Phillies fan tasered for field incursion

A 17-year-old Philadelphia Phillies fan, who "scurried around the outfield" during his team's clash with the St Louis Cardinals last night, had his home run attempt brought to an abrupt end by a solid tasering. The unnamed male jumped a fence and managed to dodge two security operatives before taking a high-voltage hit from a …

[Professor Tinklepants]

That pic is fantastic!

Makes you wonder if he spotted the taser before he got zapped. He looks a little.....concerned!!

Gave me a good ol' chuckle!!

[nichomach]

Not surprised...

...the officer went for tasering rather than pursuit and apprehension; looking at the photo, that's a man who appreciates his Krispy Kremes...

REALLY BB is watching...

[Intractable Potsherd]

Maybe ...

... US cops wear their robocop gear under their uniforms, unlike here in the UK where it *is* the uniform.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't taser me BRO!

We'll await to see what the "victim" will claim in his lawsuit against the local Police Department.

[Michael Shelby]

"Tasered"?

An American radio personality asserted that the correct usage is "tased", not "tasered". Can we get a ruling from The Register Grammarical Department? Personally, I would have used "tackled and punched in the face", but I don't write these stories.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: "Tasered"?

I would like to answer your question with another question - why should we pay any mind to the word of an American radio personality on matters of grammar?

[Thomas 4]

The correct use of Tasers, Tasered, etc...

I was under the impression that as Taser was a brand name, it didn't really matter too much about it was conjugated into a verb.

Also, when are we going to get a tasering/electric justice icon?

[frank ly]

Taze, Tazed, Tazzen ? Maybe

I had tazzen the perp, but he twitched so I tazed him again. He screamed, "Don't taze me bro."

If we use 'Hoover' as an example, perhaps..... Or is a hoover something that hooves?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually,

TASER is an acronym for Thomas A Swift's Electric Rifle.

[Rattus Rattus]

I think the correct past participle...

... is "electrocuted."

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead

Lucky in the current state with the attempted bomb in NY that he didnt get a bullet in the head. Only naked people should be exempt from the tazer.

[Wommit]

This is the good 'ol US of A we're talking about

naked people get tased and tasered (and quite possibly taserererered as well) on the spot.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't for a Taser

that cop would probably be suffering from a heart attack by now. He needs a desk job.

[Marvin the Martian]

What's your plan here?

So basically desk jobs as a reward for the overweight donut snatchers? What an incentive!

[Steven Hunter]

Conflicted

On the one hand, fuck that guy for being an asshole.

On the other hand, security did pretty well overreact if you think about it.

[Anonymous Coward]

@steven hunter

"Fuck that guy for being an asshole" ?

Forcing the guy into man-love just because he resembles to object of your affections make tasering* seem mild in comparison.

*tasing sounds stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

This photo will become a classic

T: Tasers are "less-lethal".

P: "Less-lethal" than what?

T: Ah, less-lethal than guns.

P: But they're not used to replace guns. See photo. There used for everything but replacing potentially-lethal gun-fire.

T: Excuse me. You're trying to apply common sense and logic to our sales pitch. It only works if you don't try to think it through.

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely

"Tasing is the new 'doing anything else'", it seems.

[Robert Carnegie]

Trespass?

Trespassers will be electrocuted.

"Take Me Out At The Ball Game".

etc.

I wonder if this will make it onto "The Daily Show". There is at least one guy-getting-tasered video clip that they love, although I think it's because it's that guy.

[Anonymous Coward]

a bit heavy handed

using a taser to catch a kid.

Tubby needs his head examined, lets hope common sense previals and he's repremanded.

[Bucky 2]

Blue Haze

OH, won't somebody PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!!

Puleeeeze.

Dick runs out on to the field. Dick gets tasered.

I've got no problem with that. I think it should be added to the official rules of baseball.

[Mike Shepherd]

Fat cop

I thought you must be exaggerating until I saw the photo.

That is certainly one corpulent candidate for weight-watchers.

[Ball boy]

What's wrong with this scene?

Presumably there's a number of reasonably healthy players of the game on the pitch. There's one *enclosed* stadium (our intrepid sprinter had to leap the fence in order to get in) and only a few ways out.

So. Why did it need a taser to bring him to a halt? Far more entertaining to let him run for a bit (like any stadia, these places look smaller than they are and he would quickly run out of steam) then round him up?

One wonders how many of these hands were hiding the mouthed words: "oh, my God" - or is violence such a routine event in the US these days that a tasering (or whatever the term is) really did provoke laughter? If so, I'm making a mental note not to go back to the US anytime soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, PLEASE

Please do stay home where ever the hell that is.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Just ...

