Police Brutality

The town of Lincoln, Rhode Island (population: around 20,000) followed by Cumberland, Rhode Island (population: around 30,000) has purchased $900 taser guns with “federal stimulus money.” “We don’t have the type of crime that the bigger cities do with all the shootings, but we do have people who become violent.”

http://www.projo.com/news/content/LINCOLN_TASERS_09-29-09_LCFSGP3_v22.3cf55c6.html

Yes, the cops become violent.

Perhaps the Woonsocket Rhode Island police should have used the taser on this teenager who six cops beat up in a park? So more police brutality warrants purchase of the tasers? What a vicious cycle.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/WOONSOCKET_FBI_09-29-09_19FRM9J_v15.3a64c83.html

“The FBI has launched a criminal civil rights investigation into allegations that several Woonsocket police officers brutally beat a teenage boy in a city park and twice in a police station room that was not equipped with cameras.”

Meanwhile, cops around the country are using the taser as the first resort, perhaps to stop themselves from committing more violent acts, such as beating up grannies.

"Why Are Cops Tasering Grandmothers, Pregnant Women and Kids?"

http://www.alternet.org/rights/142006/why_are_cops_tasering_grandmothers%2C_pregnant_women_and_kids?obref=obinsite


And for crowd control there’s nothing like The Scream:

http://www.alternet.org/story/142951/robocops_employ_scary_crowd-stopping_technology_at_pittsburgh_protests?obref=obinsite


Long Range Acoustic Device or "The Scream," is a powerful megaphone the size of a satellite dish that can emit sound "50 times greater than the human threshold for pain" at close range, causing permanent hearing damage. The L.A. Times wrote U.S. Marines in Iraq used it in 2004. It can deliver recorded warnings in Arabic and, on command, emit a piercing tone…"[For] most people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will produce the equivalent of an instant migraine," says Woody Norris, chairman of American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces the weapon. "It will knock [some people] on their knees."