If you are Umbrella Man, you are emboldened. Your Starbucks patio umbrella is large, and you could probably practice tilting at windmills if you so desired.

Unfortunately, you are no match for the more contemporary technology known as the Taser. More than 50,000 volts of electricity will usually slay any Umbrella Man, though Tasers sometimes have to struggle against people on crack, PCP and meth.

Cops in Santa Monica this week put a Taser to use against Umbrella Man, and the result was so textbook that the video of the event should be used for police training:
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Down goes Umbrella Man.

Santa Monica police Sgt. Jay Moroso says it happened about 8 p.m. outside a Starbucks at 7th Street and Montana Avenue in the tony north end of the city.

The department received a complaint about a man “bothering people” at the coffee shop, he said. A witness also told police the same guy was running in and out of traffic. 

Two cops arrived and, as you can see on the video, Umbrella Man took an aggressive stance, swinging the big green shade-maker defiantly at the long arm of the law.

)According to a statement sent to us by Moroso:

The officers ordered the man to drop the umbrella several times. He did not comply and continued swinging the umbrella toward the officers. The officers saw that the man appeared to be agitated and tried to calm him down. He continued to swing the umbrella. One officer brandished his Taser and told the man that he would use his Taser on him if he did not put the umbrella down. The subject still would not comply.

That's when the Taser was “deployed,” police said, and the guy went down like a pine tree battling a chainsaw.

The suspect had a minor boo-boo because the talons of the Taser went into his back, but otherwise “he did not sustain other injuries,” cops stated. They took him to a hospital to be checked out.

Arrested? Not exactly. He might have been off his rocker (allegedly), and police did the right thing, according to the SMPD statement:

During the officer's contact with the subject, he made statements which led them to place a psychiatric evaluation hold on him.

Wish the Don Quixote of coffee well.

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