Yet another innocent kid has died from tasers. In this case, officers were chasing Victoria Steen down when they felt that they needed to taser him from their moving vehicle. Be it the lack of training, or the fact that tasers are too dangerous, I think that tasers should be banned for the time being. We need to study it more.

It is very sad that a kid died for nothing. Yes, if he had not been running away from the cops, he could have been alive today. Why was he running? Did he really have something to hide? Was he peddling drugs or something? Your guess is as good as mine.

But the fact is, we do not know, and therefore should have assumed that he was innocent. He could have been running away from the cops because he was scared of them. Many Latino and African Americans run when they see the cops coming into their communities. And that should not lead to police officers tasering him.

Yes, if the cops were better trained, they could have kept their tasers in check and Mrs Steen could still see her “baby” sleep in his bed that night. For God’s sake, they were in their patrol cars and this kid was in his bicycle. They could have caught up with the boy in minutes or seconds if they wanted to. There was no need for them to be tasering the kid.

Yes, if the cop did not carry the taser, there could be less incidents like this. Do not get me wrong. I do understand that these cases of taser deaths form a very small percentage of tasers being used. However, I feel that it is a small percent too many.

I also do understand that tasers can be used to save lives. There can be a situation where a mentally challenged individual could put somebody’s life at risk. And rather than shooting the person, the cops could taser that individual. I get that and I support its existence.

What I do not want is to let it lead to unnecessary death. Be it because cops are not well trained enough to understand that the taser is meant to be a fire-arm substitute. They should only use a taser now when they used a gun in the past. They should not use it outside that jurisdiction. I do not think that they would have open fire at the kid, if they only had guns and not tasers.

I do not want a taser to electrocute suspects to deaths too. I am sure that our police officers do not intend to kill people with their taser. There are cases where repeated tasing would kill suspects or when the product releases more current / voltage than it should.

Lastly, where are the Black leaders in this matter?Where is Reverend Al Sharpton and Reverend Jesse Jackson? Why is it that they are not out there representing their people by bridging the differences with the cops? Why haven’t they told their kids in school that when you see a policeman, do not run!? How many “accidents” must happen for them to be aware of this simple measure that could save lives?

Please, lets study tasers to see if they are as non lethal as it could be and create proper training for our cops to use it. Something must be wrong when there is incident after incident of people dying due to tasers. That is not “to serve and protect.”

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