Amnesty International objects to the use of tasers on prisoners.
An excerpt from this AP article:
Amnesty has long expressed misgivings about the safety of Tasers and whether they are open to abuse because they can inflict severe pain without leaving marks. The group has urged law enforcement agencies to suspend the use of all electroshock weapons pending the outcome of a vigorous independent inquiry into whether the weapons pose health risks.
Is it abuse if it doesn't leave a mark?
He's 14. He didn't start swinging until they began touching him without his permission. His crime? He wouldn't stop playing his Gameboy.
Of the options open to the adults, they chose force, because a teenager who refuses to put down a Gameboy is such a threat. When he reacted to force with force of his own, instead of backing off and calling his mother, they decided to escalate the use of force.
The suggestions that their alternatives were to beat the boy or to shoot him indicate that the use of force as a first choice is acceptable. It isn't.