Showing posts with label tasers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tasers. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Two South Carolina Officers Charged with Using Excessive Force
The Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury in Florence, South Carolina returned a two-count indictment today charging Eric Walters and Franklin Brown, both former police officers with the city of Marion Police Department, with using unreasonable force against a female citizen.
Walters and Brown have each been charged with one count of deprivation of rights under color of law, specifically alleging that, while acting as police officers, each defendant used unreasonable force on the victim, resulting in bodily injury. The indictment alleges that on April 2, 2013, Walters and Brown each used their respective tasers multiple times on the victim.
If convicted, each defendant faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
This case is being investigated by the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Resident Agency of the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Nicholas Murphy and Henry Leventis for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Potterfield for the District of South Carolina.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Former Officer Michael Polen Arrested for Failing to Return Taser Weapon
A former officer accused of taking a Perry Township Police Department Taser gun now faces a felony theft charge.
Michael P. Polen, 30, remains free on bond. He was arrested Wednesday on a felony theft-in-office charge.
Polen is accused of removing an $820 Taser X-26 gun and cartridge while still employed with the Police Department. He failed to return both upon his termination, court records say.
Polen denied the allegation when reached Thursday.
“It’s something that happened a year ago. I forgot that I had it. I had put it in a safe, and it was returned,” Polen said.
“They have it in their possession, so I don’t see how it’s theft.”
Polen was fired after he was found guilty of driving drunk while off-duty in 2008. State troopers said they found him passed out behind the wheel of his vehicle.
Polen will be arraigned on the theft allegation Friday in Municipal Court.
Copyright 2010 CantonRep.com. Some rights reserved
Michael P. Polen, 30, remains free on bond. He was arrested Wednesday on a felony theft-in-office charge.
Polen is accused of removing an $820 Taser X-26 gun and cartridge while still employed with the Police Department. He failed to return both upon his termination, court records say.
Polen denied the allegation when reached Thursday.
“It’s something that happened a year ago. I forgot that I had it. I had put it in a safe, and it was returned,” Polen said.
“They have it in their possession, so I don’t see how it’s theft.”
Polen was fired after he was found guilty of driving drunk while off-duty in 2008. State troopers said they found him passed out behind the wheel of his vehicle.
Polen will be arraigned on the theft allegation Friday in Municipal Court.
Copyright 2010 CantonRep.com. Some rights reserved
Monday, January 18, 2010
Inspector Marvetia Richardson Fired for Lying
The San Francisco Police Department has quietly fired a veteran inspector - the first officer to be dismissed from the force in more than four years - for a litany of misconduct that included lying about an incident in which Antioch police fired a Taser at her.
Inspector Marvetia "Lynn" Richardson, 42, was fired after a closed-door hearing of the Police Commission last month, but the panel made no announcement at the time. City officials confirmed Richardson's firing in response to inquiries from The Chronicle.
Richardson worked for the department for 15 years, most recently in the fraud unit. She had been suspended without pay since 2008, when then-Chief Heather Fong accused her of 11 disciplinary infractions.
Three of the counts stemmed from a June 2007 incident in which an Antioch police officer used a Taser to subdue her in her home on the city's Mokelumne Drive.
Officers were answering a call about someone making threats at Richardson's home. When they arrived, Richardson allegedly ordered them to leave, became belligerent and refused commands to show her hands, prompting the officers to use the Taser, according to the department's charges. She also refused to sign a citation for allegedly resisting arrest.
In November 2008, Richardson sued the Antioch police chief, the officers involved and the city, saying they had violated her civil rights by using the Taser wrongfully. The case is scheduled to go to trial in federal court in San Francisco this fall.
Before she filed her suit, however, San Francisco police officials concluded Richardson had lied about the incident in explaining it to the department's internal affairs unit.
Richardson, they said, told internal investigators that Antioch officers had never warned her they were intending to fire the Taser. They said an audio recording made by officers on the scene contradicted her story.
The department also accused her of misusing the police records system in 2007 to track down and send a letter to a woman, telling her that her husband was cheating on her. Richardson apparently was interested romantically in the woman with whom the husband was having the affair, according to the disciplinary charges.
The husband intercepted the letter and filed a complaint with the city.
Other charges alleged that Richardson had negligently cashed several stolen checks given to her by her tenant as rent, amounting to a total of nearly $26,000. The tenant stole the checks from his parents, according to the charges.
Richardson said she did not know the checks were stolen, but the department maintained that as a fraud investigator she should not have accepted checks from a third party.
Richardson was also accused of sick time abuse. She allegedly called in sick 29 times over the course of a year but failed to file paperwork that would ensure the time off was recorded as sick leave.
Quinton Cutlip, an attorney for Richardson, has argued that some of the charges were unfounded and others were lodged too late to comply with the one-year statute of limitations for disciplinary cases. He did not return calls last week seeking comment.
Richardson also did not return calls seeking comment. She is the first San Francisco police officer to be fired since Officer Anthony Nelson was dismissed in October 2005, after he was found to have lied about his use of force on an anti-war demonstrator whose arm he broke during a 2003 demonstration.
Inspector Marvetia "Lynn" Richardson, 42, was fired after a closed-door hearing of the Police Commission last month, but the panel made no announcement at the time. City officials confirmed Richardson's firing in response to inquiries from The Chronicle.
Richardson worked for the department for 15 years, most recently in the fraud unit. She had been suspended without pay since 2008, when then-Chief Heather Fong accused her of 11 disciplinary infractions.
Three of the counts stemmed from a June 2007 incident in which an Antioch police officer used a Taser to subdue her in her home on the city's Mokelumne Drive.
Officers were answering a call about someone making threats at Richardson's home. When they arrived, Richardson allegedly ordered them to leave, became belligerent and refused commands to show her hands, prompting the officers to use the Taser, according to the department's charges. She also refused to sign a citation for allegedly resisting arrest.
In November 2008, Richardson sued the Antioch police chief, the officers involved and the city, saying they had violated her civil rights by using the Taser wrongfully. The case is scheduled to go to trial in federal court in San Francisco this fall.
Before she filed her suit, however, San Francisco police officials concluded Richardson had lied about the incident in explaining it to the department's internal affairs unit.
Richardson, they said, told internal investigators that Antioch officers had never warned her they were intending to fire the Taser. They said an audio recording made by officers on the scene contradicted her story.
The department also accused her of misusing the police records system in 2007 to track down and send a letter to a woman, telling her that her husband was cheating on her. Richardson apparently was interested romantically in the woman with whom the husband was having the affair, according to the disciplinary charges.
The husband intercepted the letter and filed a complaint with the city.
Other charges alleged that Richardson had negligently cashed several stolen checks given to her by her tenant as rent, amounting to a total of nearly $26,000. The tenant stole the checks from his parents, according to the charges.
Richardson said she did not know the checks were stolen, but the department maintained that as a fraud investigator she should not have accepted checks from a third party.
Richardson was also accused of sick time abuse. She allegedly called in sick 29 times over the course of a year but failed to file paperwork that would ensure the time off was recorded as sick leave.
Quinton Cutlip, an attorney for Richardson, has argued that some of the charges were unfounded and others were lodged too late to comply with the one-year statute of limitations for disciplinary cases. He did not return calls last week seeking comment.
Richardson also did not return calls seeking comment. She is the first San Francisco police officer to be fired since Officer Anthony Nelson was dismissed in October 2005, after he was found to have lied about his use of force on an anti-war demonstrator whose arm he broke during a 2003 demonstration.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Three Calgary Officers Charged with Using Excessive Force
Three Calgary police officers were charged with assault Wednesday after motorists in two separate incidents accused them of using excessive force.
In the first case, which dates back to December 2008, a pair of officers were charged with assault following a physical altercation with a 50-year-old man they pulled over.
The second incident involved a single officer who used a Taser during a struggle with a 73-year-old man pulled over for a traffic violation.
Police said they have interviewed independent witnesses who saw the second encounter in April 2009.
While police and the association that represents the rank-and-file stressed they will let the courts decide whether the actions were justified, officials on both sides said they don't believe the officers deliberately crossed the line.
"Our officers are called upon to make split-second decisions," said deputy Chief Al Redford.
"I am totally confident none of these three officers reported for duty . . . with the intention of committing a criminal offence; they reported for duty with the intention of enforcing the law."
President of the Calgary Police Association, John Dooks, echoed Redford's sentiment, and added the officers in both cases were reacting to a perceived threat from the motorists.
In the 2008 incident, the two officers were responding to a call about a motorist behaving erratically in the area around 17th Avenue S.E. in Forest Lawn, Dooks said.
The man didn't pull over when the officers first activated the lights and sirens on their marked cruiser, Dooks said.
When the 50-year-old motorist did pull over, he didn't comply with instructions and reached for one of the officers while still behind the wheel of his vehicle, said Dooks.
