On occasion, when police use tasers, their target dies.

Some people think that police should be better trained in the use of force, and that the use of tasers by law enforcement in general should be reconsidered and not driven by questionable taser-industry claims of safety.

Those people are soft on crime, and insufficiently vigilant about the threats posed to The Children. Will you not think of the children?

Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa has a better suggestion to deal with folks dying when police tase them, which — I must point out — can be upsetting and inconvenient to police:

Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa came up with a novel solution to the problem: those with heart conditions just shouldn't break the law in the first place to avoid getting Tased.

See? That's why we can count on the Thin Blue Line: because of the serious, contemplative, and principled analysis of public-safety issues we can expect from law enforcement.

Chief Orosa is right! Everyone knows that cops never question, arrest, tase, beat, or shoot you unless you committed a crime first. It's just logic. If you weren't a criminal, why would they tase you?

Chief Orosa is a very busy man, I am sure, so I will help him out by making other common-sense suggestions designed to avoid unpleasantness in interactions with law enforcement.

If you don't want police to shoot your dog when they come to notify you that your son has been murdered, then don't have a son who is a homicide victim.

If you don't want to be threatened with investigation by the District Attorney's Office, then don't charge a deputy prosecutor for lap dances, and certainly don't make him pay the cover.

If you don't want your yard dug up, don't get accused by psychics of having buried bodies there.

If you don't want your collie shot, then don't let her cross the path of a cop with a demonstrated history of violence.

If you don't want to be reduced to drinking your own urine while abandoned in custody over the weekend, don't smoke pot near a DEA facility that is understaffed.

If you don't want police knocking on your door at midnight, then be available at midnight if they want to dispute something you wrote about them in the newspaper.

If you don't want your disabled son beaten, pepper-sprayed, and tased, then get him a speech pathologist so police won't think he's dissing them. They're sensitive.

If you don't want to get kicked, then let go of the fucking ball, Rover. What's your issue?

If you don't want to be arrested, don't use a cell phone near an officer who is a Star Trek fan.

If you don't want to be pepper-sprayed and tased and "trip and fall on the pavement," then ANSWER THE GODDAM QUESTION, is that so hard?

If you don't want to be tased, then don't take an aggressive stance in bed, grandma! Jesus. You're 86, you should know better.

If you don't want your grandmother to go to prison, don't have a cold.

Really, if you've paid attention in America for the last half-century — if you've watched the law-and-order platitudes dominating politics, if you've seen the mindless worship of people who have guns and badges, if you've seen what conduct is tolerated, excused, and even cheered — all of this would really be common sense, wouldn't it?

Last 5 posts by Ken White