...as long as you do, eh?

[Tom Fleming]

Taser use in the USA

Police in training in the USA get experience in the use of the Taser. Depending on the state, 60-80% of police cadets volunteer to be hit with a Taser as part of that training. From what I am told, it sucks really bad for about 10 seconds and you remain very sluggish for 1-3 minutes.

Taser use is allowed when taking someone into custody has deteriorated to a physical 'activity' (where tackling, nightsticks and other techniques might otherwise be used). It can also be used in a vehicle pull-over if the officer deems it necessary. Tasers definitely place the safety of the officer over the safety of the apprehended person.

There have been deaths with Tasers, but they have been where the person was quite frail or has flame-accelerant on their skin. There have been far more deaths from nightsticks and physical constraint of people. Messing with the police is never for the frail.

[Walking Turtle]

A Matter for Further Study...?

"There have been deaths with Tasers, but they have been where the person was quite frail..."

Such as a mouthy-though-drunken octogenerian or mouthy-though-anorexic teenager? Both classes of human be so skinny as a rule (though there are plenty of fat drunken old folk too) as to pose no real threat although one easy target to the Taser Goon Cop, imvho.

"...or has flame-accelerant on their skin."

Such as a fluffy synthetic-fiber Fashion Plate sweater? (Surely not some flammable liquid such as petrol or alky...?)

Tasing the already-cuffed and thus entirely helpless ones seems indeed to be on the rise as well. Fair play? Not by MY book...

Deaths of apparently robust suspects/perps have reportedly taken place when the ill-placed bolt disrupted the implanted cardiac pacemaker, for example. One suspects that the effects of a malplaced shot to the cranial enclosure just might likely produce a net result far in excess of the psychiatrically-approved convulsive effects as well...

Cripple gets crutch; cop gets Tazer®... Just thinkin'.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Tom ...

... could you be a bit less balanced, please - I don't know whether to vote you up or down. "Tasers definitely place the safety of the officer over the safety of the apprehended person" is something I could agree with, because you seem to be critical of that, but "There have been far more deaths from nightsticks and physical constraint of people" sounds like you can see some benefits from their use.

Ms. Bee - can you be more careful moderating this kind of pernicious reasonableness, please?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Don't less-lethalize me, bro!

I'm off that field in a hurry.

Additionally, "criminal trespass" for a bit of fanservice? Well, this _is_ the US.

Next: fan chased off the field by cop-controlled predator drone directly from the donut stand.

[Parsifal]

Nerf Guns

The Cops are using Tasers like they are Nerf (toy) Guns, the purpose of a Taser i thought was supposed to be subdue a violent offender, not stop someone running round a baseball park.

Its about time the police were sued for using excessive violence. Or better still have the Tasers taken away and have to attend compulsory fitness classes with annual fitness evaluations to ensure that they have a minimum level of fitness.

[Anonymous Coward]

Corpulent Cop Conundrum

I mean, what do you think the poor fatty want to do; have a heart attack chasing some silly nimrod around the field? Of course he tasered him!

[Anonymous Coward]

Baseball improves

They had to do something to try and make baseball interesting. Now we just need a computer game where the fat cop tries to take out the young whippersnappers running around the outfield with his Taser. They could call it Major League Baseball 2k10, and would probably get a good uptick in purchases...

[xjy]

Bugger the fat cop...

Draping Paris around one of the goalposts would have stopped the young hooligan in his tracks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst. Streaker.

Ever.

[Johan Bastiaansen]

not that fat

He's not THAT fat, keeping in mind he's American.

And I would have preferred the after shot of the victim euh trespasser in a heap.

[El Mono Grande]

It's tough being a Phillies Fan

Who says American Football is the only violent sport in the USA? ;-)

[Rattus Rattus]

American football violent?

Hardly. Play some rugby, which is kinda similar but without all the pansy padding.

[justkyle]

Maybe he misunderstood the song during the 7th inning stretch

Maybe he thought they were singing, "Tase me out at the ball game, tase me in front of the crowd, fry me with amperes and gigawatts.."

Come on now, everybody sing along!

I'll get my coat, my work here is done...

[Neil Williams]

Video clip here

Video here, if the link works :-)

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100504&content_id=9783864&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Serves the dude right. Spoiling such a graceful game like baseball - oh wait, never mind.

[Misoriented]

"Dad, can I run on the field?" "I don't think you should, son."

The best part about that link is his parents' comments. His mom is more concerned with how this affects the Phillies and his dad assured everyone that, "He wasn't drinking. He was not on drugs."

