[UPDATE: Tom speaks out on video.]
Now-famous 62-year-old Bay Arean Thomas Bruso (aka Epic Beard Man, Tom Swift, and Tom Vietnam) picks fights as he rides AC Transit in the East Bay, of course, (incident video now available in high def) but he also has been known to take BART to visit San Francisco from time to time. For example, here he is near Market Street back when he was just 48, as seen by Caliber photographer Troy Holden:
“Back in 1996, I was working at the intersection of 2nd & Market. Each and every day the man pictured above would walk by my shop, wave a loaf of sourdough in my face, and scream obscenities about the San Francisco 49′ers.”
Good times, via Troy Holden
This guy is as strong as an ox and quite onery to boot, needless to say. So, could Tasers help the SFPD control and handcuff Tom (the next time he’s off his meds) and people like him should the need arise?
Let’s find out, courtesy of footage of Tom at an Oakland A’s game last year. Is this a proper use of a Taser? I don’t know. It ended up being a time-saver for the cops, certainly. Would they have felt justified in shooting Tom with bullets at that moment? Obviously not. The question after any Taser discharge is what would you have done if you didn’t have the Taser, right?
If cops view using a Taser as a first resort, you end up with a tragedy like that of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International.
Speaking of Tasers and the East Bay, check out this excellent report from Demian Bulwa about how the BART Police Department ran the initial stages of its Taser program.
That’s a poorly-run operation. What about the California Highway Patrol? They seem to do be doing better with Tasers these days. For them, a Taser is just another arrow in the quiver. Check it, a CHP officer on San Francisco’s Octavia Boulevard with his two primary weapons, a Smith & Wesson Model 4006 semi-automatic and a TASER International X26:
So why shouldn’t the SFPD have Tasers? We already trust them with handguns and assault rifles, right? We’ll end up with a few more lawsuits but with fewer dead civilians. Sounds like a win, overall.
And finally, let’s hear from the RAND Coporation. They pondered the use of Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) for the NYPD and had this to say:
“Our key less-than-lethal force recommendations:
We reviewed reports of about 455 NYPD shootings from 2004 to 2006 and identified 25 cases where we judged that had a less-lethal weapon been available, officers may have used it to subdue suspects instead of using their handguns.
We also note that when other departments have deployed Conducted Energy Devices or CEDs, commonly known by the brand name TASER, injuries to both suspects and officers have declined.
We recognize that some groups have criticized the deployment of CEDs, raising issues of safety, overuse, and misuse. As such we recommend that the NYPD undertake a pilot program for the deployment of CEDs.
Such a program should allow patrol officers in selected precincts to be trained and equipped with CEDs that can incapacitate suspects from a distance. We believe there is evidence that if NYPD officers had access to this device, some number of officer-involved shootings could be avoided, and injuries to both suspects and police officers will decline. A carefully designed pilot program conducted over six to 12 months in a few select precincts would give the department enough information to determine whether the devices would alter the way the NYPD officers apply force and whether the weapons could be used properly.”
So, it would seem a well-executed Taser program could be a good thing for the SFPD.
Oh and yes, an apology from videographer Iyanna, after the jump
Via the N Judah Chronicles and the Inner Sunset Neighborhood Group comes news of tonght’s Inner Sunset Town Hall:
“The Inner Sunset will have a Town Hall Meeting with Supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Ross Mirkarimi, and SFPD Chief Gascon at 7pm in the County Fair building in Golden Gate Park, located just past the park entrance at 9th and Lincoln.”
The Inner Sunset District: King of All the Sunsets:
Overcast weather and overhead wires – the Inner Sunset has it all:
See you at the meeting tonight.
This is how it goes when you’re a little less than cooperative and you’re arrested for burglary on Duboce near Steiner in San Francisco. You’ll have SFPD ten cops sitting around waiting for the paddy wagon.
When the van arrives you’ll get picked up by four of them and get carried away horizontally and face down.
Click to expand:
That’s the difference between an arrest and a Terry Stop, which one officer can do all by his lonesome.
And oh yes, feel free to use the term mother fucker as a noun of direct address as you get spirited away.
It’s your right as an arrestee, after all.
Now, “as you might expect” - that has to do with the Christmas shopping season of course. You very well might expect SFPD cops standing on street corners doing nothing, but I’ve never seen the kind of holiday-season police presence that we have now. Doesn’t seem like the usual San Francisco approach, actually.
