Tribal Police~I think this is wrong (Prescott, Parker Strip: rent, felony)

[keninaz]

I watched the video attached to this newspaper article a couple of times and I have a problem with it. The guy has his hands up and is a safe distance from the officer and makes no move towards him.
And yet the officer takes him down with a taser?
I am thinking that this could cost the tribe some money for a lawsuit.

Video: Man tased at Frontier Village Shopping Center - The Prescott Daily Courier - Prescott, Arizona

[kdog]

I see nothing wrong at all. If you read the accounts of the incident the guy was threatening people and preventing them from leaving. He was clearly a danger and needed to be arrested. An officer arrives to arrest him and tells him to turn around presumably so he can handcuff him. The guy refuses to turn around after repeated requests, so the offer tases him. That's exactly what the taser is for -- to gain control of the situation when a perpetrator is not cooperating. The officer had a job to do and a responsibility to protect the public and himself. This was not a time for idle chit-chat with the perp. Look at the size of that guy, things could have gone wrong in an instant. The perp had a choice in the matter and refused to cooperate. Game over for him.

Oh and the fact that he was mentally challenged has no bearing at all on how he should be treated. He was still a danger to folks and the officer needed to control him. A job well done I would say.

[keninaz]

My thoughts are that there are several officers there on that little piece of land and they could have taken control of him easily.
I believe that this is the requirement for a normal police force but who knows what the tribal police have for marching orders.
While I like non lethal force which would not have been called for in this instance anyway.
I guess if you don't like it stay off the reservation.
And I am betting that an attorney is contacting this guy as I write this.

[kdog]

Interesting. Cop looks all alone to me, so I'm not seeing the basis for your theory that there were other cops on the scene. Neither of us were there, but based solely on what the video shows, I'm seeing text-book procedures by that officer. Hopefully we'll get to see how this shakes out.

[keninaz]

This is a very small reservation and this shopping center is on the tribal land. They have several officers on duty at any given time and as this guy did have his hands up and was not being aggressive I still say the use of the taser was wrong.
Many are not even aware that it is an indian reservation. And these are rent a cops in my view.
When I lived in WA we had lots of problems with tribal police issuing tickets on HWY 20 that went through the reservation and they were not allowed to do that. If you paid the ticket that was on you.
I drove for a shuttle bus company and we were told that if a tribal cop tried to pull us over to call dispatch and let them know but keep driving as the state highway was not in their jurisdiction.
Maybe that's where I lost respect for tribal police. PS, they were not indians just contract officers.
I have no idea whether the ticketing of cars on the highway was independent thought or at the direction of the tribe for additional income there.
Also, having been involved with juries on some civil lawsuit trials, I think this is going to be a problem in a civil case for the officer involved. Juries do some strange things in civil cases. When it comes to a civil trial all bets are of and it has little to do with anything, or so it seems it a lot of cases to me.

[wretched wrench]

Not a lawyer, but my bet is the tribal police are totally immune from Arizona law. The reservations are still the wild west.

Does anyone have the full story on buying gas or shopping on tribal land? Does the same amount of tax money, etc go to the city, county and state as, say, shopping in Prescott? I remember buying gas on Lake Havasu or the Colorado River and not paying taxes, but can't remember which side of the river it was.

[keninaz]

I think you are correct and AZ law does not have any authority there but in a civil court that's a different matter altogether.
And I suspect that taxes, state or federal, are not paid on the tribal lands.
I knew a few people that smoked in WA state and they drove some 22 miles from where I lived to by their smokes there as they were so cheap.
I heard that in theory the cigarettes were supposed to be consumed on the reservation but it was not enforced if that was true.

[DellNec]

I think the cop was just lazy and it was easier to taze him than it was to engage him and arrest him. This one is a case that it looks like the officer might face a review board. I think the officer was wrong also but we will have to see how this plays out.

Even the charges originally filed by the officer, after review, have been downgraded. He filed felony charges and the states attorney downgraded them to misdemeanor.

The tazer, while effective in most cases, has caused people to die. Either by giving them a heart attack or when they fall down people have broken their necks and received brain injuries from the fall that resulted in deaths. When tazed you lose muscle control and you can go crashing down on your head or neck. That is the debate in tazer circles, is it really "non-lethal" use of force? Some say it is borderline lethal of course the billion dollar tazer industry says it is non-lethal.

[keninaz]

You bring up an interesting point.
I never thought about it but while state and local officers have no authority on their land, in turn the tribal council (I think it's called) had no jurisdiction over non tribal members if my memory serves me correctly.
Therefore any charges would have to be referred to the local authorities in this case.
The numbers of deaths caused my tasers are far less than a .40 cal to the body, take that for granted.
I will not dispute that some have died but the numbers are small. Injuries, you bet. You can fall down drunk and hurt yourself and have more muscle control doing it (in most cases anyway)

[wretched wrench]

Originally Posted by keninaz

You bring up an interesting point.
I never thought about it but while state and local officers have no authority on their land, in turn the tribal council (I think it's called) had no jurisdiction over non tribal members if my memory serves me correctly.

Not a lawyer, but from my Parker Strip days, I remember people locked up in Indian jail. Not good. They paid very high bails to get out and never heard from the court or anything after that. The charges never showed up on any records, either.

The numbers of deaths caused my tasers are far less than a .40 cal to the body...

We can only hope that a shot from a .40 was not even considered. I believe shooting an unarmed man with his hands held up might not stand up in court. At least not if the video was admitted as evidence. But, then again, lots of unarmed people are killed by police, and it is OK.

And, this is on tribal land.

When I lived in CA, we had the Rodney King incident. I won't go into details, but there is a similarity. A few of the police were finally charged, but found not guilty after the trial was moved out of El Lay. The only LE of the dozens present to face any discipline were the two CHP. And it was minimal.