Community | May 04, 2010 | 165 comments

17 year-old Phillies fan tasered after running onto field

source: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/sports/pro/baseball&id=7421034&rss=rss-wpvi-a...

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learner1776
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - May 4, 2010 -- A police officer used a Taser gun to apprehend a fan who ran onto the field during a Phillies game Monday night, and the team and the police are investigating whether it was an appropriate use of force.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/sports/pro/baseball&id=7421034&rss=rss-wpvi-article-7421034

The fan, wearing a baseball cap, red T-shirt and khaki shorts, hopped a fence and scurried around the outfield, eluding two security officers in the bottom of the eighth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals. One officer used a Taser and the fan went down in a heap. Several Phillies placed gloves over their faces and appeared to be stifling laughter at the wild scene.

Phillies spokeswomen Bonnie Clark said the police department is investigating the matter and discussing with the team whether using the stun gun was appropriate.

Police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore told The Philadelphia Inquirer police internal affairs will open an investigation to determine if the firing "was proper use of the equipment."

Vanore was not made available to The Associated Press when a call was placed to the police department's public affairs office late Monday night.

The teams said it's the first time a Taser has been used by police to apprehend a spectator who ran onto the field.

The fan was 17-year-old male and he will be charged with criminal trespass and related offenses, the team said. The Phillies did not release his name because he is a juvenile.
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165 comments // 17 year-old Phillies fan tasered after running onto field

  • zack
    • +2
      zack  

    • A shocking abuse of authority, Non lethal weaponry is not a solution, this fan could have been delt with in a far better manner, it's reminiscent of the Colosseum displaying pain and suffering for the masses, we are just as inhuman even in our modern age we haven't Evolved to a peaceful social contract. and it's sad!!

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • captain_insano
    • -2
      captain_insano  

    • They should have added a couple of wacks with the billy club also. the dude broke the law deal with the consequences, im tired of defending idiots

    • 2 years ago
  • flyingkick
    • 0
      flyingkick  

    • Oh Current. Put a cop using a taser in an article and everyone loses their ability to think critically.

      You know what they usually do to fans that run onto the field- they tackle them. I think tackling someone is more likely to cause serious injury to the runner and the cop than just tasering the runner.

      Other people have brought up the very good point that athletes have been assaulted by fans who charge the field. This guy knew that what he was doing was going to have some serious consequences, why feel sorry for him?

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • afloyd60
    • 0
      afloyd60  
    • Sapience:

      wrong!! if the cop or anyone else for that matter was ever under any threat of physical harm, then i say to that cop, taze away, light him up. this was not the case. this kid posed no physical threat to anyone. the physical force used to apprehend this kid was not relative to the threat posed. having thousands of volts of electricity coursing through your body is no small thing.

    • 2 years ago
  • MidnightHorrors
  • mrpibb19
  • SalvadoreSouza
    • +1
      SalvadoreSouza  

    • why actually DO your job when you can just taze 'em?
      let the fucker have his 15 seconds of fame & chase his ass down!
      your the police, work for our money!

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • SalvadoreSouza
    • 0
      SalvadoreSouza  
    • Sapience:

      why run around like an idiot when you can just stay in your seat & be like EVERYBODY else? shit like this happens & I don't know about you but I think everybody in the stadium thought it was hilarious... until he got tazed. I'm sure is was a great sight for all the kids too.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
    • 0
      pakazak  
    • Sapience:

      ummmmmm, they were at a 'sporting event'. grown men get paid millions of dollars to play a game and people pay large sums of money to watch.
      yeah, that's some serious shit there.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • lifestudentno83
    • +1
      lifestudentno83  
    • SalvadoreSouza:

      Yes, let's think of the children...

      What better way to show our children how to sit down, shut up, and do as their told than shooting 100k volts of electricity into someone who disobeys the rules?

      Pretty soon, they'll be playing cops and tazing the robbers with plugged in electrical cords ripped from appliances.