"That is a grave risk," he said, adding an officer had been dragged by a motorist the night before.
There was a struggle between the man and the officers, resulting in the motorist filing a formal complaint with police.
The incident happened at 2:15 a.m. and there were no independent witnesses, but an independent Crown prosecutor recommended charging the officers after reviewing the findings of an investigation by the Calgary police professional standards section.
The two officers, who each have four years' experience, have been charged with assault and are on administrative duties pending the outcome of the court case.
In the second case, a six-year member of the force patrolling in a marked cruiser pulled over a 73-year-old man for a traffic violation in the northeast Calgary on the afternoon of April 17, 2009.
"During his dealings with the officer, the motorist was non-compliant with the officer's demands and instructions," Dooks said.
The two became involved in a physical confrontation -- though neither police nor the association said what sparked it -- and the officer had to defend himself, said Dooks.
"The officer was losing the struggle and as a result, resorted to the Taser to subdue the individual," he said.
The officer involved in the Taser incident has been charged with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. He is also on administrative duties until the allegations are dealt with. The driver of the car was charged with a traffic violation.
The courts will render a verdict on whether the officers should have reacted the way they did, but Dooks said both confrontations could have been avoided if the motorists simply followed instructions.
"I would not, in either case, try to paint these motorists as sinister individuals."
But traffic stops are high-risk situations for officers because motorists can easily conceal weapons or use their vehicles to injure officers, making immediate compliance especially vital, said Dooks.
"Any time an officer approaches a vehicle, it's always the motorist or the offender who has the advantage. There are lots of grey areas for officers, and on safety issues, they'll err on the side of safety."
Police did not release the names of the officers who have been charged, citing a recently instituted policy against publicly identifying members who have been accused of an offence while carrying out their duties.
The intent, Redford said, is to prevent harassment against the officers and their families in cases where they may have simply been doing their jobs.
"We will give them the benefit of the doubt," he said.
Under the policy, police will release the names of the officers if they are convicted. As well, the policy does not protect the identity of officers accused of committing serious crimes while off-duty.
In the first case, which dates back to December 2008, a pair of officers were charged with assault following a physical altercation with a 50-year-old man they pulled over.
The second incident involved a single officer who used a Taser during a struggle with a 73-year-old man pulled over for a traffic violation.
Police said they have interviewed independent witnesses who saw the second encounter in April 2009.
While police and the association that represents the rank-and-file stressed they will let the courts decide whether the actions were justified, officials on both sides said they don't believe the officers deliberately crossed the line.
"Our officers are called upon to make split-second decisions," said deputy Chief Al Redford.
"I am totally confident none of these three officers reported for duty . . . with the intention of committing a criminal offence; they reported for duty with the intention of enforcing the law."
President of the Calgary Police Association, John Dooks, echoed Redford's sentiment, and added the officers in both cases were reacting to a perceived threat from the motorists.
In the 2008 incident, the two officers were responding to a call about a motorist behaving erratically in the area around 17th Avenue S.E. in Forest Lawn, Dooks said.
The man didn't pull over when the officers first activated the lights and sirens on their marked cruiser, Dooks said.
When the 50-year-old motorist did pull over, he didn't comply with instructions and reached for one of the officers while still behind the wheel of his vehicle, said Dooks.
"That is a grave risk," he said, adding an officer had been dragged by a motorist the night before.
There was a struggle between the man and the officers, resulting in the motorist filing a formal complaint with police.
The incident happened at 2:15 a.m. and there were no independent witnesses, but an independent Crown prosecutor recommended charging the officers after reviewing the findings of an investigation by the Calgary police professional standards section.
The two officers, who each have four years' experience, have been charged with assault and are on administrative duties pending the outcome of the court case.
In the second case, a six-year member of the force patrolling in a marked cruiser pulled over a 73-year-old man for a traffic violation in the northeast Calgary on the afternoon of April 17, 2009.
"During his dealings with the officer, the motorist was non-compliant with the officer's demands and instructions," Dooks said.
The two became involved in a physical confrontation -- though neither police nor the association said what sparked it -- and the officer had to defend himself, said Dooks.
"The officer was losing the struggle and as a result, resorted to the Taser to subdue the individual," he said.
The officer involved in the Taser incident has been charged with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. He is also on administrative duties until the allegations are dealt with. The driver of the car was charged with a traffic violation.
The courts will render a verdict on whether the officers should have reacted the way they did, but Dooks said both confrontations could have been avoided if the motorists simply followed instructions.
"I would not, in either case, try to paint these motorists as sinister individuals."
But traffic stops are high-risk situations for officers because motorists can easily conceal weapons or use their vehicles to injure officers, making immediate compliance especially vital, said Dooks.
"Any time an officer approaches a vehicle, it's always the motorist or the offender who has the advantage. There are lots of grey areas for officers, and on safety issues, they'll err on the side of safety."
Police did not release the names of the officers who have been charged, citing a recently instituted policy against publicly identifying members who have been accused of an offence while carrying out their duties.
The intent, Redford said, is to prevent harassment against the officers and their families in cases where they may have simply been doing their jobs.
"We will give them the benefit of the doubt," he said.
Under the policy, police will release the names of the officers if they are convicted. As well, the policy does not protect the identity of officers accused of committing serious crimes while off-duty.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
California Police Can be Held Liable for Using Tasers
In a case that could set the first broad judicial standards for the use of Tasers, a federal appeals court in California has ruled that the police can be held liable for using one of the devices against an unarmed person during a traffic stop.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, said the electrically disabling device constituted excessive force when used against an unarmed man who did not pose a threat, and it refused to allow a police officer immunity for its use.
In a vividly worded opinion issued by the court this week, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw described a “bad morning” for Carl Bryan, a 21-year-old Californian who drove over large stretches of Southern California to retrieve car keys mistakenly taken by a friend and ended up being Tasered by a Coronado, Calif., policeman and breaking four teeth when he fell to the ground.
Mr. Bryan was stopped twice on his driving odyssey, once for speeding and once for not wearing his seat belt. After the second stop, he was “agitated, standing outside his car, yelling gibberish and hitting his thighs, clad only in his boxer shorts and tennis shoes,” the court said.
The judge noted, however, that Mr. Bryan did not threaten the officer, Brian McPherson, and was not trying to flee — all elements of a three-part test that the United States Supreme Court has used to determine when significant force is justified. As for the third factor in the court’s test, the severity of the offense at issue, the Ninth Circuit judges observed that “traffic violations generally will not support the use of a significant level of force.”
The court found that the policeman’s use of force so exceeded the threat posed by Mr. Bryan that it denied his request for immunity for his actions and for a quick dismissal of the case against him. Instead, the judges will allow the case to go forward.
Eugene G. Iredale, a lawyer for Mr. Bryan, hailed what he called a “landmark decision.”
A lawyer for Officer McPherson, Steven E. Boehmer, did not return calls seeking comment.
Orin S. Kerr, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at George Washington University Law School, called it “an important case” that was unusual in the way it set a broad rule without giving deference to the use of force by the police.
Geoffrey P. Alpert, a professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina who recently completed a four-year study of Tasers for the Department of Justice, said that Tasers and other “conducted electrical devices” were used by more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies and that some departments had already upgraded their rules to allow their use only in the case of an “active or immediate threat.”
If the Ninth Circuit ruling is not overturned, Professor Alpert said, the Bryan case “is going to impact a lot of departments that have not changed their standards.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, said the electrically disabling device constituted excessive force when used against an unarmed man who did not pose a threat, and it refused to allow a police officer immunity for its use.
In a vividly worded opinion issued by the court this week, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw described a “bad morning” for Carl Bryan, a 21-year-old Californian who drove over large stretches of Southern California to retrieve car keys mistakenly taken by a friend and ended up being Tasered by a Coronado, Calif., policeman and breaking four teeth when he fell to the ground.
Mr. Bryan was stopped twice on his driving odyssey, once for speeding and once for not wearing his seat belt. After the second stop, he was “agitated, standing outside his car, yelling gibberish and hitting his thighs, clad only in his boxer shorts and tennis shoes,” the court said.
The judge noted, however, that Mr. Bryan did not threaten the officer, Brian McPherson, and was not trying to flee — all elements of a three-part test that the United States Supreme Court has used to determine when significant force is justified. As for the third factor in the court’s test, the severity of the offense at issue, the Ninth Circuit judges observed that “traffic violations generally will not support the use of a significant level of force.”
The court found that the policeman’s use of force so exceeded the threat posed by Mr. Bryan that it denied his request for immunity for his actions and for a quick dismissal of the case against him. Instead, the judges will allow the case to go forward.
Eugene G. Iredale, a lawyer for Mr. Bryan, hailed what he called a “landmark decision.”
A lawyer for Officer McPherson, Steven E. Boehmer, did not return calls seeking comment.
Orin S. Kerr, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at George Washington University Law School, called it “an important case” that was unusual in the way it set a broad rule without giving deference to the use of force by the police.