Another Brother getting hassled by The Man, or something like that. Lady Gaga was shocked by this Terry Stop(?) (I used to know this stuff, when I learned it back in the previous decade, when you were probably nine years old). And Snoop Dog? He didn’t say a word. Good thing they were protected from falling Hibernia Bank bricks, anyway:
Is this due to a new police captain at the Tenderloin Station? Or is it due to our new police chief? Maybe both?
No se.
On It Goes.
New San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón is becoming known for donning a suit more often than a uniform, per this bit from CW Nevius. Now the last time we had a chief like that was from 1975-1980, when “outsider” Charles Gain ran the SFPD.
Did Chief Gain really have all of San Francisco’s police cars painted soft pale blue and did he really replace the seven-pointed SFPD stars on the doors with the San Francisco Seal avec an encircling ”POLICE SERVICES” motif?
Yes, yes he did. How friendly!
Can you imagine?
Looks like the seven-pointed star made it onto the trunks, though. As seen in Milk:
Now what do you think the union thought about that? Not much.
Mayor Dianne Feinstein asked for his resignation in 1979 after the White Night Riots and he was replaced in 1980.
And now San Francisco’s “black-and-whites” are black and white again, with stars and everything.
Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
The forecast is for sunny skies and balmy weather, so it’s going to be on this weekend during the 42nd Annual Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown. Check the shedewl and get over there. You might encounter a Queen, see Grand Marshall George Takei, win a Toyota in the raffle, don an anime costume, wear your kimono, eat comfort food including dessert, and experience Aloha.
Here’s what the past weekend was like.
Of course the haters from the troubled 1600 Webster condo building would prefer to shut the whole shebang down, but unrestrained Hello Kitty joy will continue in the middle of Post Street nevertheless:
From Okinawa with love:
The mise-en-scene. This street festival has all the usual suspects, such as quack “doctors” and the dude who wants you to subscribe to the New York Times. But it also has a lot of unique things. It’s not just another S.F. streetfest:
OMG, it’s your new car! The Corolla you’ll win after you enter the raffle will look something like a green fish, and it will have orange tires – you’ll have to change those out to black if you want to avoid trouble from the authoritahs, however.
From the recent Queen Program at the Sundance Kabuki. Don’t call it a pageant:
These menacing street toughs headed over to the 1600 Webster Building (can you see it with the ornate top up there?) with malice aforethought…
…only to be subdued by this security guard. Whew! WTF? Who’s paying for this gratuitous guard? He looked extremely bored.
Mckenzie Phillips is back to her old habit of ruining tourist photos. I told her, “This is it! You’ve got to stop doing this kind of stuff, M.P.” She said that she’s trying to do better, taking things one day at a time. By the way the Asian Art Museum is getting all geared up for Lords of the Samurai. It’s going to be mega. (Dragon’s Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan continues through May 10, 2009)
Will Catbus and Totoro return to the Anime contingent in the Grand Parade on Sunday? We can only hope:
FYI, the anime stuff isn’t exactly G-rated. It could surprise you. From the banal…
…to the bizarre:
See you there this weekend!
Complete parade lineup, after the jump.
Elements of the Survival Research Laboratories, a “performance art group” active in San Francisco, just got their prank on last night by changing a substantial portion of the street signs on Bush Street to “OBAMA,” in honor of the inauguration of our 44th President.
Will the SFPD “prosecute?” (Really, is that what the cops do – “prosecute”? Oh well.) But if that happens, jury nullification would prevent any convictions, in all likelihood.
From END BUSH, at the end of Bush Street near Presidio (as seen last year):
To this, as seen in the cold light of day:
Click to expand.
The decendents of J. P. Bush, assistant to street surveyer Jasper O’Farrell back in the 1800′s and the actual namesake of Bush Street, will NOT be pleased.
[UPDATE: Apparently, someone speaking on behalf of the SFPD feels these alterations are not "life-threatening."]
This was the scene at famous Pier 39 in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf the other day. Barack Obama has a new T-shirt.
But what’s that, John McCain is left-handed as well? And Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton?
That means four out the last six U.S. presidents be lefties. And, as of next year, the stat will be five out the last seven presidents. That’s 71%, or a rate ten times higher than what you’d expect.
Why are so many of our Presidents Left-Handed?