      In all seriousness, do we really want tazer use to become commonplace in our society? Can't we just use reason like logical beings, or use non-lethal force instead of less-lethal force?

    • 2 years ago
  • pakazak
    • +1
      pakazak  
    • Sapience:

      mostly pissing people off....
      i watch sports, but try not to take anything that happens too seriously.
      seriously, grab the kid, toss him in the ballpark jail and ban him.
      the taser thing is just over the top imho

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • MotherForTruth
  • pakazak
    • 0
      pakazak  
    • Sapience:

      actually it's 'only' 50 kv initially then drops to about 1200 v at .02-.04 amps.
      enough to make your muscles stop responding to your brain, and cause pain all over as you flop to the ground.

      so it's a matter of appropriate response.

      is the disruption of a sporting event enough to make someone experience this pain and perhaps run the risk that they're the 1 in 10,000 that will experience serious side effects?

      'how lucky do you feel?'

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
    • 0
      pakazak  
    • Sapience:

      didn't say you would.
      one, you're not 17 and crazy (well, at least i don't believe that you are)
      two, i don't think he knew he'd get tazed, but i don't think that would stop him.
      much like the green bay fans who go bare-chested to football games in -10° temps and run the risk of getting dead.
      like i said, it's about appropriate responses.

      the taser was developed to disable violent suspects and protect police/general public

      there was a case in chicago where cops tased a mentally disturbed, young man and about killed him... because they didn't know how to deal with him.

      when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
    • 0
      pakazak  
    • Sapience:

      we wouldn't be having this discussion.

      he would have bionic legs that would have allowed him to outrun the taser

      he would've been invited on the field because of his condition

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
  • Sapience
  • lifestudentno83
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
  • Sapience
  • pakazak
  • pakazak
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  
    • Sapience:

      Any other baseball game where "idiots" (or as we normal people like to call, fans) run out onto the field, and are removed from the stadium. Plenty of examples throughout the storied history of baseball, including the Kissing bandit for starters. She was never tazered for running out onto the field.

      This phenomenon has even been mocked by Seinfield and other comedy shows.

      History and precedence of this situation as being the FIRST incident a tazer has been used to stop a person running onto the field during a baseball game is working against you. Perhaps next time, RTFA.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  
    • Sapience:

      Not for you. I'd have to explain every incident in detail with names, dates, places, mugshots, and play-by-play analysis. And it still wouldn't be enough.

      You keep on trolling as hard as you can JJ. They'll ban you again before next week is up, and you'll have to pick a new name to troll under.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  
    • Sapience:

      Seriously, do you have a job, or a girlfriend, or someone you could be spending time with other than pathetically trolling this board every other week? Please, there is more to life than causing annoyances on Current.

      Go make something of yourself. I'm going to go do homework, so I can actually make something of myself.

    • 2 years ago
  • MizPiz
  • kevrober
    • +1
      kevrober  

    • oh, please. gimme a freakin' break. i suppose they were supposed to chase him around the field for an hour until he decided to stop? i don't care what you're doing...if you RUN from the police they will take your stupid ass down. case closed. should have listened to his daddy, or, perhaps, reason.

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • lifestudentno83
    • +2
      lifestudentno83  
    • Image

    • This is America! Sit down, shut up, do as your told, and everything will (not) be fine.

      Kid should not have been tazered for good-natured fun. This happens practically every year at a baseball game, and now tazering has zapped the fun out of a tradition to a once national pastime.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • lifestudentno83
    • +2
      lifestudentno83  
    • Sapience:

      He didn't cause any physical harm, nor was he a physical threat. Many fans have run onto the field without incident in past years, were apprehended and thrown out of the park without the use of a tazer. I think cops/security are just getting lazy.

      Tazer use should be reserved for physical threats against an officer or another person, if used at all. But in light of the recent abuses in tazer use, I don't think officers should use them at all considering the fact that it has caused the direct or indirect death of many people in the past years police have used them.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • lifestudentno83
    • +2
      lifestudentno83  
    • Sapience:

      Great job making a molehill into a mountain. Breaking and Entering or Robbery are different from this situation, but since they aren't causing physical harm they're the same as some baseball fan running onto the field. By that logic, we should try him in the same manner.