Geoffrey P. Alpert, a professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina who recently completed a four-year study of Tasers for the Department of Justice, said that Tasers and other “conducted electrical devices” were used by more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies and that some departments had already upgraded their rules to allow their use only in the case of an “active or immediate threat.”
If the Ninth Circuit ruling is not overturned, Professor Alpert said, the Bryan case “is going to impact a lot of departments that have not changed their standards.”
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Former Officer Johannes Mehserle Charged with Killing Unarmed Man
The former transit officer charged in the killing of an unarmed man on an Oakland train station platform is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles court next month.
Johannes Mehserle nodded and indicated he understood when Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson told him during a brief hearing Tuesday that his next hearing was set for Jan. 8 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The judge had ruled in October the trial should be moved out of Oakland because of excessive media coverage and racial tensions.
Mehserle is charged with the murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on a Bay Area Rapid Transit station platform on New Year's Day.
Attorneys for the 27-year-old Mehserle say he mistakenly pulled out his Taser instead of his handgun.
Mehserle has pleaded not guilty.
Johannes Mehserle nodded and indicated he understood when Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson told him during a brief hearing Tuesday that his next hearing was set for Jan. 8 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The judge had ruled in October the trial should be moved out of Oakland because of excessive media coverage and racial tensions.
Mehserle is charged with the murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on a Bay Area Rapid Transit station platform on New Year's Day.
Attorneys for the 27-year-old Mehserle say he mistakenly pulled out his Taser instead of his handgun.
Mehserle has pleaded not guilty.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Taser International Advising Officers Not to Taser Suspects in Chest
Police officials are taking a "wait and see" approach to a recent warning from Taser International advising officers not to shoot its stun guns at a suspect's chest.
Meanwhile, critics of the 50,000-volt weapons say the company's advisory lends credence to what they've been saying all along: That the weapons are dangerous.
The Arizona-based company said in an Oct. 12 training bulletin that hitting a suspect in the chest from the stun guns could cause an "adverse cardiac event." It marks the first time the company has suggested there is any risk of a cardiac arrest related to the use of Tasers.
Taser officials stressed in the bulletin that the weapons don't necessarily cause cardiac arrest, but that officers can avoid controversy by aiming at the pelvic area.
But police are trained to aim for "center mass" -- the chest -- when deploying a gun or Taser, said Shelby Township Police Capt. Stephen Stanbury.
"We'll have to further investigate this and get more information," Stanbury said. "However, if we do need to change our training and start thinking about pointing the Tasers lower, we'll do it."
Byron Pitts, attorney for the family of 16-year-old Robert Mitchell, who died last year after Warren officers shot him in the chest with a Taser, said the company's advisory shows the devices are dangerous.
"It's a product liability issue; if you know the Ford Pinto is going to explode, you need to warn somebody," said Pitts, who is handling the Mitchell family's wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer would not comment on the ongoing lawsuit, but said his department is reviewing the recent advisory from the Taser manufacturer.
Ron Scott, director of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said the company's advisory "shows what we've been saying all along about Tasers being potentially dangerous."
------------------------
More information: http://www.huliq.com/3257/87897/taser-warns-against-shooting-chest
Meanwhile, critics of the 50,000-volt weapons say the company's advisory lends credence to what they've been saying all along: That the weapons are dangerous.
The Arizona-based company said in an Oct. 12 training bulletin that hitting a suspect in the chest from the stun guns could cause an "adverse cardiac event." It marks the first time the company has suggested there is any risk of a cardiac arrest related to the use of Tasers.
Taser officials stressed in the bulletin that the weapons don't necessarily cause cardiac arrest, but that officers can avoid controversy by aiming at the pelvic area.
But police are trained to aim for "center mass" -- the chest -- when deploying a gun or Taser, said Shelby Township Police Capt. Stephen Stanbury.
"We'll have to further investigate this and get more information," Stanbury said. "However, if we do need to change our training and start thinking about pointing the Tasers lower, we'll do it."
Byron Pitts, attorney for the family of 16-year-old Robert Mitchell, who died last year after Warren officers shot him in the chest with a Taser, said the company's advisory shows the devices are dangerous.
"It's a product liability issue; if you know the Ford Pinto is going to explode, you need to warn somebody," said Pitts, who is handling the Mitchell family's wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer would not comment on the ongoing lawsuit, but said his department is reviewing the recent advisory from the Taser manufacturer.
Ron Scott, director of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said the company's advisory "shows what we've been saying all along about Tasers being potentially dangerous."
------------------------
More information: http://www.huliq.com/3257/87897/taser-warns-against-shooting-chest
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Officer Kaneshia O'Malley Charged with Domestic Violence
A Cincinnati police officer was arrested after a dispute with her estranged husband - also a Cincinnati officer - turned into a struggle that involved a Taser and an ironing board.
Kaneshia O'Malley, 26, was charged with domestic violence. Her police powers have been suspended, Cincinnati police said.
Her husband, Daniel O'Malley, called Golf Manor police Monday and said his wife broke into his home in the 6200 block of Hammel Avenue.
"She broke a window and entered the residence," said Golf Manor Lt. Chris Campbell. "He contacted us and wanted her removed."
Officers believe the two were arguing over their 1-year-old daughter.
Before they arrived, the two struggled and at one point, Kaneshia O'Malley hit her husband with an ironing board, Campbell said. Daniel O'Malley also deployed a Taser but it did not hit his wife.
He was not injured but she had cuts on her hand from breaking out the window.
During her arraignment Tuesday, a judge released Kaneshia O'Malley on home arrest and ordered her to say away from her husband and daughter. She is scheduled to return to court on Friday.
Although her powers have been suspended, she remains on duty, Cincinnati police said. An internal investigation will be conducted.
Kaneshia O'Malley was hired by the Cincinnati Police Department in 2003 and her husband was hired in 2001.
Kaneshia O'Malley, 26, was charged with domestic violence. Her police powers have been suspended, Cincinnati police said.
Her husband, Daniel O'Malley, called Golf Manor police Monday and said his wife broke into his home in the 6200 block of Hammel Avenue.
"She broke a window and entered the residence," said Golf Manor Lt. Chris Campbell. "He contacted us and wanted her removed."
Officers believe the two were arguing over their 1-year-old daughter.
Before they arrived, the two struggled and at one point, Kaneshia O'Malley hit her husband with an ironing board, Campbell said. Daniel O'Malley also deployed a Taser but it did not hit his wife.
He was not injured but she had cuts on her hand from breaking out the window.
During her arraignment Tuesday, a judge released Kaneshia O'Malley on home arrest and ordered her to say away from her husband and daughter. She is scheduled to return to court on Friday.
Although her powers have been suspended, she remains on duty, Cincinnati police said. An internal investigation will be conducted.
Kaneshia O'Malley was hired by the Cincinnati Police Department in 2003 and her husband was hired in 2001.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Lethal Weapon: Tasers Kill
I thought the purpose of the Taser was to avoid lethal force… but I guess when you look at what T.A.S.E.R actually stands for (Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle) and the occurrences of deaths by taser, we must remember the R stands for Rifle. What do rifles do?
According to Amnesty International:
More than 330 people are reported to have died since 2001 after being struck by police Tasers in the USA 90 per cent of those who died after being struck with a Taser were unarmed and many did not appear to present a serious threat.
Many were subjected to repeated or prolonged shocks – far more than the five-second “standard” cycle – or by more than one officer at a time.
Perhaps tasers were not meant to be lethal weapons…The facts show that they are indeed lethal in some cases.
So why does law enforcement continue to use them? Is it because they believe Tasers are a safe non lethal means to subdue people?
There were a number of Police officers that were tasered voluntarily during taser training classes. These officers were under the impression that the taser was safe with no lasting affects. None of the officers died, but some of them experienced serious health problems after being tasered and have filed lawsuits against Taser International! What does that tell you?
How many more people have to die before we understand that the T.A.S.E.R. does not qualify as a non lethal weapon? How many more people have to suffer health problems and taser related injuries before we recognize that the T.A.S.E.R. is not safe?
_______________________
For the rest of the story please visit: http://marenda.biz/2009/04/24/lethal-weapon-tasers-kill/
According to Amnesty International:
More than 330 people are reported to have died since 2001 after being struck by police Tasers in the USA 90 per cent of those who died after being struck with a Taser were unarmed and many did not appear to present a serious threat.
Many were subjected to repeated or prolonged shocks – far more than the five-second “standard” cycle – or by more than one officer at a time.
Perhaps tasers were not meant to be lethal weapons…The facts show that they are indeed lethal in some cases.
So why does law enforcement continue to use them? Is it because they believe Tasers are a safe non lethal means to subdue people?
There were a number of Police officers that were tasered voluntarily during taser training classes. These officers were under the impression that the taser was safe with no lasting affects. None of the officers died, but some of them experienced serious health problems after being tasered and have filed lawsuits against Taser International! What does that tell you?
