If the article you link to is accurate in it's depiction of events, I would venture a guess that this guy has a valid assault & battery case against the police. Not to mention false arrest and who knows what else.

Tasers seem to be taking the place of training in dispute resolution techniques.

God only knows what would have happened if he'd tried to get a steak.......

Asking him to step outside is a old-fashion cop tactic to entice them to go outside and then tell them they are banned from that place of business.

As for the tasing, in all police departments they have a policy that states when the tazer can be used. In some of the departments I know of they can taze if the person does not follow verbal commands. This makes alot of people mad, including me, but one officer explained how one man chased her around her squad car for several minutes, if she had a taser she would have been legally justified in stunning him for it. Since he wasn't armed, or physically hurting her she could not use a lethal device. The officers who stun someone just because they won't leave a business or fall on someone after the officers push them on that person, that is what I call an abuse of power.

As for policy, as I understand it all liability rest with the department if you follow policy, not on the officer who is following policy. So the officer will not face assault and battery charges on the tasing, he may on pushing around the suspect. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. If they do get sued, I'm sure they'll be in for a policy change.

And the officers I ride with are shocked as to how often people are tased for the stupidest things.

Tasing the man was only a minor portion of this all. Read the article. They pushed him on top of a woman who was holding a 10 month old child and then tasered him. Any risk of harm to the people in direct contact? Damn right there is. Then they left the man's children there. No mention as to when they took responsibility of the children once they arrested the father.

I'm certain that there is a decent policy in place, but this report definitely points to the fact that the police risked bystanders with their actions. They also provoked the incident as was pointed out by the witness. Poking a man in the chest isn't exactly a normal way to get citizens to cooperate.

And a Taser is not a nonlethal weapon.