Go to the Hospital or Get Tasered

Back in June I wrote about an unbelievable case of taser abuse, where a bedridden, 86 year-old woman was tasered by police. Now, from CBS News comes yet another extreme, unjustified taser assault. This time it was a 64 year-old man who had fallen in his home. Apparently police were called, and wanted him to go to the hospital. He refused since he didn't have insurance. So what did the officer do? Despite being told the man had a heart problem, he shocked him several times with his taser, in order to force him to get into an ambulance against his will.

It is long past time to start making an example of that sort of abusive police officer. He should not only be kicked off the force, but should currently be in jail awaiting trial on charges of assault & battery and reckless endangerment -- at the very least.

Pain Ray Testing in a U.S. Prison

You may remember that the U.S. military was testing a so-called pain ray in Afghanistan. It produced some minor controversy.

Several weeks ago, site co-founder Sharon Weinberger and I started pestering the military about the decision to send a microwave heat ray gun to Afghanistan. Blasting the locals with an invisible pain beam, we suggested, might not be the optimal way to promote trust in the Kabul and Washington governments.

The system was withdrawn from Afghanistan back in July.  But now they found a better place to test it, on U.S. prisoners in California.

The 7½-foot-tall Assault Intervention Device emits a focused, invisible ray that causes an unbearable heating sensation in its targets – hopefully stopping inmates from fighting or doing anything other than trying to get out of its way, sheriff's officials said.

This is yet another example of why I laugh at the hysterical overreaction of those who whine about the U.S. using some torture techniques on terrorist prisoners. How many times have you heard some fool bleat about how torture is "un-American," in complete ignorance or denial about not only history, but what goes on in our domestic prison system? There are numerous people who have an incredibly expansive definition of torture that encompasses almost any coercive technique, or even threats. But what about an invisible ray that makes people feel like their skin is on fire? As long as we use it to enforce compliance in U.S. prisons instead of extracting information from enemy prisoners, there's no problem.

Throughout the U.S., American citizens who have been convicted of no crime are regularly shocked into submission to police by a serious jolt of electricity from tasers. There are all sorts of nasty techniques used to control prisoners in jail -- techniques which many would consider torture. The rationale for using this pain ray is to break up fights in prison. What are the odds that it might be abused and used for other less justifiable purposes? But don't worry, it's not that big a deal, unless we were to use it in an attempt to interrogate foreign enemies who would like nothing better than to slaughter thousands of Americans.

Unbelievable Taser Abuse

There have been numerous cases of unnecessary & abusive taser use by police, but this one has to top them all.  A man called 911 for medical assistance for his 86 year old grandmother who was disabled, bedridden and on oxygen. She didn't know when she had taken her medications, so he asked for an EMT to come evaluate her. Instead, about ten cops showed up.

The grandma, Lona Varner, "told them to get out of her apartment."... "Instead, the apparent leader of the police ... instructed another policeman to 'Taser her!' He stated in his report that the 86 year-old plaintiff 'took a more aggressive posture in her bed,' and that he was fearful for his safety and the safety of others.

She was tasered not once, but twice. The grandson protested before they did it, and for his protest was threatened with tasering and put in handcuffs.  Read the whole thing, it's truly unbelievable. The account is from the grandson and his grandmother, Lona M. Varner, who are suing the city and the police officers involved. If their story is in any way accurate, those cops should face not just a lawsuit but criminal charges. There's absolutely no excuse for tasering an 86 year old, disabled, bedridden woman on oxygen -- whether she went crazy or not.

Why No Taser?

I've been highly critical of overuse and inappropriate taser use by police. But here's a situation where a taser might have been used instead of lethal force, but was not.

A man entered his Sikh temple in suburban Cleveland early Thursday, raised a meat cleaver near two members preparing for morning prayers, and was shot and killed by police, authorities said. ... The two men readying to pray fled and returned with officers, who were confronted within a minute by the man, again with the cleaver raised, the chief said. He kept moving toward officers and was shot.

The story doesn't say the man made a sudden charge at police, just that he kept moving toward them. Why not drop him with a taser instead of killing him? This is exactly the sort of situation where a taser should be used as an alternative to lethal force. With multiple officers present, it would still have been possible to kill him should the taser have proven ineffective. I know I'm second-guessing a crisis situation, and there might have been other factors involved. But it seems that a taser should have been a viable alternative. As Obama would say-- let me be clear. The shooting was definitely justified. Police have every right to defend themselves against the potentially lethal threat of a bladed weapon. But was the shooting necessary, when a non-lethal tool widely employed by police might have gotten the job done?

Shoot People in the Back

That's one of the new recommendations from Taser International. In response to deaths from cardiac arrest blamed on tasers, the organization has issued a new "targeting guide." It advises taser users against

aiming at the chest. The back is preferred over the front as a target area.