How many more people have to die before we understand that the T.A.S.E.R. does not qualify as a non lethal weapon? How many more people have to suffer health problems and taser related injuries before we recognize that the T.A.S.E.R. is not safe?
_______________________
For the rest of the story please visit: http://marenda.biz/2009/04/24/lethal-weapon-tasers-kill/
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Prosecuting Police an Uphill Battle
Each time a police officer uses deadly force, wounding or killing a civilian, prosecutors gather facts and grand jurors weigh whether the actions may have been criminal, rarely returning indictments. Even less common, according to a Houston Chronicle review, are cases where an officer is convicted.
Last week’s indictment of Bellaire Police Sgt. Jeff Cotton, a white officer who shot a black man in his own driveway in an incident that raised allegations of racial profiling, marks the first time in more than three years that an officer in Harris County has been charged in such a shooting, the Chronicle found in a review of police prosecutions. In recent years, local officers have shot an average of 32 people.
Such incidents, ranging from a drunken off-duty officer’s 1989 shooting of Ida Lee Delaney in a traffic spat to the 2003 gunning down of two unarmed teens, have ignited community outrage. But, lawyers say, prosecutors in cases against those sworn to protect and serve have an uphill battle.
Only once in more than a decade has a Harris County jury found an officer criminally responsible for injuring or killing a citizen with a weapon.
The law is forgiving, lawyers said, and an officer can justify his use of deadly force by claiming he perceived grave peril to himself or others.
“Jurors will give police officers more credit because they put themselves in harm’s way to help others,” said Joe Owmby, who until December headed the police integrity division of the District Attorney’s Office and investigated numerous officers. “Jurors will bend over backward to hear it from the (officer’s) point of view, but if it appears an officer did not do what he was supposed to, they are more skeptical.”
Deadly force cases are emotionally charged, observed South Texas College of Law’s Geoffrey Corn. “These are hard cases,” he said. “I have a visceral reaction to those who say these cases aren’t fair, that juries don’t convict enough. … When we start saying that juries are incapable of trying this type of case or that, we kind of gut our concepts of justice. Juries are not always right, but if the process is fair, the outcome is respectable.”
Case in 2007 typical
Typical of many cases was Harris County’s most recent deadly force prosecution, that of two Pasadena policemen accused of killing Pedro Gonzales Jr. in July 2007.
Gonzales suffered eight broken ribs and a punctured lung as officers Jason Buckaloo and Christopher Jones used force to arrest him. They were indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide.
Testimony in their trial revealed Gonzales was not intoxicated at the time of his arrest, as the officers suspected, but may have been suffering severe alcohol withdrawal.
Jurors acquitted the officers, who returned to work.
Owmby, who prosecuted the case, said jurors’ perceptions of Gonzales, a chronic alcoholic who often slept on the street, affected the outcome.
“The problem we had was that Mr. Gonzales was so ill, the jury just did not want to blame the police officers for what happened,” he said.
The only recent conviction of an officer in a fatal shooting came in a case with a sympathetic victim: a 14-year-old boy who had been playing video games minutes before an officer killed him.
On Nov. 21, 2003, Houston Police officer Arthur Carbonneau approached a group of youths, looking for two teens who had assaulted a 10-year-old boy. Eli Eloy Escobar, who had not been involved in the assault, tried to leave. Carbonneau detained him. During the scuffle, Carbonneau’s firearm discharged.
A grand jury indicted Carbonneau on a murder charge and he was convicted of criminally negligent homicide — the lightest conviction option — and got 10 years’ probation. The judge required him to serve 60 days in jail.
Owmby, who prosecuted Carbonneau, said he sees similarities between that case and the one against Cotton, 39, who is charged with aggravated assault by a public servant.
“It appears that in both cases we had an officer who overreacted, who never slowed down to evaluate what was happening and pulled the trigger when it was not necessary,” Owmby said.
Mistake on SUV’s plates
Cotton shot 23-year-old Robert Tolan, a former Bellaire High School baseball player, just after 2 a.m. on Dec, 31. Tolan and a cousin were returning to his parents’ house after getting off work at a restaurant.
An officer ran the plates on Tolan’s SUV but pulled up the wrong information, leading him to believe it was stolen.
Several officers approached as the men exited the SUV, ordering them to the ground. At one point, Tolan raised up to protest the treatment of his mother, who had come outside. Cotton fired several times, striking Tolan once in the chest.
Cotton’s lawyer said last week that he will prove Cotton’s actions were justified.
“When we get our day in court it will come out that the indictment against him was not warranted,” said David Donahue, a spokesman for Cotton’s lawyer, Paul Aman.
The case against Cotton will be prosecuted by Clint Greenwood, who joined the District Attorney’s Office in January after District Attorney Pat Lykos asked him to head the police integrity division. Greenwood, a peace officer who defended a number of policemen in his private practice, said he anticipates the Cotton case will be “a difficult case for both sides.”
He added, “Cases where a police officer is the defendant can be extremely difficult due to conceptions by the community at large. But, it is my job to advocate on behalf of the citizens of Harris County and I will do so vigorously.”
Another case involving police that resulted in a conviction was the 20-year-old fatal shooting of Delaney, a 51-year-old janitor killed in an encounter with three off-duty Houston officers after they had been out drinking.
The officers approached Delaney after a traffic altercation. One, Alex Gonzales, in civilian clothes and wearing no badge, charged her car with pistol drawn. She fired at the officer, striking him in the belly. He fired back.
Gonzales was tried twice and eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter, receiving the minimum penalty — two years probation and a $5,000 fine. His light treatment prompted protest.
Former City Councilwoman Ada Edwards, who participated in those protests, called the outcome a “miscarriage of justice. I was not a jury member … but this was murder.”
_________________
Previous Post: http://whathappenedtoprotectandserve.blogspot.com/2009/04/sgt-jeff-cotton-indicted-for-shooting_10.html
Friday, April 10, 2009
Sgt. Jeff Cotton Indicted for Shooting Civilian
The Bellaire police sergeant charged in the shooting of a civilian that raised accusations of racial profiling was shocked by his indictment and maintains that he “in no way is a racist,” a spokesman for his lawyer said Tuesday.
A grand jury on Monday indicted Sgt. Jeff Cotton, who is white, in the Dec. 31 shooting of a black man in the driveway of his own home near a vehicle that Cotton mistakenly believed was stolen. The shooting prompted allegations that Cotton’s actions were racially motivated and ignited concerns about the treatment of minorities in Bellaire.
Cotton’s representatives, offering his perspective for the first time Tuesday, said race played no role in the encounter.
“Sgt. Cotton did what any prudent officer would have done in the same circumstances,” said David Donahue, an assistant to attorney Paul Aman. “This was a split-second decision and he is not a racial profiler.”
Cotton, 39, stands charged with first-degree aggravated assault by a public servant. He turned himself in Monday night and is free on a $20,000 bail.
Since 2004, five local officers have faced charges after incidents ranging from questionable use of a Taser to the fatal shooting of an unarmed teen. Prosecutors won a conviction against only one, Arthur Carbonneau, who killed 14-year-old Eli Escobar in November 2003.
Cotton’s case will be the first test of new District Attorney Pat Lykos’ police integrity division. The prosecutor who led investigations into law officers before Lykos’ arrival, Joe Owmby, left the office in December.
The incident that led to Cotton’s indictment began shortly after 2 a.m. Dec. 31. Robert Tolan, a 23-year-old former Bellaire High School baseball player who has tried to play professionally, drove toward his parents’ home after getting off of work at a restaurant.
An officer ran the plates on Tolan’s Nissan Xterra but pulled up the wrong information, leading him to believe the car was stolen. Several officers approached Tolan and his cousin as they got out of the SUV, ordering them to the ground.
Tolan’s family came outside and tried to convince officers of their mistake. During the exchange, Tolan’s mother was pushed against a wall. When Tolan rose to protest, Cotton fired several times, striking him once in the chest.
A grand jury began hearing testimony about the incident last week. Cotton spoke to them for two hours.
“He felt positive,” Donahue said of Cotton. “He was quite shocked the grand jury even came up with the conclusion to indict him.”
Cotton’s next court appearance is scheduled for April 17. The Bellaire Police Department’s own investigation is ongoing, and Cotton remains suspended with pay.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
SCLC Wants to Ban Tasers Use by Police
MARTINSVILLE
It’s been about three months since a 17-year-old died here after being Tasered by a police officer.
The Danville/Pittsylvania County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other African-American community leaders are calling for a moratorium on the use of Tasers.
The Rev. Avon Keen, leader of the local SCLC, and other leaders held a meeting Saturday to discuss the issue at the Blue Ridge Regional Library in Martinsville.
