Greenwich Roundup: 05/23/08 - Last Wednesday Bill Clark "The Scribe Of Greenwich" added his comments about the Greenwich High School Taser Incident

Friday, May 23, 2008

05/23/08 - Last Wednesday Bill Clark "The Scribe Of Greenwich" added his comments about the Greenwich High School Taser Incident

The "Scribe Of Greenwich" At Work In The
Public Library's Technology Department

Shocking Developments at Greenwich High School

Your scribe has followed with interest the top local news story of the past several days, namely the use of a police taser gun on an 18-year-old senior at the high school.

The student, Victor Hugo Londono, was under a one-week suspension for throwing water balloons as a senior prank. Wow. Pretty serious stuff. Certainly a worthy reason to suspend the malefactor for a full week less than a month from graduation.

When your scribe was in high school, water balloons were an inescapable part of the rites of spring. Walk out a doorway, get doused from above. Swallow your chagrin, put on a smile, and deal with it. And then turn the tables on your oppressor. Faculty members knew better than to get involved with such pranks, just as students knew full well there was no point in running to them for assistance. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and water-balloon training was just another part of the educational experience provided to all students in those halcyon days.

And so, upon reflection, your scribe finds himself faulting the school for issuing such a harsh punishment for such a trivial event. Does the unspeakable Betty Sternberg's code of student conduct now criminalize water balloons? Kinda makes one yearn for the old days, when some right-thinking student might have concocted an indelible-ink balloon and lobbed it in the direction of a particularly unpopular faculty member or administrator. Now that might have called for some form of punishment, not to mention economic reparations; but the lobber would have become an instant hero, and a legend in his or her own time.

Mr. Londono, however, was punished for tossing garden-variety water balloons. The "damage" probably dried within 30 minutes, after which it was basically a case of no harm, no foul. But no - he was publically humiliated and disciplined by the high school administration.

Would that it had all ended there. Alas, it did not. Mr. Londono, in a scene straight out of his namesake's great novel of social injustice, Les Miserables, had the temerity to kick a chair. And that led directly to his being tasered by the "school resource officer", a bureaucratic euphemism for the Greenwich cop who has been assigned to the school full-time since last year.

Tasered in front of his friends. Tasered in front of a crowd of fellow students. Tasered not once, not twice, but three times - in the shoulder, the abdomen, and the thigh. A burly cop against a 140-lb. teenager - was the use of a taser necessary? The cop says yes. Common sense says no.

What kind of message does this incident send to our kids? Play a prank and expect to be taken down by brute force and electroshock in the middle of the student center? Kick a chair and be handcuffed and arrested for breach of the peace? Lord only knows what the students who witnessed this scene must have thought. What kind of message do you read into this, dear reader?

And what kind of judgment did the highly-trained adult police officer show when he tasered an unruly teenager three times? Might he have lost his cool, too? Might he have overreacted?

Your scribe was not a witness to this incident, and so he has no anwers to offer. Only questions.

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Update 5/22/08

Your scribe was as shocked as Mr. Londono to read that the latter's bail was set at $50,000. Fifty thousand dollars! One almost never sees a bond set that high in this Town. Here are some examples from today's paper:

11 counts of credit card theft, 11 counts of identity theft, 11 counts of forgery, and a bunch of other charges related to thefts and illegal use of credit cards: $10,000.

Smashing a woman's cell phone, shoving her into a car door, putting her in a headlock and choking off her air supply, and throwing her to the ground: $2,000.

Slamming a woman's car door on her hand, jamming her thumb in the door and breaking her nail while screaming obscenities at her on Greenwich Avenue: no bond at all - just a PTA (promise to appear).

It would seem to any disinterested observer that the Greenwich Police Department has a vendetta going against Mr. Londono. Fifty thousand dollars! Unbelievable!

What do the students at Greenwich High School think? The paper reports sit-ins in the student center where the incident took place, boycotting of classes, tee shirts supporting Mr. Londono, and a lot of emotional distress. One student, Meghan Kerwin, said, "If there is a gun or something, by all means protect us. When it's a water balloon, the circumstances do not call for a Taser."