      Same ol' black and white JJ alright.

    • 2 years ago
  • Miglue
    • 0
      Miglue  
    • Sapience:

      YOU GOT A BLACK HOLE BETWEEN YOUR EARS. what if this kid died? it is possible. then what, you would say he shouldn't have done what he did, which would be true but also true would be that the officer shouldn't have done what he did. you have a morbid mentality, you don't think twice about the well being of others your truly a selfish being. the world would be a better place without people like you.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • Miglue
    • +1
      Miglue  
    • Sapience:

      what's the point, your not saine or rational, your impulsive and emotional. your unable to think critically and evaluate consequences for actions and their reactions. you seem to think everything is solved through force and anger no matter the fact that you are following faulty blueprints which have already been used and are only causing more decay in our society. one way or another you will learn that your wrong on every level. you would condemn others for the smallest of gains you will never see, you are a empty vassal a brain washed robot regurgitating your evil masters words. i hope you end up on the shit end of your rhetoric and see that shit you spew for what it is.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sapience
  • Miglue
    • 0
      Miglue  
    • Sapience:

      i disagree with you on a human level and any other level beyond. you try to disguise your hate but it bleeds through in all your comments and that's fine that's you. if i'm wrong i apologize in advance but only time will tell. i'm tired of this. think about our world and the state its in. we have come to the point that we cant even agree that we should feel compassion for each other, how much colder can you and those like you be. soon you will be slithering on your belly with blood as cold as the serpents you follow.

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • lifestudentno83
  • RedSapien
  • TheForeteller
  • QuinlanT
  • Miglue
  • chinese_democracy
    • 0
      chinese_democracy  

    • Plenty of folks get tasered without warrant. I can't say I feel so bad for this kid. Maybe they were trying to use electro-shock therapy to zap the dumbass out of him.

    • 2 years ago
  • wellhunggimp
    • -1
      wellhunggimp  

    • I hate tasers. I think if you tase someone they should get to shoot you. Only assholes think it's cool to electrocute people. All they had to do was tackle the dude and rough him up in the tunnels like they're supposed to.

    • 2 years ago
  • dariusvons
  • hammywill
  • RoBot_rOcKer
  • IndustryRule
  • zakthezomb13
    • +3
      zakthezomb13  

    • It should be mandatory for cops to be in shape...he should be ashamed of himself for eating all those doughnuts...they make sure the kid is okay in the video...he totally got what he deserved for trespassing and attempting to evade a police officer, but its a sporting event people run onto the field for fun.

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
    • +6
      pjacobs51  
    • Image

    • Clearly the Phantasm II Sphere would have been much more humane:

      1. No haunting memories of the unsavory incident [hint: Activate 'full frontal lobotomy' feature]
      2. Ultra-low recidivism rate
      3. Ecofriendly--unlike taser darts, the sphere is completely reusuable

    • 2 years ago
  • chivideoguy
    • +5
      chivideoguy  

    • as a police officer you should be in very good shape. If his fat ass can't run and catch him then he shouldn't be allowed a tazer. Tazer's are how fat people deal with fit criminals

    • 2 years ago
  • afloyd60
    • +2
      afloyd60  

    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmByfTKKUV4&feature=related

      signs of things to come if we continue to allow the police to torture citizens for minor infractions. if they can't taze you because you've done nothing wrong they'll just taze you anyway and say you did something wrong.

      i've met cops who talk about their tazers with childlike glee. they enjoy inflicting pain on other people. this is not the original reason cops were given tazers. this is not justified.

    • 2 years ago
  • zakthezomb13
  • dariusvons
  • runonrags
    • -4
      runonrags  

    • The 17 year-old should have listened to his dad and stayed in his seat. He paid the price for breaking the rules. Should be applied @ all sporting games and it would stop a lot of "once in a lifetime" fools.

