[goldeneggs]

Missouri Police taser injured boy 19 times



David Edwards and Diane Sweet
Published: Saturday July 26, 2008

KY 3 News' Sara Sheffield reports on an injured teen from Ozark, Missouri who was tasered up to 19 times by police.

Passing motorists called Ozark police out of concern for the teen as he walked along the busy overpass. When the police arrived, the young man was lying on the shoulder of the highway directly underneath the 30 foot high overpass with a broken back and foot.

Doctors believe 16-year-old Mace Hutchinson broke his back and heel after falling, as his injuries are consistent with such a fall. The boy's family does not understand why police would have tasered the the teen 19 times after he was so seriously injured.

The teen's father said that the use of the taser caused Mace to develop an elevated white blood cell count, leading to a fever that delayed the young man's otherwise immediate surgery by two days.

Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset attempted to explain why the taser was used:
"He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he's also making statements such as, 'Shoot cops, kill cops,' things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers."
Ozark police say that while there remains unanswered questions in the case, the reason for the use of the Taser is not one of them.

This video is from KY3 News, broadcast July 24, 2008.

[mynaflzak]

This is also becoming an issue in Canada after a 17 year old died after being tasered by police in the city of Winnipeg.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...s_name=&no_ads=

[zuhraliyana]

Man dies after cop hits him with Taser 9 times



From Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick
CNN

WINNFIELD, Louisiana (CNN) -- A police officer shocked a handcuffed Baron "Scooter" Pikes nine times with a Taser after arresting him on a cocaine charge.

He stopped twitching after seven, according to a coroner's report. Soon afterward, Pikes was dead.

Now the officer [Nugent], since fired, could end up facing criminal charges in Pikes' January death after medical examiners ruled it a homicide.

Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish coroner, told CNN the 21-year-old sawmill worker was jolted so many times by the 50,000-volt Taser that he might have been dead before the last two shocks were delivered.

Williams ruled Pikes' death a homicide in June after extensive study.

-----

...Williams, who ruled Pikes' death a homicide in June after extensive study, said Nugent fired his Taser at Pikes six times in less than three minutes -- shots recorded by a computer chip in the weapon's handle. Then officers put [a handcuffed] Pikes in the back of a cruiser and drove him to their police station -- where Nugent fired a seventh shot, directly against Pikes' chest.

"After he was given that drive stun to the chest, he was pulled out of the car onto the concrete, " Williams told CNN. "He was electroshocked two more times, which two officers noted that he had no neuromuscular response to those last two 50,000-volt electroshocks."

Williams said he had two nationally known forensic pathologists, including former New York city medical examiner Michael Baden, review the case before issuing his conclusions. He said it's possible Nugent was shocking a dead man the last two times he pulled the trigger.

"This fellow was talking in the back seat of the car prior to shot number seven," he said. "From that point on, it becomes questionable [if Pikes was still alive]."

-----

...Taser International, the device's manufacturer, indicates that "multiple Tasings do not affect a person." But he said he could not explain why Pikes was shocked so many times, and said whether Nugent followed proper procedure was "yet to be determined."

But a copy of the Winnfield Police Department's Taser training manual, obtained by CNN, says the device "shall only be deployed in circumstances where it is deemed reasonably necessary to control a dangerous or violent subject." And Williams said regulations regarding the use of Tasers were not followed.

"It violated every aspect -- every single aspect -- of the department's policy about its use," the coroner said.

-----

Full story and video.

[Bigroza]

Judge orders stun gun references removed from autopsies

May 3rd, 2008 @ 9:04am
by Associated Press
AKRON, Ohio - A medical examiner must change her autopsy findings to delete any reference that stun guns contributed to the deaths of three people involved in confrontations with law enforcement officers, a judge ruled.

Friday's decision was a victory for Taser International Inc., which had challenged rulings by Summit County Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler, including a case in which five sheriff's deputies are charged in the death a jail inmate who was restrained by the wrists and ankles and hit with pepper spray and a stun gun.

Kohler ruled that the 2006 death of Mark McCullaugh Jr., 28, was a homicide and that he died from asphyxiation due to the ``combined effects of chemical, mechanical and electrical restraint.''

