They want to take away your Taser and permanently alter policing
By Charley Wilkison
Several months ago, a rural Central Texas Deputy Sheriff who was working as a school officer used his Taser on a student. As a result of the shock, the student fell backward, hit his head and later went into a coma.
There was an immediate outpouring of anger against the deputy and an equal outpouring of sympathy for the student and his family. The family retained legal counsel, school officials apologized and social media exploded. There was also a video of the incident. It was played over and over and over on the national news. The ethnicity of the student was different from that of the white deputy.
The national media came to the hospital and the small town where it happened and interviewed anyone who would speak with them. It wasn’t long before the media began calling CLEAT. When I got to the CLEAT State Headquarters, the CBS news team from New York were camped out in my office. The first questions were national in scope. Then came the questions about the specific Texas case. I defended the honor of the deputy although I didn’t know any facts of the case. That’s what CLEAT does.
I stood my ground as a police apologist for Taser use; they’ve saved lives and officer injuries are down. So are the injuries to those being arrested.
CLEAT represents about 19,000 Texas peace officers and is the state’s largest law enforcement association.