Respond to the following post below. Expand on their ideas, discuss the differences between your thoughts and theirs. Explain why you agree or disagree.

Approximately every 9 in 10 agencies equip their officers with tasers and pepper spray, which are considered to be less-than-lethal weapons, according to the Local Police Departments Article. (Reaves 2015) Many different law enforcement agencies equip their officers with these tools as alternatives to lethal force options to help minimize the risk of fatal outcomes in certain situations. Regarding the issue of subjecting new officers to being tasered and pepper-sprayed during their training, it is not uncommon for many departments to include this in their training regimen. It is often considered a practice intended to provide officers with a firsthand experience of the effects these tools have on the individuals that they themselves will be using them on. This is in turn hopefully giving the officers a better understanding of the potential impact these items have on suspects and will enhance the officers decision-making abilities in the field. The benefit that I personally think law enforcement agencies are trying to get at with subjecting officers to going through getting pepper-sprayed and tasered is having them gain some sort of empathy and understanding of what their suspects/offenders are going through at the time. At the agency I work at, I am on the civilian side, so I do not have to go through this, but speaking with a few of my friends who are deputies they have said that going through the taser/pepper-spray experience was horrible. One of them almost even had permanent eye damage from the gel damaging his cornea. With watching both of the videos, I am just in between on my opinion on this topic of officers being subjected to this. I have spoken with my friends and heard their personal accounts, and then I have also watched and read articles about how it can be beneficial for agencies to do this. I think that it is just something that should be carefully considered. At the end of the day, an officer is carrying a weapon, and less-than-lethal weapons as well, and they need to be able to discern in which situation the correct choice to use.