All I ever really need to know about parenting, I learned from prime time sitcoms.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not nail him to the ground and let the crows pick his eyes out

What is this criminal trespass? ..... you can get a criminal record for trespass! That seams a bit harsh if you have not damaged anything. We really ought to learn a little bit of tolerance - the world would tick along a whole lot better.

[Daniel Wilkie]

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits

Only in America I think, there's not really a criminal trespass here except for a few select designated places, and even that was a fairly recent addition to the law i think.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tase Him! Tase Him!"

...the crowd chanted in glee.

That will be noted by the TV producers and, given their creativity and worship of the bottom line, we can look forward to more "spontaneous Taser events" in upcoming sports coverage. Even burned out over-the-hill personalities may make Taser-assisted comebacks - a Taser-equipped Hulk Hogan in the ring comes to mind.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Disirregardlessly of tasering

Remember that the fans booed Santa Claus in Philly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...

Considering that Baseball over there is just about as popular as soccer in Europe and over here in Asia, I'd say the tasering was called for. Imagine if he had succeeded his plan: in jumping onto the field, running up to a rival team player and beating him up (yes, that has happened before at soccer matches, I've seen it come up all too many times in the local papers). This will almost always be followed by a full-scale riot. I'd say if the tasering had not taken place, all of hell would've broken loose.

No IT angle, just bitter memories.

[Winkypop]

Random land mines

Now THAT would make baseball (finally) interesting....and keep the perps in the stands.

[Bad Beaver]

Zap zap zap me, bro!

Anyone else think all this tasing is rather disturbing?

TASE US INTO SUBMISSION, YOU UNFIT SLOBS!

Really, they tase the shit out of people lately, for every miniscule reason. Don't like it.

[tonycole]

America, the land of the free

and fat

[Walking Turtle]

Meanwhile, over at the Mainstream Church Sunday School...

the Good Little Lambs all sing in a chorus,

"Tase 'em, tase 'em, all the little children,/Cops is Love, cops is love"...

J'accuse: Forty years hence, when seeking emergency medical attention for an entirely non-related though possibly/likely life-threatening sudden-onset condition, that nimble, energetic young'un of today'll more'n likely be handed The Treatment for Which there is (usually) No Ready Cure instead of the necessary and appropriate patient-beneficial therapy. After all, this IS Modern "Bush-League" Digitalized Legacy America we're talkin' about here, Buddy.

This accusation, one regrets to point out, is more than likely well-justified due to the newly-emerged Black Art of Electronic Medical Records Interpretation; it is emerging largely imvho thanks to the knock-on effects of modern electronic data retention spamming the decades.

Spamming. The. Decades.

SOP: Those who are privileged+tasked to view and take action based on the duly retained industry-standardized decades of any given personal medical+legal+/-military data will reliably see to it that Yesterday's Impulse/Misdeed is reliably treated on-site in realtime, even forty years (yah, two generations) later, as though it Happened Only Yesterday.

Result: "We KNOW what you did. Now take yer seat at the end of the queue on that Group 'W' Bench in the corner over there, stop snivelling and NO Pain Management for YOU today, sonny! Besides, for YOU, the REAL Doctor is OUT!"

Been there as recently as February of this year. It's apparently being field-refined already, albeit somewhat crudely, on *believed-helpless* ER walk-ins. (One rather suspects that this is most likely not at all so for those new acute-symptom arrivals who flash their Gold Card instead of producing Social Security/Medicaid ID at the Registration Window.)

Fought 'em off without ever committing any manner of MacMurphy-on-Ratched assault. Accomplished that objective, albeit at the time from a state of deep-seated physical exhaustion and significant bodily pain (numb with it at the time) as well as numerous half-healed and entirely visible bodily wounds. Mission accomplished by virtue of Adamant Civil Tongue Mastery coupled firmly to Stubborn Resistant Curmudgeonry, said Traditional Elder Privilege being itself robustly buttressed with Having Actually Been There to Begin With. Wave after wave of that incredible twenty-sumpin'-MD-perpetrated college-grade forcewrong ancient-records-based bullshite was provided by the Aggressive Graduate Intern with Full Records Access and No Genuine Life. Even demanded my cell-phone so she could just go bombin' through my contacts to "make sure" I was "real" - never mind that by far not exactly everyone on that personal electronic contact list is in reality exactly that sort of friend - or even necessarily any manner of friend at all. (Sensitive private business contacts with lifework-in-progress ongoing, for one class of example.)

