Cleveland Police Finally Receive Non-Lethal Sidearms.

Such have the headlines been in Cleveland for the past few weeks. Apparently this is a big deal since the Cleveland police really don't have anything better to do than drive around in their squad cars shooting up black ghettos. But the minute they actually hit some poor urban child of the street who is making his living by selling drugs, the whole world arupts. Never mind the fact that they could actually have been acting in self-defense.

I dunno though... I was leaving a baseball game once and drove by a police car that had a man in cuffs, and another woman was screaming at the police about brutality, about how she had witnessed it first hand and would report them. What caught my attention is that the man was a black man, possibly homeless, and the woman was a middle-aged white woman standing next to her Volkswagon. not exactly the first person who would be stepping out of line to help out the street corner bum, you know?

Anyway, I digress.

This whole taser gun fascination was prompted by the kiling of some kid a few months ago that was shot when police thought he had a gun - and it turned out he didn't.
Public outrage. A great outcrying. Blood and tears flood the streets. The cry for the heads of those responsible.

How about tasers? Every other police force in a large city has them? Oh yeah....

So what's the first incident to occur where the tasers are used? Ta-da! A Halloween shake-down involving a naked man running up to little trick-or-treaters!

Ah, Cleveland.

The police stopped him on Fairmount (those of you who know Cleveland know where that is in proximity to where I live) and had to shock the bejabbers out of him so he would stop harassing six-year olds on their way to their next cavity. He went to the hospital for the night (apparently there's some law against leaving a naked man unconcious in the street. Gives a bad image.) and then was released.

Here's the better part:

The next day police respond to a 911 call and arrive at a home to find the same guy trying to kick down a door to his own house. They taser the guy again and haul him off.

Now, not that this isn't amusing, but is this really the most interesting tale of taser-dom that this city has to offer? It does make the gun shootings sound a little bit more credible, don't you think? At least then people outside of the city took us seriously.

"Don't mess with Cleveland man, they'll gun you down!"

Now we're lucky if we get a naked man parading up and down the street to mess with...

T.