have quite nicely corrupted the profession to their liking, such that the good ones either keep their heads down and cease to be good cops, or leave.
I don’t see the problem here, except that Techdirt once agaon wishes to shame antipiracy enforcement by criticizing the law.
Re: Re:
Big words from a little man.
Re: Piracy?
Is this satire?
Poe factor 0.98
Re: Re:
What does this have to do with piracy?
Off topic much? Or do you really think it’s ok to go around tasing kids?
Yeah, it is a “parenting problem” …the cop’s parent(s). They raised someone who worships The Law no matter what it says; everything is a capital crime. Breaking The Law is the greatest sin there is for such as he, and the appropriate penalty is whatever the cop in question feels like dispensing at that moment. His motto? Everyone is guilty… you just have to find which laws have been broken; then shoot first and leave it at that. (Actually, finding which laws have been broken is optional.)
Re: Re:
The parents probably worships the law as well. Except those small things of course… I mean, cheating a little in taxes is basically mandatory. Also when late it is okay to blast across a school zone at twice the allowed speed – those kids should be at class anyway and these people are too important in their job and society as a whole to be 5 minutes late.
My point is that I have seen enough people who worships the law and police and who wish for “Tough Law”, being incredible hypocrites when it comes to those things they believe “everyone” does or believes they are entitled to do.
aUG 9TH
11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting from a grocery store
accused?? and not in court??
Anywhere does it SAY what he found on the girl??
DID he/they release her to her mother, or just send her on her way…
Re: aUG 9TH
“Police Chief Eliot Isaac said an investigation had been launched and Brown was put on restricted duties. Prosecutor Joe Deters said the girl would face not face charges despite police initially charging her with theft and obstructing official business.
Cranley issued a statement Wednesday night apologizing to the girl and her family.
“Tasing an 11-year old who posed no danger to the police is wrong. I’m sorry for the harm to her and her family,” Cranley said. “This evening I called and asked Prosecutor Deters to drop charges against the girl. I’m happy to report that he did and I thank for him doing so.””
PS, she was Black, the cop was afraid of catching something..
This makes sense
You see, if you view police as some natural force, like tigers occasionally carving into children, then it’s an education problem to teach children to stay out of reach of the raging beasts.
But we are talking about a state legislator here. A zookeeper who thinks that the way to feed the tigers is to occasionally open the cage doors so that they can grab a visitor or two who ventured too close to the cage is not doing the job he is paid for but something else.
Is it wrong to just assume he is running for reelection & decided insane law & order platform was the best way to get it?
I mean the cops can just deploy force on anyone who opposes him b/c their parents never taught them to not say mean things to elected asshats who love to blame the victim for more votes.
Re: Re:
Is there any evidence that it isn’t?
Ass is Cushing
I get it, your a police wanna be rejection now you’re all pissy. You should consider posting your bias on a racist site like theroot.com.
Cushing anal zealots can suck a duck..
Re: Ass is Cushing
So basically you are saying it is ok to tase anyone for nothing, let alone a child? Ready to volunteer any of yours or your family’s for shock treatment? No? Run back to momma’s basement, fails-to-be-even-an-internet-tough-guy!
Re: Re: Ass is Cushing
No you stupid cushing ass dingle..
-Cushing is a cop hater cuz he can’t be one.
-Cushing needs to post his hate on a hate site like theroot.com.
Now STFU..
Re: Re: Re: Ass is Cushing
I think I’m in love…
Re: Re: Re: Ass is Cushing
So you approve the tasing of children. Got it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Ass is Cushing
Um, I wish to plead the 5th..
You obviously never had a hostile encounter with an 11yr old fortified with the American diet of high density fatty foods, hormones and a bad attitude..
But that’s not the point of my initial comment..
Re: Re: Re:3 Ass is Cushing
You sound like said 11 year old’s 12 year old brother.
Re: Re: Re:3 Ass is Cushing
That would have worked, if you hadn’t followed it up with more nonsense and thereby completely destroyed the point of pleading the 5th in the first place.
My comment still stands.
Re: Re: Re:4 Ass is Cushing
Either you’re cushing or just one of his anal warts. I’m learning towards anal wart . Cushing is a asshat but not your level of stupid.
Re: Re: Re:5 Ass is Cushing
a/s/l?
Re: Re: Re:5 Ass is Cushing
Pleading the fifth means you refuse to speak for fear of self-incriminating yourself.
Since you “plead the fifth” then turned around and immediately responded to me by incriminating yourself with your response, BOTH my comments still stand.
Sounds like Becker is the one that had awful parents. I mean, how bad your parents have to be to produce a monster like that? Or he is a complete psychopath.
None of the options sound particularly good.
YES!!!
I finally got the spider rune last night!!!
Oh yeah, cops need term limits because they (generally) get burned/stressed out over time, and become more dangerous.
and
ALL law enforcement officers as well as ALL congressmen/women should be tased once as a job requirement, just to know how it feels. This would hopefully make them more empathetic to the responsibility of ‘correct response’. Remember “The Cat’s Eye”, Quitter’s Inc?
Several things
I wonder how police dealt with teens before the invention of tasers? (oh, wait that might also have been before the invention of donuts)
If the parents suck, then wouldn’t that make the teen a victim that could possibly be rehabilitated?
too much anime...
Taszers do not enable super powers in young teen girls
He is an Otaku
How could this ever fit the crime?