So here's this semi-pretty although really ugly-actin' twenty-sumpin' fresh-grad MD, Playing Doctor on my presumed-helpless person just like a rookie cop (or Main Street opioid addict) on the make-and-take; likely some manner of Trust Fund Baby too, to be sure. So much zeal and so little regard for even the basics of timeline (let alone normal human respect), while all the while I am semi-naked in a jonny-top on the gurney in the corridor, not yet even roomed-in let alone settled, and STILL the intern-grade MD Doctor with a Medical Shrinkage Degree from Hah-vahd comes after me with Multiple Convenient Derivative Contrivances of her Own Preference, all reality and the truth thereof be automatically academically void, null and damned.

Set that one straight so many times I lost count.

Fact: Only adamantly civil and rock-steady hard-shell non-cooperation with that silly college-trained Forcewrong Doctor at last (days later, still in hospital with a friendlike though entirely burly guard stationed at my unit door) finally won me an interview with a REAL HUMAN MD of my own age and somewhat comparable life-experience. With some additional records research and sensitive follow-up effort on my own part, that hard-won interview just might - only just *might* - result in things being set straight in due course at last. (Still in the Discovery Process on that matter... being Medically Mal-Represented is no good and no fun at all.)

Therefore this Old Turtle, who by habit and constitution comes out to speak truth at all times, says that it is surely only a matter of short-term time before the USAmerican Political/Military/Police/Medical/IT Complex routinely albeit surreptitiously (or even blatantly) determines the fate and termination date of the underclass herd, one by one, Stalin/Judge Dredd-style but ever so much more subtle and pernicious. The overall practice seems to be called "Biomedical Ethics" in the field... Like standard-issue intake triage, but from Ex Post Facto Hell instead.

Oh, one CAN trust them... To a certain end...

Beer all around and I'm getting me coat now. Should I make it home unmolested by any more Monetized Doodooheads tonight, I'm stayin' home and makin' me own medicines from Natural Foods, Strong Vitamins and (as last resort) USP Reagent Scratch from now on. Boycott the whole corporate schlemedical schlemazel thang. Live well until I do die well at a time and place of my Creator's and my own mutual consent while the Bleating Herd all goes down to dead silence all-around clueless and non-voluntary though entirely trusting, utterly corporate-media-driven and thus quite unwitting re what the Judas Goat really does for a living.

Here's to LIFE. Hope that Philly-lovin' kid's OK tonight, and in the clear forty years hence, I really do. (One can and does so pray.) As to that Corporate Overclass State's Portly 'n' Uniformed Taze-O-Cutioner... Oh not wuth th' bother so nemmind. It is to stand clear of (RUN FASTER FROM!) all such.

Ta! :)

[Ihre Papiere Bitte!!]

now, i'm not in favour of tasers as a rule....

But DAMN, I wish they'd had some police like this in Sheffield the other day after Wednesday's fans went on an explosive sulk*.

*i never understand why fans go on a 'rampage' after a game at home, at their own ground...

[andy gibson]

Wednesday Fans

are a bunch of nasty, fickle thugs.

I was in a cashpoint queue about two months ago with Etienne Esajas in front of me and he was getting some right abuse from a fan who'd "been a supporter since the day he was born". The verbal towards Esajas continued, with him eloquently responding to the fan's concerns.

The fan ended the argument with "I pay your wages so go back to where you f*cking come from you f*cking w*g".

Wish I'd have had a taser, that "fan" and his mates wouldn't have been so big and clever laid on the floor, hopefully having soiled themselves after a tasering.

I'm a Blade BTW.

[Mark Scorah]

Why don't they just...

draft in the local rugby (league or union matters not) club players in their off season to be stewards just like they do at the cricket. Oh yeah I remember american rugby needs all sorts of pads and helmets, and a major misunderstanding of the legitimacy of forward passes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of me

reckons that Bedfordshire plod could have done with some of this at Kenilworth Road the other day.

[Hieronymus Coward]

Zero tollerance...

...of pretty much anything these days it seem. Oh well... nothing to see here, move along.

I though people dicking around on the field/pitch was pretty much a highlight of most sporting events, and no I'm not talking about 99.9% of footballers - they are just dicks.

[Velv]

Baseball Bats

OK, perhaps getting tased wasn't what he thought he would get, but surely he must have thought it was dangerous to run onto the pitch where there are ANGRY MEN with BASEBALL BATS.

[The First Dave]

@Velv

The article clearly states that they thought it was funny, so not sure where you get ANGRY MEN from, and since the first thing you do in baseball when you start running is to THROW AWAY your bat, I don't really think your point is valid.

On a similar note - if the cop had only had a firearm, would it have been appropriate to use that? If not, then it wasn't appropriate to discharge a semi-lethal weapon either.