The SCLC and other members of a panel plan to push for a ban on their use until there is adequate research on their dangers and how they should be used, Keen said. Keen said they want to approach local enforcement agencies about the idea and take it statewide and national.
The SCLC’s effort comes three months after 17-year-old Derick Jones died when a Martinsville police officer Tasered him when Jones “moved rapidly” toward him, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on Jan. 9. Police were called on Jan. 8 to a home on Rives Road after receiving a report of a young man using the bathroom in the street and a later call of young men fighting.
Tentative results from a U.S. Department of Justice study finished in June found no conclusive medical evidence that Tasers cause injury or death, even after numerous instances of people dying after the officers Tasered them, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. During Saturday’s meeting, Torrey Dixon, a civil-rights attorney in Durham, N.C., said about 300 people across the U.S. have died after being Tasered. Dixon said there needs to be a push to build large-scale, non-violent resistance to call for ending the use of Tasers.
A Taser is a handheld electroshock weapon that affects control of the central nervous system when used on someone. It’s meant to be a non-lethal alternative to traditional police weapons.
Keen calls for five recommendations to be made to law-enforcement agencies regarding Tasers, including a ban on their use until adequate research on their dangers and proper use; that a federal task force made up of law-enforcement, human-rights organizations, attorneys, law professors and members of the public to establish set standards on how Tasers should be used; that law-enforcement agencies restrict use of Tasers on the elderly, children and pregnant women; law-enforcement agencies restrict use of Tasers in potentially flammable situations, near dangerous heights and not on a person’s face, eyes or head; and law-enforcement agencies require officers have at least 8 hours training per year on the use of Tasers.
Keen also wants to see youth educated in schools about the Taser and how to react when approached by a law-enforcement officer.
_____________________
http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/sclc_calls_for_ban_on_taser_use_by_police/10219/
Other Information: http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=18370
It’s been about three months since a 17-year-old died here after being Tasered by a police officer.
The Danville/Pittsylvania County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other African-American community leaders are calling for a moratorium on the use of Tasers.
The Rev. Avon Keen, leader of the local SCLC, and other leaders held a meeting Saturday to discuss the issue at the Blue Ridge Regional Library in Martinsville.
The SCLC and other members of a panel plan to push for a ban on their use until there is adequate research on their dangers and how they should be used, Keen said. Keen said they want to approach local enforcement agencies about the idea and take it statewide and national.
The SCLC’s effort comes three months after 17-year-old Derick Jones died when a Martinsville police officer Tasered him when Jones “moved rapidly” toward him, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on Jan. 9. Police were called on Jan. 8 to a home on Rives Road after receiving a report of a young man using the bathroom in the street and a later call of young men fighting.
Tentative results from a U.S. Department of Justice study finished in June found no conclusive medical evidence that Tasers cause injury or death, even after numerous instances of people dying after the officers Tasered them, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. During Saturday’s meeting, Torrey Dixon, a civil-rights attorney in Durham, N.C., said about 300 people across the U.S. have died after being Tasered. Dixon said there needs to be a push to build large-scale, non-violent resistance to call for ending the use of Tasers.
A Taser is a handheld electroshock weapon that affects control of the central nervous system when used on someone. It’s meant to be a non-lethal alternative to traditional police weapons.
Keen calls for five recommendations to be made to law-enforcement agencies regarding Tasers, including a ban on their use until adequate research on their dangers and proper use; that a federal task force made up of law-enforcement, human-rights organizations, attorneys, law professors and members of the public to establish set standards on how Tasers should be used; that law-enforcement agencies restrict use of Tasers on the elderly, children and pregnant women; law-enforcement agencies restrict use of Tasers in potentially flammable situations, near dangerous heights and not on a person’s face, eyes or head; and law-enforcement agencies require officers have at least 8 hours training per year on the use of Tasers.
Keen also wants to see youth educated in schools about the Taser and how to react when approached by a law-enforcement officer.
_____________________
http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/sclc_calls_for_ban_on_taser_use_by_police/10219/
Other Information: http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=18370
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Tasers the New Killer Weapon
As protesters descend upon London's financial district to demonstrate the G-20 summit this week, they are being met by thousands of Metropolitan police officers carrying out what has repeatedly been described as the biggest police operation ever undertaken in the capital. Pre-emptive arrests were made earlier this week and despite the mainly nonviolent protests -- overshadowed by media reports of a "seige" on the Bank of England -- by Wednesday night, more than 60 people had been arrested and one man was dead.
Police in London have been gearing up for these clashes for months, attracting press attention for the “unprecedented” security deployment and the various tools at their disposal. Among them are so-called "non-lethal weapons" of the sort that have become biquitous crowd control devices. "Scotland Yard is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators," the Times Online reported earlier this week, noting that police were gearing up for any "anarchist elements" "likely to stir up trouble."
Months after the Republican National Convention in the U.S., such sweeping security measures may seem to be par for the course. But in the UK -- where police forces have traditionally not carried guns -- it was not that long ago that Tasers were new to the streets. Since their arrival in the spring of 2003, however, their popularity has skyrocketed; last fall, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a plan to spend £8 million on Tasers and Taser training for 30,000 police officers, providing some 10,000 new Tasers to police across England and Wales. "I am proud that we have one of the few police services around the world that do not regularly carry firearms," Smith said, "and I want to keep it that way." But an arms expert at Amnesty International UK called the move "a dangerous step in British policing," citing "numerous" taser deaths in North America as a cautionary example.
Meanwhile in the U.S., such fatalities continue. Last month, a Michigan teenager died after police tasered him, one day short of his 16th birthday.
It would be preposterous at this point for anyone with access to the news media to claim that Tasers are the safe policing tools they are marketed as. Yet Taser International, the corporation that makes them, continues to market this dangerous -- and lucrative -- myth. On March 31, the company's latest Taser model -- called the Shockwave -- hit the market; according to Taser International website, it "allows for both increased safety and stand-off capability during hostile situations, minimizing risk with a stand-off distance of up to 100 meters." But as Dalia Hashad, director of Amnesty International’s USA Program focusing on domestic human rights, wrote about the product last fall, the Shockwave "belongs in my 'You've Got to Be Kidding' file along with Taser International's leopard-print MP3 player that doubles as a taser and their employment of Playboy Bunnies for promotion." The company's literature shows it to be a powerful crowd-control weapon:
"With the push of a button at a stand-off distance of up to 100 meters, the Shockwave unit deploys multiple standard TASER® cartridges that are oriented across an area arc. Full area coverage is provided to instantaneously incapacitate multiple personnel within that region."
"Development of weapons that allow police to tase en mass is not good news," says Hashad. " ... Would you be willing to go to a protest knowing that police on the scene were armed with Taser Shockwave? I wouldn't bring my daughter, which means that I might have to stay home. Maybe that's the point."
It is not clear what model of Taser London police are using at the G20 summit. But with the UK embracing Taser technology, it is only a matter of time before the kinds of fatalities seen regularly in North America start showing up across the Atlantic. The company doesn’t seem concerned, though. The British version of Taser International's website, www.taser.co.uk, boasts: "0% long term injury. 94% success rate."
Taser use is down in Canada
One place where the Taser trend actually appears to be changing is Canada, where high-profile taser deaths, along with a recent study on the dangers of Tasers, are leading to a serious rethinking of the weapon. Four months after a Canadian report found that the type of Taser model most often used by police officers can significantly raise the risk of cardiac arrest -- prompting Canadian officials to say they were pulling the model from its police ranks -- Taser use in Canada has decreased dramatically. Last week Reuters reported that the "use of Taser stun guns by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dropped by almost a third last year, possibly because of a high-profile controversy about the weapon's safety and accusations the gun was being over-used."
The official who released the numbers, who heads the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, told reporters in a press conference that Canadian authorities are showing more "self-restraint" when it comes to deploying tasers -- while also suggesting that suspects are less likely to resist police officers for fear of being tasered to death. "People now recognize that the Taser is painful and that Taser -- maybe they're thinking -- may kill me, and they're co-operating too," said Paul Kennedy of the RCMP, a government agency that, according to Reuters, "is expected to issue a more comprehensive report on Taser use" in coming days.
This is pretty unsatisfying for people who would like to see a ban on Tasers -- or at least a moratorium until their safety can be guaranteed (a dubious prospect). More importantly, in the meantime, allowing Tasers to occupy a gray area -- not lethal except when they are -- will make it that much harder for police to be held accountable for excessive force and homicide. Cops already get away with shooting suspects dead with little to no consequences. Arming them with Tasers under the pretense that they are safe will only perpetuate this trend as inevitable deaths occur.
Like "pre-emptive" arrests, the 50,000-volt Tasers that London police are carrying as they stand off with G20 protesters this week may be seen as a necessary precaution. But the past several years have shown the slippery slope governments create in the name of security. Any Taser deaths in London this week will be treated as a tragic accident, to be sure. But they should not be treated as a surprise.
