The Aporia · Brickbat: Itchy Taser Finger

Brickbat: Itchy Taser Finger

Read the original at Reason ↗

Cite

APA MLA Chicago

Oliver, C. (2026, September 7). Brickbat: Itchy Taser Finger. Reason. https://reason.com/2026/09/07/brickbat-itchy-taser-finger/

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

Quick Summary

Two Phoenix police officers, Luis Vasquez and Antonio Felix, have been fired and charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault after allegedly making an unreported traffic stop. The incident occurred at an unspecified location, but investigators were able to pinpoint the officers' patrol car's location using its automatic vehicle locator. The alleged victims reported being Tasered and physically assaulted by the officers, who also failed to activate their body cameras or report the incident. Both officers initially denied any contact with the victims.

Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-07, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Two Phoenix police officers, Luis Vasquez and Antonio Felix, have been fired and charged with serious crimes: kidnapping and aggravated assault. They allegedly made an unreported traffic stop, broke the windows of a car, forcibly removed its occupants, and assaulted them. The male driver was punched and threatened to be shot by one officer, while both were Tased. The officers claimed they had no contact with the victims, but an investigation using their patrol car's automatic vehicle locator placed them at the scene around the time of the incident.

Written for “Police Use of Tasers Investigated” on 2026-10-22, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.

How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted

sentences that state something as happening or true

Uncertain

25%

1 of 4 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")

Leaning

withheld

no quote in the article backed the model's score

Publisher signals

67/100

Reason's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.

Outlets on this story

Crime & Law

Same framing elsewhere

articles that frame the event the way this one does

Analyzed 2026-09-07 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability

Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

Reason · 873 article(s) · 4 correction(s) detected

Running correction rate · 4 correction(s)

2026-10-02

Would a Firing Squad Have Been More 'Humane' for Christa Pike?

2026-09-26

"I Will Not Stand for Being Jerked Around … by Any Lawyer Who Practices Before Me"

2026-09-18

New Article: Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections: Bringing Clarity To The Necessary and Proper Clause

2026-09-05

Lawyers' Responsibility for Hallucinations in Briefs That They Sign

Who wrote this

Charles Oliver

28 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction

🔮 Four police officers woke and arrested Will Fraser, a 15-year-old Reform U.K. activist, at his Walsall home.

2026-10-16 · assertive framing · Brickbat: Penalty for Posting

🔮 Supporters say the program will help struggling newsrooms survive.

2026-10-13 · mixed framing · Brickbat: Paying the Piper

🔮 Body camera footage shows that officers apparently did not consider that Page might be experiencing a medical emergency, despite his confused behavior and difficulty following commands.

2026-09-30 · assertive framing · Brickbat: Bad Dog

🔮 Stephens replied that he would have sued, to which Bell replied that qualified immunity would have protected him.

2026-09-29 · assertive framing · Brickbat: Evidence Is Overrated

🔮 The bureaucrats suggested that full hearing videos and transcripts should instead be made available, potentially with comments disabled, so the public could see the complete context.

2026-09-22 · mixed framing · Brickbat: Unclipped

🔮 Education Department officials say they withheld the test results to protect student privacy and prevent the release of information that could identify individual students, but critics argue that the privacy explanation is a cover for hiding how poorly many public schools are performing.

2026-09-18 · mixed framing · Brickbat: Testing Our Patience

🔮 The girls, along with several other children, twisted the swing's chains so it would spin them around, and the swing eventually broke.

2026-09-17 · assertive framing · Brickbat: Swing, Swing

🔮 The companies will face greater transparency requirements and government oversight.

2026-09-15 · assertive framing · Brickbat: E.U. Blues

🔮 Immigrant-owned small businesses in East Harlem that spoke out against Mayor Zohran Mamdani's plan for city-owned supermarkets say they are suddenly receiving more New York City sanitation fines than normal, and some believe it is retaliation.

2026-09-14 · mixed framing · Brickbat: Keeping the Peace

🔮 Officials from the Department of Labor and Industries received a complaint claiming the volunteers are not handling the dangerous items safely and could be exposed to blood-borne diseases or other risks.

2026-09-10 · mixed framing · Brickbat: Clean Break

Also by Charles Oliver

Brickbat: Teaching While Intoxicated

2026-10-21 · Reason

Brickbat: Penalty for Posting

2026-10-16 · Reason

Brickbat: Listening In

2026-10-15 · Reason

Brickbat: Not Counting Every Penny

2026-10-14 · Reason

Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

All 28 articles by Charles Oliver →

Topics

Phoenix

Subjects

Antonio Felix PERSON · 1× Luis Vasquez PERSON · 1× Phoenix GPE · 1× Vasquez PERSON · 1×

Narrative

Neither officer activated their body camera or reported the traffic stop, and investigators say they later denied having any contact with the victims, but police were able to use the patrol car's automatic vehicle locator to place them at the scene at the time.

framing: mixed · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-07

2026-09-07 · Reason

Brickbat: Itchy Taser Finger · mixed framing

Claims (4 extracted, 1 hedged)

Phoenix police officers Luis Vasquez and Antonio Felix have been fired and charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault. asserted

officers → fire → kidnapping

They are accused of making an unreported traffic stop in which they broke the car's windows, forcibly removed the man and woman inside, and assaulted both of them. asserted

they → accuse → them

Vasquez allegedly punched and threatened to shoot the male driver, and the officers used Tasers on both of them, before letting them go. uncertain

them → punch → them

police → activate → time