Something bad happened to someone stupid. Shocking. (Pun intended)

That is Steven Consalvi about two seconds before the cop chasing him down buried the business ends of a taser into his back. Consalvi is something I like to call a "douchebag." He managed to make headlines all over the damn place and cause a pretty contentious battle between those who think the cop used excessive force in bring him down and those who think that the 17 year old shithead got what he deserved when he ran onto the field during a Phillies game this week. I happen to think that the cop used excessive force but that that walking case for abortion did, in fact, get what he deserved.

Here's the thing, when you run onto the field at a professional sports game you have certain expectations. You expect to get caught. You expect to be tackled onto the ground. You expect to deal with a hellacious headache the next day because you are clearly shitfaced. You probably do not expect that the cop will get winded chasing you after 20 seconds and shoot your in the back with a weapon. I say that's really too fucking bad for you and bad shit happens to you when you do stupid things. I also say, though, that maybe the cop chasing him didn't necessarily have to tase the dude. Plus, if some little shit makes me chase after him I don't want the taser doing the work. I want the satisfaction of burying his ass into the grass in centerfield for making me exert all that effort.

Now, all of the uber conservative blow hards will tell you that you never know what a crazed person running onto the field could do. "He could harm a player!" "He could attack an official!" "We have to be careful since 9/11!" Yeah. First of all, except for maybe Jamie Moyer (since he's about 90) and Cole Hamels (because I have to imagine he punches like a woman) anyone on the Phillies roster could easily handle a 17 year old. Second, most officials suck at their job anyway and could use a kick in the ass. And third, fuck the 9/11 yammering. Terrorists don't run onto baseball fields. They do things quieter and more subtlely, like crashing planes into two fucking buildings in New York. (Not to go off topic for too long here, but seriously, get over the fact that we have to "be more careful" since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We clearly haven't learned anything because security only get wratcheted the fuck up AFTER something happens. If you're going to inconvenience me with arbitrary and unnecessary security measures do it all the fuck the time, not just in the wake of an incident so that you look competent.)

The other side of the argument, of course, is that that poor child is the real victim; that the cop was overzealous in his pursuit of his target. "He could have been killed," they have yelled. "It's police brutality!" "For shame, he is just a child and wasn't hurting anyone." Well guess what? Yeah, he could have been killed I guess. But he could have also broken his neck getting tackled instead of tased. Police brutality? He was trespassing on the field and was resisting arrest. He's lucky they didn't shoot him with a gun instead. And he wasn't a child. He's 17. Trust me, he knows right from wrong. He was aware that he was about to do something illegal and stupid. Do you know how I know that? Because he called his fucking dad before he did it to ask permission. (For the record, his dad said not to be a retard.)

But now look at me. I've gone and ruined both arguments here. So does that mean no one is right? Well, sort of. I have long been a proponent of people being punished simply for doing stupid things. If being a moron was illegal the world would be a better place. I don't, however, think that being a moron is necessarily a capital offense. But I do think that if we tased someone every time they acted like an idiot then the idiotic behavior would rapidly decrease. So do I agree with the cop and think he should have tased him? No. That was some lazy shit. Plus, as I said before, he didn't have the satisfaction of bull dogging him into the ground. So while he probably shouldn't have been tased, it wasn't so far out of the realm of possibility as far as repercussions for running onto the field are concerned that it shouldn't have been at least partially expected.