There is a lot of rightful focus here on the use of force against children in general. I think we should also ask why anyone should be Tased or killed for suspicion of a minor property crime (or arguably any property crime).
A child. Only suspected of shoplifting. How is the violence done to this young person—who is presumed innocent!—in any way proportional to the negligible economic damage to the store? She wasn’t stealing stealth bomber plans that could put lives at risk.
Everyone defending this brutality is in effect saying, "If this girl were sitting in front of me and reached for a $5 item on the table, I’d rather tase her than to let her have it or find some other, non-violent way of dealing with the situation." Pure and simple: it puts an incredibly low price on this kid’s life, which says a hell of a lot more about how the person doing the tasing was raised than about the child’s upbringing.
Violence
So, out of curiosity and because since she is a “child” no one shows her picture; Was there any obvious indications he was 11? Was there a large blinking sign over her showing her age or was she wearing a hoodie and hiding her face as she attempted to flee with stuff so that it might just be the tiniest bit difficult to ascertain things like age??
And also out of mere curiosity, does she have a criminal record already? Just curious as that doesn’t affect the specific situation.
It’s easy to deride actions after the fact when you may know things the person on the spot did not know.
Not enough solid information to justify the instant “Crucify the cop!” reaction or “The she must be guilty, she is black’ Idiocy either.
Re: ... seriously?
Funny thing about kids, they tend to be rather short and with less developed features, such that you can usually spot whether or not someone’s a kid, teenager or adult at a glance. Now I suppose it’s theoretically possible he could have thought she was an underdeveloped yet still adult midget(the most blessed of the FSM’s children) attempting to smuggle guns out of the store, but I’m guessing that wasn’t the case.
As to criminal record? First of all, what the hell would that have to do with anything? Even if she had a history of shoplifting and he knew it before tasing her that still wouldn’t have justified the response. The only possible reason I could see bringing that up, despite your ‘I’m just asking’ assertion, is to undermine her such that it’s not really that bad that she got tased, and that tactic is disgusting when the police do it, and when you do it.
He tased a kid for a non-violent crime, that was not involved in an action where there was an immediate and real risk of personal harm to another person such that she had to be stopped immediately and he wasn’t close enough to physically confine her. As such I feel quite confident that yes as a matter of fact there is enough information to (metaphorically) ‘crucify the cop’.
Re: Re: ... seriously?
Know a girl who was 5’9 at age 11. Not a great place to be in, with everyone having expectations quite exceeding her age, including adults hitting on her. Also knee problems. She’s now about 6′ at 19 and survived.
Now I consider it highly unlikely that someone who basically has been placed in the limelight by her stature is going to try shoplifting, so I consider it more likely that the girl in question had a less conspicuous appearance.
But it’s not unheard of. Just saying.
Re: Re: Re: ... seriously?
Try reading the article and would have found out that:
Re: Violence
“Was there any obvious indications he was 11?”
So, if she looked 15 it would have been OK to tase a minor?
“Was there a large blinking sign over her showing her age or was she wearing a hoodie and hiding her face as she attempted to flee”
The report says she was less than 5 feet tall and 90 pounds. Even if she was 50 they clearly tried tasing someone who posed little physical threat.
“And also out of mere curiosity, does she have a criminal record already?”
It doesn’t matter to the situation at hand.
“It’s easy to deride actions after the fact when you may know things the person on the spot did not know.”
Yes, you cop defenders will find any excuse to deride their victims, but that’s besides the point.
in 2018
There aught to be a way to immobilize someone without puncturing their skin or damaging their nervous system, and there aught to be a gun that doesn’t require direct line of sight.
Re: Imobilizing targets
Back in the 1980s there was a Sheriff out in the Stanislaus area (on the California side of the state line near Carson City and Reno) who, rather than using police attack dogs instead used search and rescue dogs.
Originally it wasn’t his choice, they were just available. But given that folk lost out in the bush will sometimes get disoriented and run away from rescue, the dogs were trained just to knock them off their feet and keep them on the ground until their handlers caught up. But they did such a good job of apprehending suspects without hurting them too much that he recommended changing the training of police dogs towards search-and-rescue methods.
On hard ground like concrete sidewalks, knocking someone over can still cause injury, but far less risk of serious damage than shooting someone. Definitely way better for kids.
As for guns that don’t require line of site, we have and use drones with predator missiles. And the CIA is happy to firebomb civilians at a rate of fifty per person-of-interest. So I think we’ve established that state agents can’t be trusted with such devices.
Re: Re: Imobilizing targets
true
That's the type of thought process (or lack thereof)....
that also recommends “warning shots”.
Delivered repeatedly and directly into the suspect.
I suppose the officer was in fear for his life, and we along with the 11yr old child should be greatful he had the presence to do this istead of shooting her. He should be forgiven on the grounds of tempory insanity as he was in fear for his life. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go puke.
Again with this...!
Due process.
Is not.
An impediment.
To justice.
Can somebody PLEASE explain this to that wannabe Judge Dredd??!
what the hell
let put it in a way that people would understand do you taze an 11 year old child no do you shot an 11 year old child no I’ve seen cops in this country detained children as young as 11 without causing them any harm this cop has no excuse for tasering a child he just wanted to hurt her as far as I’m concerned this guy’s a piece of shit tasers are used on people who are a danger to themselves or others so let me ask you and please use common sense how does an 11 year old child have the capacity to cause harm to a cop as the cop would be forced to use a taser and this is with knowledge that the child has nothing on them that would cause harm to a cop wisdom use it you will look less foolish