If he's too damn stupid to tell the difference between his pistol and his TAZER, even in the heat of the moment, then he shouldn't be carrying either of em'...!
I didn't say he thought it was his tazer.....
...I don't think "thought" really entered into it....
...the Cop had just been down wrestling with the guy, the tazer had already come out and been deployed.
My take; the Cop wasn't thinking, he was reacting, which is what people do in such circumstances. In this case his de-facto "training" was that you pull an object from your belt, point it at the problem, and pull a trigger to solve it.
Then he compounded his error by lying about it, moving said tazer being a part of that lying.
In retrospect the best he could have done after the fact would have been to say "Damn, I fugged up, I'm guilty, I'm so sorry" and thrown himself on the mercy of the court.
Might have been out in what? five or ten?
JMHO, Birdwatcher
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
