See what happens when you give sissy's a new toy (stun gun)?
How many TV shows staring real incidents as they happen do you see the cops have to use a stun gun? Not many times because those cities have chosen to hire police officers that have the physical ability to take control of the situation. Because of the lack of police protection, I have chosen to
protect myself in all means possible. Read the police reports and count how many times there is not a "unit" available for a crime that has just happened. Their too busy with the drunk homeless or the punks around the bus station and library.
Good luck Eugene

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I belong to PETA...People Eating Tasty Animals

This was always my concern about giving cops tasers: They are presented as a "less than lethal" alternative. Which sounds good, given a choice between shooting a guy, and tazering him, tazer sounds great. However, in reality, cops seem to think of tazers as an alternative to raising their voice. Tazers should be used ONLY if the alternative is SHOOTING the subject. And therefore, if a Tazer is used, the cop should be treated EXACTLY as if he just shot the guy. Administrative suspension, full-scale investigation, etc.

I can't belive that we live in a city that has to be referred to as the Peoples Republic of Eugene.  You liberal idiots, don't you realize that this guy claimed to have poison in the sprayer as he went around spraying bystanders?  He refused to stop and took a threatening posture against the police.  It is not alright to question authority.  Having "poison" and spraying at people is the equivalent to having a gun and shooting someone, there is a chance they will survive......  The police took a less than lethal stance and chose not to wound the offender.  Who are you to care what happens to this guy, it could have been you who had been sprayed.  There are no more occurances here with tasers than anywhere else.  If anything there are less.  The police showed incredible restraint here with what they had to deal with.  Dealing with people like you liberals.  Just think of it this way, if you ever have your house broken into or you get your car stolen don't call the police.  Just deal with it.

If I ever have a problem I damn sure won't call the Eugene Goon Squad...they probably won't have any "units available" anyway and I do not want wimps handling a mans job.

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I belong to PETA...People Eating Tasty Animals

I am curious what kind of jobs you have. Ever been assaulted, shot at, had your life and or your families life threatened. I would say probably not. I support the police and everything they do. I hope there is a mass riot from the anarchists or people that keep this city in the dumps. With the police having their hands tied with the "No matter what we do we did it wrong", I hope they stand back and let people like you take over the city. Make sure you say please don't set that on fire, and please get out the road and let traffic pass. Use your verbal skills while your being pelted with rocks.

Eugene is one of the last cities in the state to get tasers. There is no other city or jurisdiction that has the publicity we do. Other places have it in their policy that when a police officer says to turn around and they don't, they get tazed. The citizens of that areas first question is, why didn't they turn aorund. The officer and suspect injury rate is also down 80-90 percent.

If you haven't been or even if you have been a vicitm, I am sure you were thankful and polite when the police showe up. Then you cursed them when they left.

Eugene police didn't label tasers "less than lethal" -- that happened long ago when the rest of the country adopted the use of the tool and the generally standard protocols for its use. As anybody who has watched a "COPS" episode can attest, tasers are regularly used by police throughout the country without incident. It's not that complicated: I don't want to be tased, so I obey the law. Pretty simple, really. If the police made a mistake and moved to place me under arrest I would complain, but if I was told that I would be tased if I resisted, I would choose not to resist. Too complicated? Unfair? Only in Eugene. Whacko-central.

Tasers are regularly deployed in other jurisdictions when officers are threatened by violent subjects refusing to yield. Tasers have been used dozens of times in more rural, lower crime areas like Coos Bay, and it's happened without generating a single public media event. Go figure. In Eugene and and every taser use is a media event, because Eugene residents expect police to subject themselves to any and every risk before a criminal is subjected to discomfort. Most Eugene residents couldn't care less whether police officers are hurt, because cops seen as somehow less than human. Eugene residents, championed by such dregs as Bonnie Bettman, are the same people who were spitting on battle-weary Marines returning from Viet Nam and calling them names.

The current Eugene excuse for hating cops that is the two awful officers who were convicted and sent to prison five or six years ago. Citizens couldn't care less that it was the Eugene Police who investigated those dirty cops, made the cases against them, and sent them to prison, one of them for life. Nope, in Eugene, the community prefers to define police officers by the conduct of the worst two cops ever to disgrace the agency, an especially unjust choice in light of the agency efforts to refuse to employ them in the first place. EPD was forced to hire those jerks over objection (Ironically, to meet affirmative action objectives.).