Police in London have been gearing up for these clashes for months, attracting press attention for the “unprecedented” security deployment and the various tools at their disposal. Among them are so-called "non-lethal weapons" of the sort that have become biquitous crowd control devices. "Scotland Yard is to deploy officers armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators," the Times Online reported earlier this week, noting that police were gearing up for any "anarchist elements" "likely to stir up trouble."
Months after the Republican National Convention in the U.S., such sweeping security measures may seem to be par for the course. But in the UK -- where police forces have traditionally not carried guns -- it was not that long ago that Tasers were new to the streets. Since their arrival in the spring of 2003, however, their popularity has skyrocketed; last fall, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a plan to spend £8 million on Tasers and Taser training for 30,000 police officers, providing some 10,000 new Tasers to police across England and Wales. "I am proud that we have one of the few police services around the world that do not regularly carry firearms," Smith said, "and I want to keep it that way." But an arms expert at Amnesty International UK called the move "a dangerous step in British policing," citing "numerous" taser deaths in North America as a cautionary example.
Meanwhile in the U.S., such fatalities continue. Last month, a Michigan teenager died after police tasered him, one day short of his 16th birthday.
It would be preposterous at this point for anyone with access to the news media to claim that Tasers are the safe policing tools they are marketed as. Yet Taser International, the corporation that makes them, continues to market this dangerous -- and lucrative -- myth. On March 31, the company's latest Taser model -- called the Shockwave -- hit the market; according to Taser International website, it "allows for both increased safety and stand-off capability during hostile situations, minimizing risk with a stand-off distance of up to 100 meters." But as Dalia Hashad, director of Amnesty International’s USA Program focusing on domestic human rights, wrote about the product last fall, the Shockwave "belongs in my 'You've Got to Be Kidding' file along with Taser International's leopard-print MP3 player that doubles as a taser and their employment of Playboy Bunnies for promotion." The company's literature shows it to be a powerful crowd-control weapon:
"With the push of a button at a stand-off distance of up to 100 meters, the Shockwave unit deploys multiple standard TASER® cartridges that are oriented across an area arc. Full area coverage is provided to instantaneously incapacitate multiple personnel within that region."
"Development of weapons that allow police to tase en mass is not good news," says Hashad. " ... Would you be willing to go to a protest knowing that police on the scene were armed with Taser Shockwave? I wouldn't bring my daughter, which means that I might have to stay home. Maybe that's the point."
It is not clear what model of Taser London police are using at the G20 summit. But with the UK embracing Taser technology, it is only a matter of time before the kinds of fatalities seen regularly in North America start showing up across the Atlantic. The company doesn’t seem concerned, though. The British version of Taser International's website, www.taser.co.uk, boasts: "0% long term injury. 94% success rate."
Taser use is down in Canada
One place where the Taser trend actually appears to be changing is Canada, where high-profile taser deaths, along with a recent study on the dangers of Tasers, are leading to a serious rethinking of the weapon. Four months after a Canadian report found that the type of Taser model most often used by police officers can significantly raise the risk of cardiac arrest -- prompting Canadian officials to say they were pulling the model from its police ranks -- Taser use in Canada has decreased dramatically. Last week Reuters reported that the "use of Taser stun guns by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dropped by almost a third last year, possibly because of a high-profile controversy about the weapon's safety and accusations the gun was being over-used."
The official who released the numbers, who heads the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, told reporters in a press conference that Canadian authorities are showing more "self-restraint" when it comes to deploying tasers -- while also suggesting that suspects are less likely to resist police officers for fear of being tasered to death. "People now recognize that the Taser is painful and that Taser -- maybe they're thinking -- may kill me, and they're co-operating too," said Paul Kennedy of the RCMP, a government agency that, according to Reuters, "is expected to issue a more comprehensive report on Taser use" in coming days.
This is pretty unsatisfying for people who would like to see a ban on Tasers -- or at least a moratorium until their safety can be guaranteed (a dubious prospect). More importantly, in the meantime, allowing Tasers to occupy a gray area -- not lethal except when they are -- will make it that much harder for police to be held accountable for excessive force and homicide. Cops already get away with shooting suspects dead with little to no consequences. Arming them with Tasers under the pretense that they are safe will only perpetuate this trend as inevitable deaths occur.
Like "pre-emptive" arrests, the 50,000-volt Tasers that London police are carrying as they stand off with G20 protesters this week may be seen as a necessary precaution. But the past several years have shown the slippery slope governments create in the name of security. Any Taser deaths in London this week will be treated as a tragic accident, to be sure. But they should not be treated as a surprise.
Police Brutality Continues Unabated
On TV and in the movies, we often see the internal affairs division as no nonsense, hard noses willing to take down even good cops when they cross the line. But unlike TV and movies, in Fort Lauderdale the internal affairs division can look at something like the Joshua Ortiz tape, where after being pushed into a corner, a second cop comes from outside the action with a punch to the face and say this was not excessive force.
In this day and age where many police carry Tasers and or mace, I really don't see a haymaker to a smaller guy that's already pinned to the corner as acceptable. It's completely reprehensible that this type of behavior is not only not punished, it's condoned.
When people see that an innocent person can be savagely beaten by multiple police and then arrested for being beaten, you lead to an environment where people lose respect for the badge or the police officer wearing it.
Too often the rally cry is sent out, "Oh it's a dangerous job" or "They have to deal with crazy people all the time."
Many police departments like to tout themselves as "professionals." I don't see assault as professional behavior, nor do I accept that those that allow it to go unpunished can be called professional, either. I think the easiest way to let the public know what they're really in store for is to change the popular logo "To serve and protect" to something a little more honest like "To harass and batter."
In this day and age where many police carry Tasers and or mace, I really don't see a haymaker to a smaller guy that's already pinned to the corner as acceptable. It's completely reprehensible that this type of behavior is not only not punished, it's condoned.
When people see that an innocent person can be savagely beaten by multiple police and then arrested for being beaten, you lead to an environment where people lose respect for the badge or the police officer wearing it.
Too often the rally cry is sent out, "Oh it's a dangerous job" or "They have to deal with crazy people all the time."
Many police departments like to tout themselves as "professionals." I don't see assault as professional behavior, nor do I accept that those that allow it to go unpunished can be called professional, either. I think the easiest way to let the public know what they're really in store for is to change the popular logo "To serve and protect" to something a little more honest like "To harass and batter."
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Death by Taser
Millions of people were stunned and outraged by the videos that showed Oakland BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop Johannes Mehserle draw his gun and kill Oscar Grant. Mehserle quit his job 7 days after the killing to avoid giving any statement about what happened or why he did it. Now Mehserle’s lawyers are working hard to offer a plausible explanation to exonerate the cop for the killing. They say that contrary to what people might think, Mehserle had “no criminal intent” when he fired his gun into Grant’s back at point-blank range. They back up this outrageous statement by explaining their theory that this cop “may have mistakenly deployed his pistol rather than his taser” and did not mean to kill Oscar. He just meant to tase him.
Meanwhile, a little more than a month after Oscar Grant was killed in Oakland, another young man was killed by police taser, 40 miles away in San Jose. His name was Richard Lua, and police killed him in front of his own garage, during a “routine patrol.” Police murder has become so “routine” that many times an explanation is offered only as an afterthought. Like Oscar Grant, Richard Lua leaves behind a young daughter and a grieving, outraged family.
Taser use is so routine in San Jose that Lua’s is the 6th death by police taser there just since 2005. Death by police taser is on the increase, and in California these deaths are not even counted as part of the state attorney general’s official tally of “police involved homicides,” which numbers over 100 every year. Neither are deaths from police chokeholds or from asphyxiation through being maced or hog-tied. All of these weapons and methods are part of an ugly panorama of police brutality that is entrenched and endemic and an indispensable part of the function of police in this society.
Amnesty International reported in 2004 that the organization was “concerned by the growing number of fatalities involving police tasers. Since 2001, more than 70 people are reported to have died in the USA and Canada after being struck by M26 or X26 tasers, with the numbers rising each year.” In 2005, the ACLU issued a report saying that “Since 1999, at least 148 people in the United States and Canada have died after encounters with police who shocked them with Tasers.” A website put up by family and friends of Richard Bagnell, a Canadian man who died after being tasered, now lists 397 people killed in North America. And at least 8 people have been killed by tasers in only the first two months of 2009.
Ev’ry time I hear the crack of the whip
My blood runs cold
I remember on the slave ship
How they brutalized our very souls
—Bob Marley, “Slave Driver”
Tasers have replaced the slave driver’s whip and the prison guard’s cattle prod as one of the high-tech control device used by more than 12,000 police departments and in prisons worldwide.