Visiting Judge Ted Schneiderman said in his ruling that there was no expert evidence to indicate that Taser devices impaired McCullaugh's respiration. ``More likely, the death was due to a fatal cardiac arrhythmia brought on by severe heart disease,'' the judge wrote.

Schneiderman ordered Kohler to rule McCullaugh's death undetermined and to delete any references to homicide.

The judge also said references to stun guns contributing to the deaths of two other men must be deleted from autopsy findings. Dennis Hyde, 30, died in 2005 after a confrontation with Akron police, and Richard Holcomb, 18, died the same year after being hit with a stun by a police officer in suburban Springfield Township.

It was unclear what affect Schneiderman's ruling may have on the upcoming criminal trial of the five sheriff's deputies. One of them, Deputy Stephen Krendick, is charged with murder. Other deputies face charges of reckless homicide or felonious assault. All have pleaded not guilty.

Krendick's trial is scheduled to begin June 16. A spokesman for the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office, which is handling the case, said its lawyers are prepared to go forward.

Steve Tuttle, vice president of communications for Taser International, said the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company is pleased with Schneiderman's ruling.

``Taser International believed from the beginning that these determinations of cause of death must be supported by facts, medical research and scientific evidence,'' Tuttle said.

John Manley, a Summit County prosecutor who represented Kohler, said the judge's order went too far. The county is considering an appeal, he said.

``Taser is quite a force to be reckoned with and does everything to protect their golden egg, which is the Model X26,'' Manley said.

[Enjknsua]

66-year-old minister claims hospital guards tased him over joke

David Edwards and Andrew McLemore
Published: Friday July 25, 2008

A reverend claims security guards dragged him out of a Toledo, Ohio hospital and tasered and beat him because he told a joke, CBS reported Friday.

Rev. Al Poisson said he was visiting the hospital to see a man who had been injured while Poisson was shopping with his 6-year-old grandson. According to the reverend, an innocent joke about the lack of a smile on a guard's face led to a beating.

Security cameras caught the incident on camera and show at least five officers surrounding a man laying on the floor and beating him.

"It wound up being an atrocious, unbelievable situation, to say the least," the 66-year-old minister said.

"They've cut about five minutes of this video out," Poisson said, describing the length of time he was kicked on the ground by one of the younger guards.

St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center issued a statement defending the guards' actions which said "the response to the aggression was appropriate."

The hospital pressed charges against Poisson for assault that were eventually thrown out of court, Poisson said.

Poisson is filing a lawsuit with his lawyer Stevin Groth.

"We're going to use the American justice system, put this in front of a jury and let them decide what's appropriate," Groth said.

This video is from CBS Early Show, broadcast July 25, 2008.

[Kamepherype]

With an adversarial attitude as the default for 'law enforcement' officers, they can become all too eager to enforce compliance to their commands with 'nonlethal' weapons -- presaging an easy escalation to deadly force -- especially when a bloodied and burned car crash victim is in shock in the street and first responders are afraid of blood.

28 seconds : The Killing of Fouad Kaady

[Thomaswhitee]

This is also becoming an issue in Canada after a 17 year old died after being tasered by police in the city of Winnipeg.

This is very true. The RCMP in particular has been excoriated in much of the Canadian press for their use of this supposedly harmless weapon to keep people in line. Those images of the friendly, red jacketed 'Mounties' on black and chestnut coloured horses, are now being replaced with out of control darkly uniformed goons - their alternate look - with taser(s) prodding helpless individuals at an airport or on the street.

[PriniMai]

Being momentarily paralized by 1,000s of volts of electricity is not necessarily considered "safe."

[bestcigsnick]

Despite some of the mis-uses pointed out here, IMO the taser has proven to be an effective LE tool for subduing combative suspects.

I believe it has saved many lives over the years it's been in use.

The bottom line is do what the cop asks you to do and you shouldn't have a problem. Of course if you're high on drugs or a psycho, you may need a little ~~~ZAP~~~

[xochgtlm]

Um, CCob, do you deliberately phish for phlame?

People are sited as dying here and all you say is "hey, these things are pretty good!"

Stun guns may have their merrit, but I think they should be more heavily regulated. If it was a bigger PITA to use these things (forms to fill out on why they were used, and possible punishment for "accidental" death, etc) maybe they would think twice about using them on a whim.

