I get annoyed every time I hear a network news anchor refer to N. Korea as a “rogue nation.” It makes me wonder, “do they have any idea where they live?” You would think that people who make a living reporting the news might actually read it every now and again.

Kim Jong-il, the dictator of this so-called rogue nation, granted amnesty to the American journalists convicted of illegally entering into N. Korea while investigating human trafficking. They were detained by the N. Korean government for a total of 40 days.

While the issue of human trafficking, particularly women and children, has worsened on a global scale over the last two decades and is certainly worthy of additional media coverage, crossing the borders of a sovereign nation in an illegal fashion justifiably carries harsh repercussions. I wonder what the American government would say about N. Korean “journalists” caught in the United States, illegally, having crossed our border from Mexico while investigating a specific genre of criminal activity.  

If the last eight years are any indication, their confinement would last a great deal longer than forty days (unless there is a N. Korean equivalent to Bill Clinton).

Being detained forty days for what amounts to tresspassing on foreign soil is understandably inconvenient but far from excessive. Here in the land of the liberty, I know a man who has been in jail on felony charges for eight months without a shred of physical evidence, the sole witness for the prosecution admitted to making false statements but is currently being held without bail. He was initially granted bail three months in but was arrested the very next day, on the same charges, and again no physical evidence.

His story unfortunately is not rare and such abuses have a long history in these United States. 

The use of tasers by police officers has an abridged history in the U.S. but has rapidly become a fixture within American law enforcement. Amnesty International reports 351 deaths in the U.S. since June 2001 from the use of taser guns by law enforcement.  Setting aside this gaudy death figure and the archaic concept of shooting a person full of electricity in order to make him or her compliant with the law, I have seen far too many instances where the individuals tasered did not pose even the semblance of a physical threat to the officer or officers who deemed it “necessary” to employ this method.

Four recent examples especially stand out: a 55-year old home owner and a pregnant woman tasered at a backyard baptism party, the 16-year old boy tasered 19 times after falling 30 feet and suffering a broken back, the 72-year old great grandmother tasered during a traffic stop, and the 62-year old man tasered at a baseball game.

On July 26, 2009, in Prince William County, Virginia, police officers responded to noise complaints emanating from a backyard baptism party by tasering and then arresting the 55-year old home owner, Edgar Rodriguez, Sr., a grandfather, Church counselor and Bible study teacher, in addition to the pregnant mother of the two young boys whose baptisms were being celebrated.

Witnesses said that Rodriguez was tasered three times while showing the responding officers his identification and the pregnant mother of two was tasered once in her back while attending to Rodriguez who had fallen to the ground. The arresting officers contend that Rodriguez was “highly intoxicated,” refused to identify himself and began to act “disorderly;” None of which is illegal in most states while on your own property (although I am not familiar with the specific statutes and case law in the state of Virginia).

In July 2008, a 16-year old Missouri teenager, Mace Hutchinson, had fallen 30 feet from an overpass landing on the shoulder of a highway suffering a broken back and a broken heel. Responding officers, presumably unaware of the fall, decided that it was necessary to taser the boy repeatedly because he did not “comply” with orders to stand up, in addition to “making incoherent statements,” and saying “Shoot cops, kill cops.

Hutchinson’s aunt expressed the following sentiment in questioning the necessity of such use of force,“I’m not an officer, but I don’t see the reason for tasering somebody lying there with a broken back. I don’t consider that a threat.” However, responding officers maintain that the wounded teenager was indeed a “threat.”

72-year old Kathryn Winkfein was pulled over for speeding in June 2009 near Austin, Texas, which escalated to the great grandmother being tasered after exiting her vehicle and refusing to sign her ticket. Travis County deputy Constable Richard McCain justified the use of a taser on the elderly woman in saying that, “She refused to get off the side of the road,” used, “profanity,” and became, “violent.” Watching the video of this incident, it’s very difficult not to think that the 225 pound deputy Constable – who literally towered over Winkfein – could have resolved this issue without tasering the 95 pound woman.

The most recent video of an individual being tasered by law enforcement was posted on the Internet the first week of August 2009. It shows 62-year old Thomas Bruso seated at a baseball game in Oakland, California, and approached by police officers (it’s speculated that he was sitting in the wrong seat). During the coarse of being handcuffed, which he initially resisted but never stood up or fought with the arresting officers, he was tasered into submission. Officers interacted with Bruso for less than a minute.  

“While the man is clearly uncooperative and perhaps belligerent, it is unclear why a shot of 50, 000 volts was necessary,” said Constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley.

None of the above instances where law enforcement deemed it necessary to utilize tasers appeared to be, as Paul Watson noted on www.infowars.com, “a cop’s last line of defense against a dangerous individual,” but more inappropriately and illegally, “as a torture device for the purposes of pain compliance – merely forcing the victim to submit to the officers demands whether they pose a physical threat to the cop or not.”

The utilization of torture tactics by “peace officers” against its citizenry in order to force compliance and submission, shown almost cavalierly on network television, is the very society envisioned by Orwell in 1948 when he wrote his most critically acclaimed literary work, 1984.

Kim Jong just might be a rogue S.O.B. but he could learn a thing or two about tyranny from American law enforcement.

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