TEXAS ACLU WANTS COPS BANNED FROM USING TASERS IN SCHOOLS

On November 20, some female students got into a slugfest at Cedar Creek High School in Bastrop, Texas. Witnesses say Noe Nino de Rivera intervened by trying to break up the fight. A Bastrop County Sheriff’s Deputy assigned to work as a school security officer arrived at the scene and tasered de Rivera. The 17-year-old student went limp and fell, cracking his head on the floor. He was flown by helicopter to an Austin hospital where has been in a medically-induced coma ever since.

This is a tragic case where an officer with the best of intentions probably believed that de Rivera was a participant in the cat fight rather than a student trying to break it up. It's easy for armchair experts to condemn the deputy's actions, but being the only officer at the scene, he probably felt that his safest option in breaking up the fight was to use his Taser gun.

Now the ACLU and six other organizations have asked the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to ban the use by cops of Tasers and pepper spray in Texas schools. The commission is taking the request under consideration.

Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texass, does not want the cops to use weapons in schools. He wants them to rely on de-escalation techniques and crisis intervention tactics. Burke wants them to separate students in a fight without using any weapons, by talking with them or waiting for things to calm down.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Burke said, "Tragic incidents like this one demonstrate why the state should not grant police free rein to wield weapons in schools for the apparent purpose of maintaining order. Schools should be safe havens from this type of police use of force. I hope the commission will heed our call to end use of Tasers and pepper spray."

I do not know what world the ACLU’s Burke is living in, but it sure as hell is not the one I’m in. He appears to be oblivious of what goes on in some of our schools nowadays. There’s just no way officers can deal with conflicts among rival gang members by sweet-talking them into a loving embrace with each other.

While cops should use restraint in resorting to the use of weapons at all times, not just in schools, their use may be the only means of ending a volatile brawl. And the use of a weapon in a school, non-lethal or deadly, may be necessary to protect an officer's life or the lives of teachers and students.

The use of Tasers has been controversial because a number of people have died after having been tasered. Five police departments in North Texas — Mansfield, Richland Hills, Crowley, Murphy and Burleson — no longer allow their officers to use Taser guns. Houston Independent School District police officers do not carry Tasers, but they can use pepper foam which is less likely than pepper spray to hit bystanders. The sheriff’s department in Houston prohibits its officers from using Tasers on the elderly, pregnant women, people already under restraint, and children under 13.