Taser International claims that its products are a less lethal weapon than guns or even batons, and that tasers are "changing the world and saving lives everyday." But the new tasers deliver a staggering 50,000 volts of electricity. These electro-shock weapons can be used in “stun mode” or with darts. When in “dart” mode, the shocks cause total “momentary neuro-muscular incapacitation” (source: University of California, San Francisco press release), while the stun mode inflicts intense localized pain. Tasers are used extensively around the world, including in Iraq, most notoriously by the same U.S. military brigade accused of "sadistic, blatant and wanton" abuse in Abu Ghraib.
Along with guns, sticks, pepper spray and the choke-hold, tasers are part of an arsenal of weapons employed against the people to inflict terror and pain and even death. And, unlike firing his gun, in most places a cop needs only the slightest excuse to justify using his taser.
In the U.S., far from being used only on supposedly “violent suspects” the Amnesty International study says that tasers are often used against "passive resisters"—people who refuse to comply with police commands but do not interfere with an officer and pose no physical threat. Police use tasers on people who “mouth off,” or people who are distressed or mentally ill and who are not suspected of a crime. Amnesty reported that “at least 1,000 U.S. jails and prisons have adopted the new generation M26 or X26 Tasers, where they are deployed in both dart projectile and stun mode.” Amnesty documents cases of pregnant women having miscarriages after being tasered.
Children
In 2006 millions of people reacted with shock at a brutal taser attack on a student in the UCLA library, but a less-known outrage is that there are hundreds of reported cases where cops have used taser guns on children. In Arizona a 13 year old was tased for throwing a book in a public library. In another Arizona case, a 9-year-old runaway girl who was sitting in the back of a police car, handcuffed, was tased because she was "screaming, kicking and flailing, and would not listen." Would not listen? The youngest reported victim of police tasing was in Miami, a boy who was only 6 years old. He was in the vice principal’s office where he had broken a picture frame, and was waving a piece of glass around. His outraged mother told CNN, "If there's three officers, it's nothing to tell a 6‑year‑old holding a glass, if you feel threatened, 'Hey, here's a piece of candy, hey, here's a toy. Let the glass go."
Taser Confusion
While some media have jumped on the taser confusion bandwagon and trotted out various “experts” to talk about how stressed out Mehserle must have been to mistake a taser for his gun, others have ridiculed this idea as preposterous and marshalled the cold facts. The X26 taser issued to BART cops is a plastic device that weighs only 7 ounces. The Sig Sauer that Mehserle shot Grant with is made of metal, weighing 30 ounces unloaded—more than 4 times as much as the taser. The taser was holstered on the opposite side as Mehserle’s gun, and looks and feels completely different.
But another question needs to be asked. Before he was shot, Oscar Grant was detained, lying on his stomach, with his hands behind his back and with an officer’s foot on his neck. What excuse was there to even tase the 22 year old? Perhaps Officer Mehserle only meant to torture him?
The ACLU and Amnesty International are not alone in condemning tasers. In 2007 the U.N. Committee Against Torture said the use of tasers could constitute a form of torture. This cruel punishment, a brutality carried out by police for the slightest offense, without charges or trial, is increasingly a part of American injustice and part of an international epidemic of state-sponsored violence and murder.
The outcome of the murder trial of Mehserle has great significance. If the cop happens to “mistake” his gun for a taser and kills that person, and if this cop is then judged in court to be devoid of “criminal intent,” then what is to stop any cop from killing anyone at any time for any reason? If intending to use an electro-shock weapon on a person lying face down with his hands behind his back can be categorized as following correct police procedure, then it will exonerate police brutality. What kind of legal precedent will that set and how much of this can people tolerate? Enough is enough.
Meanwhile, a little more than a month after Oscar Grant was killed in Oakland, another young man was killed by police taser, 40 miles away in San Jose. His name was Richard Lua, and police killed him in front of his own garage, during a “routine patrol.” Police murder has become so “routine” that many times an explanation is offered only as an afterthought. Like Oscar Grant, Richard Lua leaves behind a young daughter and a grieving, outraged family.
Taser use is so routine in San Jose that Lua’s is the 6th death by police taser there just since 2005. Death by police taser is on the increase, and in California these deaths are not even counted as part of the state attorney general’s official tally of “police involved homicides,” which numbers over 100 every year. Neither are deaths from police chokeholds or from asphyxiation through being maced or hog-tied. All of these weapons and methods are part of an ugly panorama of police brutality that is entrenched and endemic and an indispensable part of the function of police in this society.
Amnesty International reported in 2004 that the organization was “concerned by the growing number of fatalities involving police tasers. Since 2001, more than 70 people are reported to have died in the USA and Canada after being struck by M26 or X26 tasers, with the numbers rising each year.” In 2005, the ACLU issued a report saying that “Since 1999, at least 148 people in the United States and Canada have died after encounters with police who shocked them with Tasers.” A website put up by family and friends of Richard Bagnell, a Canadian man who died after being tasered, now lists 397 people killed in North America. And at least 8 people have been killed by tasers in only the first two months of 2009.
Ev’ry time I hear the crack of the whip
My blood runs cold
I remember on the slave ship
How they brutalized our very souls
—Bob Marley, “Slave Driver”
Tasers have replaced the slave driver’s whip and the prison guard’s cattle prod as one of the high-tech control device used by more than 12,000 police departments and in prisons worldwide.
Taser International claims that its products are a less lethal weapon than guns or even batons, and that tasers are "changing the world and saving lives everyday." But the new tasers deliver a staggering 50,000 volts of electricity. These electro-shock weapons can be used in “stun mode” or with darts. When in “dart” mode, the shocks cause total “momentary neuro-muscular incapacitation” (source: University of California, San Francisco press release), while the stun mode inflicts intense localized pain. Tasers are used extensively around the world, including in Iraq, most notoriously by the same U.S. military brigade accused of "sadistic, blatant and wanton" abuse in Abu Ghraib.
Along with guns, sticks, pepper spray and the choke-hold, tasers are part of an arsenal of weapons employed against the people to inflict terror and pain and even death. And, unlike firing his gun, in most places a cop needs only the slightest excuse to justify using his taser.
In the U.S., far from being used only on supposedly “violent suspects” the Amnesty International study says that tasers are often used against "passive resisters"—people who refuse to comply with police commands but do not interfere with an officer and pose no physical threat. Police use tasers on people who “mouth off,” or people who are distressed or mentally ill and who are not suspected of a crime. Amnesty reported that “at least 1,000 U.S. jails and prisons have adopted the new generation M26 or X26 Tasers, where they are deployed in both dart projectile and stun mode.” Amnesty documents cases of pregnant women having miscarriages after being tasered.
Children
In 2006 millions of people reacted with shock at a brutal taser attack on a student in the UCLA library, but a less-known outrage is that there are hundreds of reported cases where cops have used taser guns on children. In Arizona a 13 year old was tased for throwing a book in a public library. In another Arizona case, a 9-year-old runaway girl who was sitting in the back of a police car, handcuffed, was tased because she was "screaming, kicking and flailing, and would not listen." Would not listen? The youngest reported victim of police tasing was in Miami, a boy who was only 6 years old. He was in the vice principal’s office where he had broken a picture frame, and was waving a piece of glass around. His outraged mother told CNN, "If there's three officers, it's nothing to tell a 6‑year‑old holding a glass, if you feel threatened, 'Hey, here's a piece of candy, hey, here's a toy. Let the glass go."
Taser Confusion
While some media have jumped on the taser confusion bandwagon and trotted out various “experts” to talk about how stressed out Mehserle must have been to mistake a taser for his gun, others have ridiculed this idea as preposterous and marshalled the cold facts. The X26 taser issued to BART cops is a plastic device that weighs only 7 ounces. The Sig Sauer that Mehserle shot Grant with is made of metal, weighing 30 ounces unloaded—more than 4 times as much as the taser. The taser was holstered on the opposite side as Mehserle’s gun, and looks and feels completely different.
But another question needs to be asked. Before he was shot, Oscar Grant was detained, lying on his stomach, with his hands behind his back and with an officer’s foot on his neck. What excuse was there to even tase the 22 year old? Perhaps Officer Mehserle only meant to torture him?
The ACLU and Amnesty International are not alone in condemning tasers. In 2007 the U.N. Committee Against Torture said the use of tasers could constitute a form of torture. This cruel punishment, a brutality carried out by police for the slightest offense, without charges or trial, is increasingly a part of American injustice and part of an international epidemic of state-sponsored violence and murder.
The outcome of the murder trial of Mehserle has great significance. If the cop happens to “mistake” his gun for a taser and kills that person, and if this cop is then judged in court to be devoid of “criminal intent,” then what is to stop any cop from killing anyone at any time for any reason? If intending to use an electro-shock weapon on a person lying face down with his hands behind his back can be categorized as following correct police procedure, then it will exonerate police brutality. What kind of legal precedent will that set and how much of this can people tolerate? Enough is enough.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Use of Tasers being Reviewed in Missouri
A group calling itself the Coalition to Control Tasers is asking the Columbia, Missouri, police department to review its policy on the use of the weapons.