They are near-lethal weapons and CAN kill someone. Until these guys are trained with that in mind, and security guards/non LICENSED individuals (even cops) are kept from having them, we will still see these cases of abuse.

Hell, even with increased regulation, there still is a chance.


Question, and not trying to side with Mr. Troubleseeker here. How many people have been killed by Batons? I would figure that a determined club to the head could be just as damaging as a shock to the body, but I may be wrong....

[onlineslotetes]

The problem, as I see it, is that the use of physical force, such as a baton, is recognized by police officers as an escalation in dealing with someone they are trying to take into custody. However, a taser is not always regarded the same way, and the step from talking to a suspect to using physical force is more readily taken.

The body functions by electro-chemical impulses; electricity is dangerous. I've worked with it, and seen its effects.

[casinobonusa]

The problem, as I see it, is that the use of physical force, such as a baton, is recognized by police officers as an escalation in dealing with someone they are trying to take into custody. However, a taser is not always regarded the same way, and the step from talking to a suspect to using physical force is more readily taken.

I agree with you on that. They seem to be using it as a way to "pacify" a suspect w/o even going the additional steps. No talking, no physical restraint, and in some cases use of shock to just get the guy to stop bothering them (as the cases of people already restrained).

I think if they were properly trained to recognise these things as one small step back from shooting someone they would give these "ray-guns" a bit more respect.

[dayclaccikere]

Naked man walking dog Tasered by Tallahassee police

BY NIC CORBETT • DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER • SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

A 40-year-old man walking his dog in the nude Friday night in northwest Tallahassee was Tasered by police when he became belligerent and refused to follow an officer’s commands.

An officer on patrol spotted the man about 8:15 p.m. in the 2200 block of Hartsfield Road, said Officer David McCranie of the Tallahassee Police Department.

When asked what he was doing, the man told the officer, “Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog,” McCranie said.

“He was obviously having some sort of emotional distress,” he said. “It was unfortunate we had to use the Taser. … It was the only way we could subdue him without having to hurt him.”

The man was then sent for mental-health evaluation and treatment.

*****

What's so unfortunate?

Tasers don't hurt. Without tasers this man would have been hurt. The helpful police officers 'humanely' got this man the psychiatric help he needed. Praise Allah for the taser!

[gabbaman]

September 25, 2008

Brooklyn Man Dies After Police Use a Taser Gun

By TRYMAINE LEE and CHRISTINE HAUSER

A naked and apparently emotionally disturbed man fell to his death from a building ledge in Brooklyn on Wednesday after an officer shot him with a Taser stun gun, the police said. The police and witnesses said he had been yelling at passers-by and swinging a long light bulb tube at officers before he fell.

The man, identified by the police as Inman Morales, 35, was taken to Kings County Hospital Center with serious head trauma after falling about 10 feet to the ground, witnesses said. He was later pronounced dead, officials said.

Mr. Morales’s death on Wednesday afternoon was another episode in the controversial history of Taser use in the city. While Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has looked cautiously on the use of stun gun technology by the Police Department, he recently said he was open to broadening the use of the weapons after a city-commissioned study on police shooting habits urged the department to consider using Tasers more frequently instead of deadly force when applicable.

A video taken by a witness and posted on the Web site of The New York Post shows Mr. Morales naked on the ledge, waving the filament tube over the heads of officers as onlookers screamed, an eerie soundtrack to what soon followed.

“It was a dead man’s fall,” said a witness, Charlene Gordon, the property manager for the four-story brown-brick building at 489 Tompkins Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where Mr. Morales rented a third-floor apartment.

Ms. Gordon said that another tenant in the building told her that she had heard Mr. Morales screaming in his apartment, and then saw him in the hall acting strangely. Ms. Gordon talked to his mother during the standoff, and she told Ms. Gordon that she had not seen her son in a couple of days. She also said he had stopped taking his medication, Ms. Gordon said.

Mr. Morales’s mother went to the building, where she found her son out of control, witnesses said. About 3 p.m., she called 911.

Officers with the Emergency Service Unit who arrived at the building were soon chasing Mr. Morales through his apartment, out a window and onto a fire escape. By then he had ripped a long light bulb from a ceiling fixture and was jabbing it at the pursuing officers, the police said.

