Rogue Medic: Well, Nobody's Perfect

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Well, Nobody's Perfect

Mule Breath and I have disagreed on the use of TASERs. I feel that, just as any other tool, it is not the tool that is the problem, it is the person behind the tool. While Mule Breath agrees with that, he thinks that there are too many problems with police abuse of force to allow police to use TASERs.

Here is a case of a police officer, who seems to be going out of his way to make Mule Breath's case.

This is from The Agitator. Further information, about the same cop, includes -

When the video first emerged last week, the Dolton police department refused to release Lloyd’s name. With good reason. Lloyd is in jail in Indiana.

I thought he was a police officer.

I think the word was is going to be the important one for him.

Christopher Lloyd, not to be confused with the actor, was fired from another job as a police officer. It seems he killed his ex-wife's husband. He claimed it was self-defense, but for some reason he needed to shoot the guy 24 times in order to protect himself. That was just the number of times the coroner said the man had been shot. We do not know how many times he missed.

Don't worry. Nobody else could possibly have been in danger, since he recreated the climax of Bonnie and Clyde in front of their kids (the story states their kids, but does not specify if the father is Lloyd or the dead guy). Apparently, Chicago PD accepted his story of self defense. It is not known if any donuts were exchanged in consideration of this determination. I'm surprised they didn't go with suicide.

Now, being the curious character that I am, I'm wondering.

Was it a 6 shot revolver, reload and fire 6 more shots, reload and fire 6 more shots, reload and fire 6 more shots? And that is if all of the shots hit the target.

Was it something with a 14 round clip? He still would have needed to reload.

Was it a 50 caliber machine gun fired Rambo style?

Maybe he cloned himself and they all shot the guy.

Don't be silly. Bonnie and Clyde were shot many more than 24 times.

Bonnie was shot 23 times and Clyde was shot 25 times.

Maybe somebody should send him a tub of that Kentucky Jelly, because his boyfriends in prison may be even rougher than he is.

.

4 Comments:

TOTWTYTR said...: I don't think that this relates to the Taser per se. In fact, it doesn't relate to the Taser at all. There is no mention of this cretin using a Taser in any instance.

Nor does it relate to the general use of force by police officers, since clearly this guy shouldn't be and never should have been a police officer.

You'd no doubt correctly complain if someone used such shoddy linkage and reporting to condemn the use of anything by an EMT or paramedic and you should use the same standard here.; Tuesday, October 13, 2009 7:48:00 PM EDT
Rogue Medic said...: TOTWTYTR,

Tongue in cheek.

Must you be so serious?

I agree with you, but I never did intend this to be evidence of anything. OTOH, this is an example of a bright shining future face of EMS. Maybe you can precept him. ;-); Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:08:00 PM EDT
Medic(three) said...: I don't believe in tasers because I believe if someone deserves to be shot, use a bullet. I'd be willing to be officers are cautious yet dilligent with their sidearm. If you need to stop them with "potentially lethal, technically less than lethal" force, just stop them for good; Sunday, October 18, 2009 4:14:00 PM EDT
Rogue Medic said...: Medic(three),

What about the patient who is disoriented?

Diabetes, mental illness, head injury, et cetera. These are not reasons to kill a person, unless you unnecessarily limit the options the police have. These are just some of the conditions that may induce a person to be temporarily violent and combative.

Also, I do not like the term less than lethal, but prefer less lethal. We cannot be sure that none of the in-custody deaths did not have the TASER as a contributing factor. Calling it less than lethal implies that it is not lethal.

Everything is lethal. It all just depends on how it is used.; Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:02:00 AM EDT

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Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are. Niels Bohr.

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. Niels Bohr.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. Niels Bohr.

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question. Niels Bohr.

Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them. Niels Bohr.

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Albert Einstein.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. Albert Einstein.

Never memorize what you can look up in books. Albert Einstein.

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in the United States is closely connected with this. Albert Einstein.

the chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction - a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory - who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unusual point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself. I say sacrificed himself because he most likely will get nothing from it, because the truth may lie in another direction, perhaps even the fashionable one. Nobel Prize speech - Richard Feynman.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science. Cargo Cult Science - Richard Feynman.

I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land. Cargo Cult Science - Richard Feynman.

If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results. Cargo Cult Science - Richard Feynman.

If a reasonable launch schedule is to be maintained, engineering often cannot be done fast enough to keep up with the expectations of originally conservative certification criteria designed to guarantee a very safe vehicle. In these situations, subtly, and often with apparently logical arguments, the criteria are altered so that flights may still be certified in time. They therefore fly in a relatively unsafe condition, with a chance of failure of the order of a percent (it is difficult to be more accurate).

Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and success in order to ensure the supply of funds. The other may be that they sincerely believed it to be true, demonstrating an almost incredible lack of communication between themselves and their working engineers. Rogers' Commission Report - Richard Feynman.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. Rogers' Commission Report - Richard Feynman.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Richard Feynman.

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation ... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way:

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. Richard Feynman.

The only way to have real success in science, the field I’m familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what’s good and what’s bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty. Richard Feynman.

Some people say, "How can you live without knowing?" I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know. Richard Feynman.

I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Richard Feynman.

So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies . . . publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Alan Sokal

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