NYC: Woman Goes on Knife Stabbing Spree, Cop Opens Fire After Taser Fails to Stop Her

Background and Talking Points

A Taser is a non-lethal device that fires two wire-connected probes into the body, using an electric current to temporarily paralyze the muscles — but it’s known to lose effectiveness if the probes only penetrate shallowly through clothing, or if the target pulls them out. Many U.S. police officers train under the idea that if a knife-wielding suspect closes to within a certain distance, using a firearm may become unavoidable (the so-called “21-foot rule”), and that kind of doctrine is part of why an officer opened fire even with several colleagues nearby. On the thread, users floated theories like “why did they need to shoot with so many officers there” and “maybe her larger build kept the electricity from getting through,” but a Taser’s effectiveness actually depends more on how and how many probes make contact and the target’s state of agitation than on body size alone, so it can’t simply be chalked up to her build. Many replies also brought up the shields, batons, and sasumata (pronged restraining poles) used by Japanese police, with the contrast between a gun society and a non-gun society becoming a central point of debate.