Eugene citizens couldn't care less about the 99.8% of the remaining cops in the city and county who demonstrate thousands of acts of courage and kindness every year. Even the Police Auditor concedes that the vast majority of Eugene police are "good people doing good work". No matter, the citizens would rather recycle the story of the two bad cops year after year after year after year after year.

I can't imagine why anybody would want to be involved in ANY public safety role in that awful city/county. The cops, sheriff, DA -- whatever -- Eugene hates them all, a reality demonstrated every time there is conflict between law enforcement is some criminal scumbag... Eugene always sides with the scumbag, whether he's spraying urine on the cops (during the anti-tree-cutting protests), threatening the cops with pesticide-filled sprayers, spiking trees to kill loggers, or shooting at cops. I can't remember a single kind word ever directed to the law enforcement in that place. The sane people out to just get out and leave it to the whackos... The weather sucks anyway.

Not only is it allright to question authority, it is our DUTY to question. Your  Conservative follow  the leader where ever he may lead is what made Hitler a success. I thought that you NeoCons wanted less Governvent in our lives. Don't forget that the Feds started that mess. they have no business keep track of peaceful protesters.

"Question authority" is a great concept, and one I have embraced and implemented since the early 60s. Unfortunately, in the city of Eugene it is often mistaken for "Accuse authority, whether the facts support it or not".

I saw two interviews of citizen witnesses who were not part of the protest, one of them, an employee from Taco Time right next to the site of the arrests, said the police used considerable "restraint" in the face of an assault by protesters. Who to believe? I tend to lean towards he witnesses who are neutral. I also consider the following:

1) Two of the protesters were part of the crew that filled large squirt guns with urine and sprayed police during a tree-cutting protest in Eugene years ago. Coincidence? Another misunderstood “peaceful” protest?
2) The protestors asked police if they'd like to be sprayed with poison, and then pointed large garden sprayers at them.
3) Several protesters just happened to be equipped with copies of the Eugene taser policy -- seems like odd preparation for a group planning a "peaceful protest".

Protests can be great way of drawing attention to critical issues. They occupy an important role in public discourse. But this group, like several in Eugene, obviously had another agenda. I think they went looking for a fight and did all they could to provoke it. They even came equipped with their own amateur videographer who was reportedly running his camera from beginning to end, but refuses to share ALL the tape with the media or others. Instead, he’s put together an edited version showing the police response to aggression without showing any of the aggression which preceded it. That’s dishonest and deceptive, but Eugene eats it up. Brain in neutral, full sheep-mode engaged. Ironic, really, because the motto is to question.

I'm a progressive, but I'm not brain-dead, and I don’t celebrate wrongful conviction, whether the victim is a victim of the state or a police officer being victimized by trap staged and orchestrated by a group with an anti-police political agenda. This set-up was obvious, but Eugene citizens never miss a chance to dump on the local police. It’s been years and tens of thousands of cases since the Magana-Lara crimes, but we’re STILL hearing about them, because locals want to define that agency by the acts of the two worst employees the agency ever had — and didn’t even want in the first place! That’s right, the Eugene Police Department tried NOT to hire Magana and Lara, but the City of Eugene implemented it's own prejudices in the name of political correctness and forced the hires. Magana and Lara were hired over the objection of the police department because they filled minority quotas. Diversity is a wonderful thing and a worthy public objective, but quotas are not, and it's irresponsible to seek diversity by hiring minorities with criminal backgrounds to be police officers. Give me a break! What did the city (read council) expect? Their criminality, before and after being hired as police, had nothing to do with being minorities and everything to do with being criminals, a fact which the police identified during the background investigation. Following the marching orders of a city council which misapprehends the responsibility of a progressive, the human resources department hired the criminals and trained them to be police. A more thoughtful, responsible city would have sought diversity by recruiting NON-criminal minorities, obviously. Instead, the police were stuck with the quintessential City Council response. The public, like some on this thread, just eats this stuff up.

In many/most places progressives are well represented by lawyers, professors and others who are bright, well educated and thoughtful. We have such people here in Eugene, but they don’t define our political process. The political discourse in Eugene is dominated by a far less honest, thoughtful, subtle, capable group. Of course, there's plenty of audience to consume improbable examples like this staged "protest".

I expect police to follow the law and respect our rights. Unlike the protesters, I do NOT expect police to tolerate being peed on, spat on, punched or threatened with allegedly poison spray. In my book, anybody who threatens the above is getting off easy if he/she is just "tazed". Protesting is great, as is non-aggressive civil disobedience, but you don’t get to threaten harm to others without running the risk of getting a knuckle sandwich.