The police commissioner said, after an investigation into the incident, that the officer acted within protocol. I completely agree and here are my reasons:
1) Running on a field during the game is frowned upon at any ball park. The Kid is "being charged as a juvenile for resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and defiant trespass."* See!
2) I am sure the police officer informed the Kid to "Stop" prior to firing the taser. I doubt very much that nothing was said prior to the firing. I believe that if a police officer tells you to stop and you don't that qualifies as evading the police. If you are evading the police, the officer has a right to bring the criminal into custody either by running him down, tasering him, or shooting him.
Also if you watch the video, the Kid clearly sees the cop chasing him with his taser drawn and purposefully changes directions. He should have stopped but didn't. If he would have stopped running and put his hands up then he wouldn't have been tased (if he would have been tased after stopping and surrendering then, yes, it would have been excessive use. But, no, he was still running from the police when he was tased.)
3) Luckily none of our players were in danger, but the police and security on the field at the time did not now that. If this kid did have malicious intentions and acted violently towards a player or Citizen's Bank staff and guests, and the officer only chased him, then everyone would be crying that the officer didn't do enough.
I think it is more disgraceful that people are booing a police officer for doing his job and keeping people safe. But, what else would you expect from sports fans who threw snowballs at Santa Claus? Again, no one knew what this Kid was going to do. Even though he was running around, he still could have had a mental disability and went crazy on someone. Or pulled out a knife when someone got close.
I will say that if the cop had shot the Kid with his service revolver then, yes, it would have been excessive force. Cops are issued tasers because (although people can go into cardiac arrest when tased) there is less of a chance of killing the criminal, or an innocent bystander.
I wish I could be on the jury cause I would totally send this Kid to prison for simply being stupid.
Because seeing people get tasered on COPS is amazing, I have posted the clip below.
YDB
By the way if you are interested in seeing snowballs being chucked at Santa, well video of that doesn't exist (stupid pre-cell phone era), but you see an interesting news report about it below. I am proud to call myself a Philadelphia Sports Phan (that's right, I used the PH!)
*http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Teen-fan-tasered-by-Phillies-security-after-runn?urn=mlb,238457
I could not agree with you more. 100%
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