You might be wondering why, if someone is running away, they need to be shot with a taser in the first place. But of course that's just an unimportant detail.

Here's a better idea. Instead of issuing ridiculous restrictions for targeting that take away a weapon's primary target area, how about we restrict the use of tasers to situations in which they are truly necessary? The problem with tasers isn't that they sometimes result in the death of targets. It's that they are greatly overused. Instead of using them as a substitute for lethal force in situations when a firearm is overkill, they are used from everything to enforcing traffic stop compliance to dealing with unruly or disturbed children. That problem isn't going to be solved by shooting people in the legs or back.

More Taser Abuse

According to CBS News, Merced, California police tasered an unarmed, wheelchair-bound double amputee.

Williams and witnesses say officers tasered the wheelchair-bound man twice, then left him handcuffed on the sidewalk in broad daylight, with his pants down.

I'm sure an unarmed man with no legs in a wheelchair was such a threat to police that blasting him with electricity was necessary. Maybe he tried to run them over.

To add insult to injury, Mr. Williams spent six days in jail before prosecutors figured out that they "lacked evidence to charge him." Don't worry, I'm sure the police will have great excuses about why this tasering was completely justifiable and with their taser use policy.

Extreme Case of Taser Abuse

I just checked Memorandum and there is a link to one of the worst cases of police taser-abuse I've ever seen -- and that's saying a lot. Read the story and watch the video. That cop should not only be off the force, he should be in jail. 

Bathroom Tasering

Another day, another unnecessary tasering by police. This time it occurred in Alabama. A disabled man, deaf and with the mental capacity of a 10 - year old, was sick, and locked himself in the bathroom of a Dollar General. He was in there over an hour and store workers called the police, since they didn't know why someone was occupying the bathroom for that long. 

When police arrived, they tried to get in the stall but the man didn't respond. So they broke it open, pepper-sprayed him, and then tasered him. Their excuse for tasering a man in a bathroom stall -- he had an umbrella. Really. A police spokesman actually said that "officers were justified in using force against Love since he had an umbrella."

"The officers really worked within the limits of our level-of-force policy," he said. "We had no information about who this guy was."

Their level of force policy is a complete joke. You have multiple officers versus one unarmed guy in a bathroom stall, who according to the report did nothing other than try to keep the door closed. Even if the man wasn't disabled in any way, there was no need to taser him. 

Once again we see that a police policy on tasers, this time that of the Mobile PD, protects police officers instead of the public. As I've written before, if multiple officers can't subdue a single unarmed man without tasering him, they don't belong on a police force -- period. 

Top Taser Incidents

ABC News has an article up called "Top 7 'Shocking' Taser Incidents." I missed a couple of these incidents. Probably the worst one ABC covers is when cops tased a disturbed, suicidal man in Brooklyn while he was out on a ledge, causing him to fall to his death. Hey, let's prevent him from committing suicide by shocking him so that he topples off a ledge -- brilliant. The other particularly idiotic incident was when a hospital security guard -- an off duty cop -- tasered a man holding his newborn baby, causing the baby to fall. Does basic common sense disappear when people get hold of tasers? What did he think would happen to the baby after the man collapsed from the shock? Naturally the hospital defended the guard, saying that "proper procedure" was followed. They might want to rethink that procedure.

Unfortunately for anyone that pays attention to taser incidents, the seven highlighted by ABC are just the tip of the iceberg. There are actually plenty that are much worse than some of the ones mentioned in the article.

Justifiable Taser Use

I've written a number of posts about incidents where in my opinion police use of tasers was unjustified and unnecessary. But here's one where the police officer appears to have been justified, and the negative consequences were the fault of the suspect.  In Australia a man ran toward a policeman carrying a lighter and a bottle of gasoline. When he refused to stop, he was tasered. Apparently since he had been sniffing gas and was covered with fumes,  the taser caused him to burst into flames. The cop helped put the flames out despite being attacked by a bystander.

This incident is an example of where a taser is a reasonable option, despite the unfortunate consequences. It's unreasonable to expect a cop to disarm someone with a bottle of gasoline and a lighter, a potentially lethal combination. But at the same time there is no major threat until the person gets close enough. Rather than simply shooting him, a taser gives the cop an intermediate option between lethal force and putting himself at extreme risk. Unfortunately the rules for taser use tend to be very loose in most jurisdictions.

Taser Case in Missouri

The city of Moberly, Missouri just paid a $2.4 million wrongful death settlement to the family of Stanley Harlan, who died last August after being tasered during a traffic stop. Harlan

had just been pulled over in their hometown of Moberly, Mo. As the police car video shows, Harlan got out, wanting to know why he was stopped. One officer checked Harlan's driver's license and called for backup. Three more officers arrived. Police later said Harlan had been speeding - that he wasn't threatening but he refused to cooperate.

