If This System Is Right, Then I Want To Be Wrong

It would be difficult to find a single incident that better encapsulates everything wrong with our war on drugs and the police state it has spawned than the death of a man who was Tasered after he tried to avoid being arrested for marijuana possession by swallowing the drugs. He died shortly afterwards.




The local sheriff, Frank McKeithen, predictably tried to blame it on the victim, saying "This subject chose to ingest this and put this in his mouth, and because of that, you know, he's dead."

That's not why he's dead. He's dead because three cops, who apparently can't figure out how to subdue one man without resorting to deadly force, decided to shoot him full of 50,000 volts of electricity while he had something in his airway.

Think about the big picture. A man is carrying a misdemeanor quantity of an absolutely harmless drug. He is stopped by police. He is unarmed. Somehow, three cops let the situation get so far our of control that the end up Tasering the man to death. Sweet land of liberty!

Ten minutes before, this guy was a zero risk to society. And now he's dead. And Sheriff McKeithen thinks the system worked just fine.