[KilgoreTrout]

I stopped the video after he was tasered. The guy was clearly highly agitated up to the point when the police showed up. It does appear that he submitted, and that he was tasered the instant he had assumed a compliant posture.

From the police perspective, here's a guy acting wildly at an airport, unable to communicate, speaking a strange language. The cops had to be jacked up on adrenaline, not that it's an excuse for their actions.

The victim was highly distressed at the onset of the video. He appeared to be sweating and disoriented. Being unable to communicate is a scary thing. From his perspective, he's stuck in an airport for hours and doesn't know why. Maybe he thought he was being detained. At the very least it's clear he didn't understand the situation. Maybe the guy just needed a cigarette. Who knows?

I'm surprised no one present attempted to communicate with him using gestures or other languages.

On a red-eye flight departing Vegas a few years ago, the plane was delayed for 40 minutes on the tarmac due to a problem with a brake line. The pilot announced that a cable was leaking and would have to be replaced, and that it would take about an hour. After a half hour, the flight attendants began quietly moving through the aisles asking if anyone spoke Italian. I know a little bit, and can read the language, so I offered to help.

An older couple, ashen-faced, were beginning to panic. I approached and it was evident that they were not speaking Italian. I tried French. The woman knew a little French and I was able to tell her that there was a minor problem with the brakes, repair was underway, and we would be on the way to Boston soon. They were concerned about missing their flight. The attendants were able to make arrangements for their overnight stay in Boston and that was that.

Turns out the couple were speaking Romanian.

Airports are scary places these days, for obvious reasons. The inability to communicate compounds this. Traveling alone is no help. Maybe signs need to be less anglocentric in our North American airports. Maybe passenger manifests should identify non-English speakers. Maybe security personnel could have assumed a less aggressive posture. I don't know, but this awful incident didn't need to happen.