He then jumped from the fire escape onto the narrow housing of a rolled-up security gate over the storefront on the ground floor of the building, the police said. Mr. Morales again swung the long tube, hitting an officer on the head, the police said.

“He was naked and he kept screaming,” said Joseph Adrien, who works at a nearby dry cleaners. Another witness said Mr. Morales’s mother was kept off to the side, pleading with the police to let her calm her son’s nerves, but being told repeatedly that it was now a police matter.

For about 30 minutes, Mr. Morales yelled that he did not want anyone touching him, and the police yelled back that they wanted him to come down, witnesses said. Then, an officer approached the man on his perch and fired the Taser at him.

Ms. Gordon said that Mr. Morales had lived in the building for about three years. She described him as quiet and neat. He had previously worked in the financial industry, but had been receiving rent subsidies, she said.

Community activists held a news conference after Mr. Morales’s death, urging neighbors not to prejudge the police and urging the authorities to fully investigate.

City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said in a telephone interview that the situation could have been handled better by the police.

“My first take is that while I’m sure there are no experts out there on how to handle a crazy naked man with a weapon on top of a ledge, I’m also sure this wasn’t the right way, ” Mr. Vallone said on Wednesday evening.

“A situation like that is never going to end in a good way,” Mr. Vallone said after watching the video. “The most important thing is that no innocent bystanders or police got hurt. But clearly, it could have been handled better.”

Mr. Vallone said a public hearing on the department’s use of Tasers might be needed to fine-tune its policy on using them.

The use of Tasers in New York has a troubled history. In the early 1980s, the police were condemned for using them to force drug suspects to confess. Mr. Kelly, then a deputy inspector, was assigned to reform the police practices.

The study on police shootings, which urged the department to consider expanding its use of Tasers, was conducted by the RAND Corporation and commissioned seven weeks after the shooting of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets in Queens on his wedding day in November 2006.

The chief spokesman for the Police Department, Paul J. Browne, said Mr. Morales’s death was under investigation. Department guidelines say an officer may use a Taser if an emotionally disturbed person is a danger to himself or to others. Emergency service units may use it in an emergency without direction, or, as on Wednesday, at the direction of an emergency unit supervisor on the scene, Mr. Browne said.

Currently, emergency service unit officers use the Taser about 300 times a year, mainly when responding to some of the 80,000 calls regarding emotionally disturbed people, officials said.

The handgun-shaped device, which incapacitates a target with a pulsating electrical current and is meant to be an alternative to deadly force, got a higher profile in the department in June when Mr. Kelly announced that Tasers would also be used by sergeants on patrol, who would carry them on their belts instead of keeping them in the trunk of their cars.

Mr. Browne said that officers responding to a situation in which someone is threatening to jump from a building or other high structure will routinely request an inflatable bag to help break the jumper’s fall. But he said that Mr. Morales was only about 10 feet from the sidewalk, and that it was unclear whether a bag had been requested but had not made it to the scene on time, or whether it had not been requested at all. Mr. Browne said the matter would be explored as part of the investigation.

“His mother called 911,” said Sharonnie Perry, a community advocate who lives down the street. “She called for assistance and the assistance she got was her son being killed.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[GuitarLoverBe]

See!

Tazers don't kill! The blunt trauma of hittingth eground is the REAL culprit!!!!!

[ElcinBoris]

NY1

09/28/2008 02:02 PM
Funeral Service To Be Held Thursday For Taser Victim



Funeral services will be held Thursday in the West Village for the emotionally-disturbed man who fell to his death after being hit by a taser fired by a police officer last week.

Iman Morales died Wednesday. He had crawled naked onto the second-story awning of his Brooklyn apartment building, then fell 10 feet after the taser shot struck him in the head.

The NYPD says the officers involved violated department guidelines.

The lieutenant who ordered the taser shot has been stripped of his badge and gun. The officer who pulled the trigger is on desk duty.

Commissioner Ray Kelly has ordered all 440 members of the Emergency Services Unit to take a refresher course Monday at Floyd Bennett Field on how to deal with emotionally disturbed people.