Go to the head of the class, Meghan. You sure got that one right.

This Greenwich Gossip article received 5 comments:

Sarah Darer Littman said...

I have to say that the "don't Tase me bro" incident made me very glad that my son isn't attending Greenwich High, and rather nervous that daughter is scheduled to be there in only three years time.

AnonymousBob said...One of the problems with tasers is that they are marketed to police and security professionals as being "non-lethal", but in fact they can be very lethal in some circumstances, as various news stories from around the world have borne out, and the circumstances are not always predictable or identifiable. If security people are under the false impression that tasers can't kill people, they may be more apt to use them as something less than a "last resort", and more frequent taser use could mean more injuries and deaths. Personally, I have never heard of anyone dying from a good old-fashioned shoulder or arm lock. If the student had been directly threatening another person with physical harm, then I might be more inclined to let the tasering go, but I'm sure the chairs think nothing at all of the physical affront they "suffered".

Another problem that could arise in relation to taser injuries and death is that if criminals (or even regular people) come to understand that the taser could in fact kill them, there may be increased instances of people defending themselves more aggressively against taser-wielding police and security guards. Human Nature dictates that if I think that what you are about to do to me could kill me, I'm going to go to whatever lengths necessary to defend my life, most especially if I think that *you* are more likely to actually use the weapon because you believe it *won't* hurt me. I can only say that if *anyone* points a taser at me or my family, they had better have health and/or life insurance, because I'm going to treat them as if they were pointing a firearm, but with an overly-itchy trigger-finger. And I wouldn't blame anyone else for doing the same.

Barrie said...What happened to diffusing a situation? Instead of letting it escalate to the point of tasering. In these days of drugs and alcohol and guns on our high school campuses, a water balloon looks very tame indeed. Thanks for sharing.

Malicious Intent said...

I have seen to many incidents across the country of folks being tasered and the officials abusing it. Despite poplular belief, a taser can kill.

As far as why this young man was tasered, repeatedly....it was flat out wrong. This kid was not caught raping a student, dealing drugs on the corner or vandalizing property. He was punished for being a kid trying to have fun and create some memories from high school to take with him.

I keep saying we should be waving a red flag over our state/country. We scream human rights in this country and demand that our prisoners or suspected terrorists not get water boarded, but we taser an 18 year old 3 times for throwing a water balloon and then *gasp* show emotion when he gets angry for being punished for such a childhood prank.

Honestly, some people need to put their big girl/boy panties on and get a grip. Go find the real bad guys.

Oh wait, that would require hard work, woulndn't it?

Bill "The Scribe Of Greenwich" Clark reponded...

Wow! I guess this post touched a few nerves!

Yes, tasers can be lethal, especially if someone has a medical problem such as a circulatory or heart condition. Anonymous Bob - who are you, by the way? Give me a hint! - has given us a lot to think about.

Sarah, my first reaction was that if I had a kid about to enter the high school I would start looking at private schools PDQ.

Barrie, as usual you are the voice of wisdom and common sense. Yes, the cop and other administrators present should have tried to defuse the situation. Had I been the cop in question, I might have lined up a few more chairs and told the kid to take his best shot at them, too. Then, when everyone had stopped laughing, I would have asked him to accompany me somewhere private and told him that a different kind of cop might have arrested him, but that I merely wanted his solemn assurance that he would behave himself until graduation.

Guess that's why I'm not a cop.

M.I., as usual, you say exactly what's on the scribal mind, and as usual you say it much better than I could.

Leigh Russell said...

common sense Bill? What is that, pray?

Bill "The Scribe Of Greenwich" Clark reponds...

Hi, Leigh! Common sense is a vestigial character trait of the human race that is in increasingly short supply in these latter days. It refers to an ability to think and act logically in accordance with commonly-received experience. However, since everyone now seems to be running off in all directions in pursuit of their own solipsistic goals, common experience and by extension common sense are pretty much a thing of the past.

I remember learning a lot of common sense when I lived in England. Do they still have any left over there, one hopes?

Here are more of Mr. Clark's recent posts at Greenwich Gossip:

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