    • 2 years ago
  • afloyd60
  • keithponder
    • +2
      keithponder  

    • America should be outraged. He aim that taser at that kid as if he was some kind of wild animal.

      The players should have been embarrassed.. People should boycott MLB until Bud Selig does something about this.

    • 2 years ago
  • runonrags
    • -5
      runonrags  
    • keithponder:

      He should have stayed in his seat. He was running around like a fool and needed to be stopped. He got what he deserved, stopped running, fell to the ground, got up, and was walked off for his dumb decision.

    • 2 years ago
  • brit50
  • EmperorThan
    • +7
      EmperorThan  

    • These cops need to learn to lighten up. The kid wasn't even a streaker. And even THEN I wouldn't say to taser them. If the person isn't putting someone in harm's way there's really no need for the taser. Cops just love to use their toys.

    • 2 years ago
  • device80
    • 0
      device80  

    • bahahahaha, what a jerk-off, I think I would be smarter about it and probably get like 10 other people to rush the field at once then see who they go after, and make sportscenter un tazed

    • 2 years ago
  • afloyd60
    • +2
      afloyd60  

    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKK9EjEEG_Q

      this is what happens to jack booted thugs in other countries when they decide to use excessive force. unfortunately, too many of us in the US have been turned into ninnying little cowards who condone and even endorse this kind of behavior.

      it's sad that so many people agree that for simply running onto a field, you deserve to have thousands of volts of electricity zapped through your body. i sincerely hope that you and yours are never visited by the largest street gang in america(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH9k8L3oDa4) and never tortured with this device.

      peace

    • 2 years ago
  • Micaleth
  • keithponder
  • vinicius
  • Ish05
  • postlw8j
    • -2
      postlw8j  

    • The taser is probably a safer alternative to how these situations are usually handled- dummy runs on field, security officers chase him, some one eventually tackles the idiot forcefully, miscreant is handcuffed and taken off of the field with bruises and possible broken ribs.
      A taser is much safer than a full-speed tackle.

    • 2 years ago
  • Micaleth
    • +2
      Micaleth  
    • postlw8j:

      Ask any football player which one they would take.
      A full speed tackle or 100k volts.
      I bet all of them would take the hit before choosing to be zapped with a stun gun.
      At least with the tackle you can compose yourself and recover, with a stun gun your every muscle locks up and your breathing is suspended while the shock is inflicted, causing extreme panic, and in many cases DEATH.

      Look at these numbers.
      Average yearly deaths OR career ending injury caused
      by tackle (by professional footballers) = 1

      Average yearly deaths by stun gun
      (inflicted by professional police officers in the USA) = 175

      This is the same tool we use on cattle to round them up for slaughter.
      When did it become OK to adopt this tool for use on Humans?

      Why do we allow the police to treat us like animals?

    • 2 years ago
  • postlw8j
    • -2
      postlw8j  
    • Micaleth:

      Every time a football player takes the field there is a 3.5% chance of injury that will remove him from the game. Only .03% of taser "victims" experience more than external injury.
      Why do we allow police to treat us like animals?
      Humans know where they are allowed to be and when they are doing wrong. This kid knew he was disobeying the law and knew that those in charge of protecting the players and maintaining order would apprehend him and use physical force.
      Years ago one of my favorite teachers explained it this way: "You can choose your actions but you cannot choose the consequences." He chose to break the law and at that point he lost all rights to expect protection and safety.

    • 2 years ago
  • GodsnLiberals
  • flyingkick
  • vinicius
  • flyingkick
    • +1
      flyingkick  
    • vinicius:

      Of course it is. He knew it was wrong. He knew he'd get caught. He knew he would be forcibly detained.
      People have charged the field assaulting athletes in the past.
      It was an incredibly stupid thing for him to do, especially in today's paranoid society.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nick_sears
  • bailey78
  • afloyd60
  • 02yamahaR1
  • unimatrix0
  • afloyd60
  • spanishinquistion
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