CASE: PORTLAND POLICE TASE MAN WHO WAS SWINGING PLASTIC LIGHTSABER AT TOYS “R” US CUSTOMERS
DETAILS: Sure, it’s all fun and games until some innocent passerby gets bopped in the head with a plastic lightsaber. Police at an Oregon Toys “R” Us store responded to a call after a crazed 33-year-old David Canterbury had already struck three other customers with such a weapon. When they tried tasing him, he ripped the Taser wires loose with a mighty swing of his toy lightsaber. At this point they piled on him and subdued him using the sort of brute force that even his plastic lightsaber could not repel.
VERDICT:  We may have tased him merely for being a grown man who’s still into Star Wars.

CASE: FLORIDA POLICE TASE 77-YEAR-OLD KNIFE-WIELDING MAN AT CANCER CENTER
DETAILS: Last Tuesday night at the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center, police arrived after medical staff reported that Juan Carrasquillo, 77 and presumably a cancer patient, had brandished a knife at them in the midst of treatment. The arrest report said he was holding the knife “With his arm coiled so he could strike quickly with it.” Police subdued him with one Taser jolt and then arrested him.
VERDICT: Very tough call. Given his age and the fact that he’s likely terminal, we would have tried exhausting every possible option before tasing him, whether it involved gentle persuasion or somehow making him slip on a banana peel. But if he’d come directly at us with the knife, then ZAP!

CASE: ILLINOIS SUSPECT GRABS TASER GUN FROM ARRESTING OFFICER AND TASES HIM
DETAILS: In the course of interviewing 19-year-old Dashawn James for a possible curfew violation, Chicago police say James initially tried fleeing, then became “combative” after they caught up with him. He swung at two officers and in the ensuing scuffle grabbed one of their Tasers, zapping one cop in the arm with it. The other officer deployed his own Taser on young Dashawn, subduing him.
VERDICT: If we were the officer who got tased, we would have tased ourselves again due to shame for being so clumsy.

CASE: POLICE IN WASHINGTON, DC TASE “OCCUPY” PROTESTER
DETAILS: Last Sunday at an atypically long-lasting Occupy DC encampment, police began placing flyers on tents that instructed everyone to disperse in compliance with the law. Ryan Lash, wearing eye-searing pajama pants, a T-shirt that said HE LOVES IT IN THE ASS, and the scruffy bearded-moppet look so common among these bold opponents of “greed,” almost instantly began removing the flyers, ripping them to shreds, and shouting, “Here’s your trash, you fucking pigs!” (At 0:11 of the above-linked video.) Police followed him through the park. Even though he made a conscious decision to wear those pajamas, he began chanting,  “I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG.” When police attempted to apprehend him, he physically struggled (at 1:34-1:40), at which point they tased him, instantly bringing out the shrill chirping of the camp’s “Justice Whistles” (or whatever they call them) and an audible assurance from a compatriot: “Yo, yo, it’s a lawsuit, brother, don’t worry.”
VERDICT: These people want nothing more on Earth than to have filmed evidence of police doing anything worse than serving them warm meals, so we would have strained with all our being not to tase him. These people see nothing odd about the fact that they moan of police brutality at an event they organized and purposely called “Fuck OPD (Oakland Police Department).” They see nothing askew with the fact that they openly flout the law yet jump at the chance to file lawsuits. Since he struggled, yes, he deserved to be tased. Since it’s stupid to scream at cops and call them pigs, yes, he should have received an extra jolt merely for being stupid. And since the cost of cleaning up their juvenile gypsy shenanigans will fall on average members of the “99%” who don’t make a habit of pooping in public parks, sure, zap him one last time for good measure. But since that’s exactly what he wanted, we would have found a way not to give it to him, if for no other reason than spite.