[xyupi]

Tasering of mom with baby 'necessary,' police say
Teen mother refused to release her critically ill child for medical care, department says

Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, September 27, 2008

VANCOUVER - Vancouver police are defending a decision by officers to Taser a 16-year-old mother who wouldn't hand her baby over to social workers last Monday, saying the officers were afraid to engage in a tug of war with the mother for what they said was a critically ill baby.

However, the great-grandmother of one-month-old Taige said Friday the baby boy was not critically ill.

Doreen Duncan said she saw the baby and his parents -- her grandson Scott Michell, 17, and Misha Peterson, 16, -- the night before the Taser incident.

"They came to my house and I fed the baby and Misha burped him and they were real happy," Duncan said.

"The baby was born with a minor brain condition and they'd checked him out the week before, and the baby was fine. They were told that a scan would be done when the baby gets older and other than that, everything was normal," she said.

Police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said social workers had come to apprehend the child so he could be taken to hospital and called for police assistance when the mother refused to give the baby up.

"Our members found it necessary to Taser a mentally distraught teenager to save the life of her baby," McGuinness said.

"They felt it was critical for them to intervene as they were afraid the child might be smothered, and they applied the Taser to her arm and upper back and she released the child," she said.

"We couldn't risk a tug of war or a physical struggle with the mother over the child," McGuinness said, adding that the officers were afraid such a struggle would injure the baby.

Duncan said Michell and Peterson had known each other for three years and that Peterson was living in a Vancouver group home. Michell had quit school after the baby was born and had found a job, she said.

It appears that when Peterson didn't report back to the group home with the baby Sunday evening, social workers and the police came looking for her, Duncan said.

"They phoned me and said it was a missing persons case and I told them that everything was fine and that they would likely be at Scott's place," she said.

"Then Scott called later and told me they'd Tasered Misha. They had told him to leave the room and Misha had asked him not to because she was afraid they were going to take the baby. She's never been separated from the baby since it was born," Duncan said.

Negotiations for release of the child had gone on for three hours when the officers intervened, McGuinness said.

"We're talking about a critically ill baby. The actions of the mother led us to believe the baby might be smothered," McGuinness said.

"This is a situation we never want to see -- a mother being separated from her child,"It's traumatic when we use force and we use care, especially when we are dealing with a distraught young mother. The last thing we want to do is use force on a child," she said.

"Some people might criticize our decision, but there was a child's life in the balance here."

But Duncan said the police were wrong to Taser the girl.

"She didn't want to let go of the baby. I don't know why they did that to her. She's a good mother and to get Tasered while she had the baby in her arms -- she's still got the marks on her neck," Duncan said.

Duncan said she saw the couple Thursday evening and both were withdrawn and upset.

"She's quiet and missing the baby. She wanted to know when she's getting the baby back and she's been told she'll only get it back when she earns it.

"How do you earn a baby? She's been told its coming up in court Monday, so now she's concerned they want to keep it," Duncan said.

The incident occurred at a time when police use of Tasers is being questioned across North America following a number of high-profile incidents in which the electrical device was used and victims died.

McGuinness said the incident will be the subject of an internal review.

"We do that on all incidents in which force has been used," she said.

gbellett@vancouversun.com

[MedicineForUs]

That case is so weird.

I can't say they were proper in Tasering the girl, but this might be the arm shock, not the barbed gun thing.

It is sad on so many levels. not the least of which a 15 year old preggers. (16 year old with kid...)....


You only hope the kid is getting what it needs to grow up healthy.

[Assunkkensatt]

A taser is a necessary evil....if used properly it can prevent law enforcement from being hurt as well as the indivudal hurting themselves further.
How many people get intoxicated get into a car and kill someone?
Having been on this forum for a short time I have not seen any threads about that topic......its unfortunate that people die when they get tasered but like in forest gump.........shit happens.....but trust me most law enforcers don't want to shoot or taser a person because of the bad outcomes.

[purchasviagra]

T5P, the key is to make sure that cops are always held accountable for it though.

They have to realize that this is on a level somewhere between a baton and a gun. It has the POTENTIAL to kill.


Some of these guys forget this, and use it because they do not feel like dealing with someone, like t get a protestor to shut up.

NOT because they are fighting them, just to make them stop talking.

That simply is not right.


I think Tazers are a necessary evil, but we must make sure that we have someone watching out for the public when and how they are used.