According to the Columbia Missourian, the coalition wants the police department to adopt a 52-policy guideline outlining how and when its officers should use Tasers. Last July the police department caught flak when they tasered a man who was threatening to commit suicide. Once shot, the man fell off a 15-foot overpass. The city later reached a $500,000 settlement with the man. The Columbia police now prohibit use of the weapons in misdemeanor offenses.
Meanwhile, in Jefferson City, state Sen. Joan Bray (D-St. Louis County) is pushing a bill that would create a statewide task force to review the safety of Tasers. The task force would include doctors, scientists, lawyers, police and two private citizens who've been shot with Tasers.
According to the Columbia Missourian, the coalition wants the police department to adopt a 52-policy guideline outlining how and when its officers should use Tasers. Last July the police department caught flak when they tasered a man who was threatening to commit suicide. Once shot, the man fell off a 15-foot overpass. The city later reached a $500,000 settlement with the man. The Columbia police now prohibit use of the weapons in misdemeanor offenses.
Meanwhile, in Jefferson City, state Sen. Joan Bray (D-St. Louis County) is pushing a bill that would create a statewide task force to review the safety of Tasers. The task force would include doctors, scientists, lawyers, police and two private citizens who've been shot with Tasers.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Taser Use by Massachusetts Officers on the Rise
The use of Tasers by police in Massachusetts has soared in recent years.
The Boston Globe reports police used Tasers in 229 incidents between September 2007 and September 2008. That’s a fourfold increase from three years ago.
Fall River police reported 45 Tasers incidents last year, the most in the state, at one point firing the weapon 11 times to subdue a man his family described as mentally ill.
Police say Tasers, which deliver a five second, 50,000-volt shock, are an effective, non-lethal way to subdue violent suspects.
Amnesty International said at least 334 people across the United States died after police used Tasers on them since 2001. The human rights group said it’s difficult to know if the Tasers caused the deaths.
_________________
http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/2009/02/taser-use-by-massachussetts-police.html
The Boston Globe reports police used Tasers in 229 incidents between September 2007 and September 2008. That’s a fourfold increase from three years ago.
Fall River police reported 45 Tasers incidents last year, the most in the state, at one point firing the weapon 11 times to subdue a man his family described as mentally ill.
Police say Tasers, which deliver a five second, 50,000-volt shock, are an effective, non-lethal way to subdue violent suspects.
Amnesty International said at least 334 people across the United States died after police used Tasers on them since 2001. The human rights group said it’s difficult to know if the Tasers caused the deaths.
_________________
http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/2009/02/taser-use-by-massachussetts-police.html
Friday, February 06, 2009
Lawyers Recieves $1.4 Million in Legal Fees for Winning Taser Case
Lawyers who won $183,000 for the family of a man who died in 2005 after being Tasered dozens of times by Salinas, Calif., police have now been awarded $1.4 million in legal fees.
A federal judge yesterday ordered Taser International Inc. to pay the seven-figure amount, acknowledging that the $1,423,000 legal-fees bill is far more than the amount won by the family of Robert Heston. However, he said the award was appropriate because the lawyers took a significant risk in pursuing the case, which provided a significant public benefit, reports the Monterrey Herald.
The Arizona-based company says it will appeal the award to plaintiff attorneys John Burton and Peter Williamson.
"The case marked the first time Taser was found negligent in a death related to the use of its stun guns," the newspaper writes.
Heston's family originally was awarded more than $5 million in a jury verdict last year, for failing to warn Salinas police of the danger of multiple use of a Taser. However, U.S. District Judge James Ware reduced the award to $183,000, eliminating punitive damages, after finding that Heston, who was high on methamphetamine at the time, was 85 percent negligent in the incident.
Although the article does not explain the legal basis for the award of attorney's fees, it appears to have been made under a civil rights statute providing for the defendant to pay a prevailing plaintiff's legal costs.
A federal judge yesterday ordered Taser International Inc. to pay the seven-figure amount, acknowledging that the $1,423,000 legal-fees bill is far more than the amount won by the family of Robert Heston. However, he said the award was appropriate because the lawyers took a significant risk in pursuing the case, which provided a significant public benefit, reports the Monterrey Herald.
The Arizona-based company says it will appeal the award to plaintiff attorneys John Burton and Peter Williamson.
"The case marked the first time Taser was found negligent in a death related to the use of its stun guns," the newspaper writes.
Heston's family originally was awarded more than $5 million in a jury verdict last year, for failing to warn Salinas police of the danger of multiple use of a Taser. However, U.S. District Judge James Ware reduced the award to $183,000, eliminating punitive damages, after finding that Heston, who was high on methamphetamine at the time, was 85 percent negligent in the incident.
Although the article does not explain the legal basis for the award of attorney's fees, it appears to have been made under a civil rights statute providing for the defendant to pay a prevailing plaintiff's legal costs.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Vancouver Officers Facing Charges
Vancouver police are recommending criminal charges be laid against two police officers allegedly involved in attacking and robbing a National Post delivery driver last week.
A New Westminster officer will face charges of assault and possession of stolen property, while a West Vancouver officer is looking at a robbery charge, Chief Jim Chu told a news conference yesterday.
A third off-duty policeman from the Delta force who was arrested after the early morning assault last Wednesday will not be charged, Chief Chu said, citing evidence that the officer may have tried to intervene to stop the assault.
It was the chief's second statement in less than a week, the latest in a recent string of B. C. cops being accused of behaving badly.
"From the moment the Vancouver police were called to the scene, many of us realized that this would be a case that could polarize public opinion, shake their faith in the justice system and offer every police critic a new platform to speak from," Chief Chu said in a statement released yesterday.
"While I abhor the actions that are attributed to these members, I am very pleased with the [police department's] response."
All three officers spent a night in a jail after police responded to a 911 call outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where 47-year-old delivery man Firoz Khan claimed the officers attacked him unprovoked, robbed him, racially abused him and threatened to use a Taser. His assailants were alleged to have stolen his cellphone and $200.
Because the victim could not identify the officer who allegedly uttered racial remarks, police were not recommending the case be tried as a hate crime, Chief Chu said, noting the matter would be left to the courts to "take into consideration."
Chiefs from the New Westminster, West Vancouver and Delta departments will also be conducting their own investigations to determine the status of the three officers, he added.
A New Westminster officer will face charges of assault and possession of stolen property, while a West Vancouver officer is looking at a robbery charge, Chief Jim Chu told a news conference yesterday.
A third off-duty policeman from the Delta force who was arrested after the early morning assault last Wednesday will not be charged, Chief Chu said, citing evidence that the officer may have tried to intervene to stop the assault.
It was the chief's second statement in less than a week, the latest in a recent string of B. C. cops being accused of behaving badly.
"From the moment the Vancouver police were called to the scene, many of us realized that this would be a case that could polarize public opinion, shake their faith in the justice system and offer every police critic a new platform to speak from," Chief Chu said in a statement released yesterday.
"While I abhor the actions that are attributed to these members, I am very pleased with the [police department's] response."
All three officers spent a night in a jail after police responded to a 911 call outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where 47-year-old delivery man Firoz Khan claimed the officers attacked him unprovoked, robbed him, racially abused him and threatened to use a Taser. His assailants were alleged to have stolen his cellphone and $200.
Because the victim could not identify the officer who allegedly uttered racial remarks, police were not recommending the case be tried as a hate crime, Chief Chu said, noting the matter would be left to the courts to "take into consideration."
Chiefs from the New Westminster, West Vancouver and Delta departments will also be conducting their own investigations to determine the status of the three officers, he added.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Danville Organization Wants State Wide Moratorium on Use of Tasers
Danville, VA
A Danville organization is calling for a state wide moratorium on the use of a taser. The city's chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference held a press conference at the Mount Caramel Baptist Church -- to address the use of tasers by law enforcement.
The conference comes exactly one week after a 17 year old Martinsville boy died after an officer tasered him. Organization leaders say they understand tasers can be used to save lives but say the risks may outweigh the benefits.
Rev. William Keen, Southern Christian Leadership Conference - "We want a moratorium on the taser ‘til further study is done to prove what is causing the deaths of those that are tasered."
The organization says they'd like to hold public hearings in Martinsville to raise awareness about the use of tasers.
A Danville organization is calling for a state wide moratorium on the use of a taser. The city's chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference held a press conference at the Mount Caramel Baptist Church -- to address the use of tasers by law enforcement.
The conference comes exactly one week after a 17 year old Martinsville boy died after an officer tasered him. Organization leaders say they understand tasers can be used to save lives but say the risks may outweigh the benefits.
Rev. William Keen, Southern Christian Leadership Conference - "We want a moratorium on the taser ‘til further study is done to prove what is causing the deaths of those that are tasered."
The organization says they'd like to hold public hearings in Martinsville to raise awareness about the use of tasers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)