He had his  hands up at the time he was tasered, and was shocked three times for a total of 31 seconds. Harlan went into cardiac arrest and died before medical help arrived.

This is another example of blatantly unnecessary taser use by police. It's good that the family won its lawsuit, but that doesn't make up for the death of a son who was basically killed by police for the crime of speeding. Yes the death was accidental, but this case points out yet again the need for far tighter restrictions on taser use. The city of Moberly has suspended their use entirely in the wake of this incident.

Taser Death in Australia

Last week a mentally disturbed drug-addict died in Australia after policed tasered him 28 times. Police lied at first and said he was only shot three times, but data from the weapon showed the higher number. It is difficult to tell whether taser use was justifiable at all in this instance, at least from the reports I've seen. According to the article linked above, the victim

had gone on a naked rampage just days after being released from a psychiatric hospital. According to police, he was threatening to harm himself and officers so they tried to use capsicum spray on him.

But it's unclear whether he had a weapon or what exactly he was doing. And we know police lied about the number of shots fired, so it's possible they lied about the circumstances as well. This was not a one-on-one situation. The report indicates that there were multiple officers involved. It's difficult to believe that 28 shots from a taser could possibly have been a justifiable response.

This incident illustrates yet again that tasers are a potentially lethal weapon. They should not be used to enforce "compliance" with police orders, fired at children, or employed in situations that don't involve truly serious danger to police. Here's another example from the U.S. of what I consider taser abuse.

deputies attempted to give verbal commands to the suspect, a 26-year-old Volga man, to get him to cooperate. 
To gain compliance from the man, the deputies had to draw their Tasers and deploy

Unfortunately this type of tasering is common and accepted. The person in question was a "street dancer" involved in some kind of fight. Once again there were multiple officers involved, and the man was unarmed. Is it really too much to ask that two or more trained police officers be able to subdue a single unarmed man without blasting him with 50,000 volts?  If you are too lazy or weak to learn and utilize effective hand-to-hand techniques designed to subdue an assailant, especially with a two-to-one or greater advantage, then you have no business being on a police force. A taser should not be a substitute for effective training, or something police can easily resort to in order to avoid any risk to themselves. Police officers are supposed to "protect and serve," not put their own safety above that of the public. If you want to stay safe and take minimal risks, don't become a police officer.

Infamous ex-Cop Charged with Murder

A California judge ruled that former San Francisco transit cop Johannes Mehserle will face a murder trial. For those who may have forgotten, Mehserle was the police officer who appeared on video shooting an unarmed, face-down man in the back on New Years Day, killing him. The video was all over the internet. His attorney argued that he only meant to taser the victim, and accidentally pulled his gun instead. But the judge didn't buy it. He said,

"There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Mehserle intended to shoot Oscar Grant with a gun and not a Taser."

Even without hearing the witnesses, Mehserle's claim is difficult to believe. He didn't know where he had his own gun & taser holstered? This wasn't some sort of shoot-out in the dark where that kind of confusion might be explained by the chaos of combat. But let's pretend that's what actually happened. He grabbed the taser by mistake. Even that illustrates a huge problem with police use of tasers. If you have someone face-down on the ground, how is shocking him with a taser justified? If he's resisting, so what? How about just subduing him without blasting him with electricity? Is it too much to ask that a trained police officer be able to restrain someone in such a position without resorting to a potentially lethal weapon?

"Taser Torture"?

A group of black bloggers is sponsoring a petition and calling for Congressional hearings on police use of tasers against African-Americans in the U.S.

Group member Eddie Griffin, of the blog, Eddie Griffin-BASG, said, “While there continues to be considerable media and congressional attention to torture in Guantanamo, there is comparatively little attention to the mounting evidence of human rights violations in the streets of America by a number of police departments across America, including torture and killings of black children, women and men through-out the United States through the use and abuse of Tasers.”

I'm not sure why misuse or overuse of tasers is only a problem for black Americans. There have been plenty of news stories detailing questionable taser use by police on people of various races, including a number cases where children have been tasered.  In the latest incident, a school police officer in Phoenix, Arizona tasered a 14 year-old boy in order to break-up a fistfight. Was blasting a kid with 50,000 volts really the best option?

But regardless of the racial issue, the black bloggers' initiative points out yet again why it is so hard to take seriously the hysteria about torturing terrorists. There are all sorts of questionable activities, many of which could be considered torture -- especially using the broad definition favored by torture opponents -- that take place regularly within our criminal justice system. We tolerate and sometimes even advocate those activities. Yet people actually get all worked up about the torture of foreign terrorists.