Today's TASER Travesty

Today's story comes out of Western Australia, where police officers saw fit to TASER an aboriginal man named Kevin Spratt an incomprehensible 24 times in two incidents over the two weeks he was in custody at the East Perth Watch House.

Mr. Spratt was TASERED 13 times after refusing to submit to a strip search and 11 times the next week after declining to come out of his cell (but he's merely an Abo so what's the big deal over his treatment, right?).

In other words, in these incidents the TASER was clearly misused as a pain-delivering compliance tool rather than a "potentially lethal" self-defense weapon, as it is only now being sensibly reclassified by such agencies as the Minneapolis, Minnesota Police Department.

"The two police officers responsible have so far escaped criminal prosecution but were fined a combined total of $1950 after a police disciplinary hearing into the incident."

Don't strain yourselves with the discipline down there, mates.

It's unbelievable that these officers are still employed as cops and face no other criminal sanction than having to pay such a trifling monetary penalty.  It's obvious that their bosses aren't taking this clear incident of police brutality seriously at all.

"Mr Spratt said he was disgusted the two officers had not been stood down.
 
'They don't deserve to to hold a weapon like that if they're just going to use it like it's a water pistol,' he told the West Australian."

We certainly agree.