Taser Watch

[elfismiles]

APD relaxes Taser policy for officers (VIDEO)
New policy allows Taser on restrained suspects
Updated: Wednesday, 07 Mar 2012, 7:56 AM CST
Published : Tuesday, 06 Mar 2012, 10:41 PM CST

Shannon Wolfson

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin police officers who use a Taser on a restrained suspect are not violating department policy.

The new policy went in to effect in August 2011 and relaxes rules on when officers can use Tasers.

"It does not actually prohibit you from tasing someone in handcuffs or in some kind of restraint- it basically tells the officer to use special considerations," said APD Cpl. Anthony Hipolito.

The old APD policy did not allow officers to use a Taser on a handcuffed suspect unless that person was violently resisting. The new policy allows officers to use their discretion, but says using a Taser on a handcuffed suspect should generally be avoided "unless the totality of the circumstances indicate that other available options reasonably appear ineffective, impractical, or would present a greater danger to the officer, the subject or others, and the officer reasonably believes that the need to control the individual outweighs the risk of using the TASER Device."

"It doesn't give the officer blind permission to tase somebody while they're in handcuffs basically for no reason," said Hipolito. "But, as in these cases, these people are committing felonies by escaping from a patrol car or from sitting on the sidewalk but in custody."

Several police videos released by APD show officers using Tasers on suspects who are handcuffed or partially handcuffed, and attempting to escape from police custody.

"They've got to take extra precautions because they don't know why the subject is running -- so it is a scary situation," said Hipolito.

APD said the change in policy was because a review of cases involving Tasers which showed suspects were not being injured by the Tasers and the department considers them a safe use of force.

http://www.kxan.com//dpp/news/local/aus ... r-officers

[elfismiles]

Fort Wayne, IN police taser man strapped to gurney Enhanced ...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLmtyfM1-Cc
Feb 4, 2012 - 52 sec - Uploaded by vwaimlessly
The police in Fort Wayne, Indiana taser a restrained suspect because he spitting up blood. Apparently they ...

Man tased by OPD officer while strapped to gurney settles lawsuits ...
Jan 27, 2011 – A young man shocked with a stun gun while strapped to a gurney at Florida Hospital Orlando has settled lawsuits with both the city of Orlando ...
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/201 ... ler-gurney

Woman says use of Taser felt like electrocution | Dothan
Sep 13, 2010 – ... bipolar disorder and was restrained face down on a hospital gurney at ... The officer claims he used the device, known as a Taser, because ...
http://www2.dothaneagle.com/news/2010/s ... ar-825331/

TNT - TRUTH ... not TASERS
In memory of our brother and son, Robert Bagnell, who died moments after being tasered by police in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 23, 2004. He was the 7th Canadian to die and the 110th in North America.
http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com

Matt Gurney: Ottawa cop doesn’t learn from “learning experience” in brutality
Matt Gurney Nov 18, 2010 – 12:58 PM ET
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... brutality/

[elfismiles]

Mount Sterling Village Council to meet following Taser incident
Police officer shocked 9-year-old twice
By Holly Zachariah
The Columbus Dispatch Monday March 12, 2012 2:32 PM

Officials in the Madison County village of Mount Sterling expect a packed house tonight when the village council meets for the first time since suspending Police Chief Mike McCoy and essentially disbanding the police force on Friday.

Mayor Charlie Neff issued the suspensions after he was told that a village police officer had shocked a 9-year-old boy with a Taser earlier in the week during an arrest. Neff said McCoy should have immediately reported the incident to Neff and council members. He did not.

Officer Scott O’Neil, who used the Taser twice Tuesday morning on 9-year-old Jared Perry, did not respond to calls on Friday for comment. Village officials, however, released a copy of O’Neil’s report this morning.

The sheriff’s office had requested an officer check the boy’s S. Market Street address on because there was an outstanding unruly juvenile complaint filed against him because he was truant from school.

According to O’Neil’s written account: He arrived at the home just before 8:30 a.m. to take the boy into custody. Jared refused to cooperate and wouldn’t put on his shoes to go with the officer. He begged his mother, Michelle Perry, to let him go to school rather than with the officer, but Perry told her son it was too late.

O’Neil wrote that after repeated warnings, he pulled Jared from the couch but the boy “ dropped to the floor and became dead weight ... flailing around.” The officer wrote that Jared — who is listed as between 5 foot 5 and 5 foot 8 inches tall and between 200 and 250 pounds — laid on his hands to prevent being handcuffed.

The report indicates that O’Neil warned that he would use the Taser, and demonstrated the electrical current into the air “as a show of force” to gain the boy’s cooperation. He wrote that Jared’s mother was telling her son to do as O’Neil said or else he would be shocked.

O’Neil wrote that after he shocked Jared the first time, he still refused to cooperate and so he was shocked a second time.

It took both O’Neil and the boy’s mother to get Jared to his feet, once handcuffed. He was breathing heavily but uninjured, and Perry signed a waiver of medical treatment. Jared was taken to the sheriff’s office and charged with delinquency counts of unruliness for his truancy and resisting arrest. O’Neil wrote that Jared’s mother thanked him for his help.

O’Neil said that he immediately notified Chief McCoy about what had happened. McCoy has not publicly commented since his suspension. Perry has not been able to be reached for comment.

The Madison County sheriff’s office is patrolling the village while it all is sorted out. Council President Lowell Anderson said council will have to decide tonight whether to permanently disband the force.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories ... sered.html

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/10/45478.htm

FRESNO, Calif. (CN) - Fresno police drowned a man by Tasering and hogtying him, then sticking a garden hose "onto (his) face and mouth" when he pleaded for water, the man's two children claim in Federal Court.
The two minor children, I.R. and H.R., claim that in the summer of 2011 Fresno police restrained their father, Raul Rosas, at a friend's house while responding to a domestic disturbance call.
The children say their father was not armed and "had not committed a crime."
After an altercation with a John Doe officer, police pepper-sprayed Rosas and then Tasered him a "countless number of times," the complaint states.
The children claim their father was Tasered "for eight to ten more minutes," then he was "hogtied with his ankles tied to his handcuffs behind his back."
The complaint continues: "Decedent was then slammed onto a table in the residence's backyard face down. An officer was observed with his knee on decedent's back while decedent was hogtied, handcuffed, and face down.
"Decedent stated that he couldn't breathe and that he needed water; an officer ran water from a hose onto decedent's face and mouth to the point of making it more difficult for decedent to breathe. Decedent tried to move his mouth away from the water and gasp for air. A witness yelled 'He can't breathe, you're drowning him,' but the officer continued running water over decedent's face.
"After turning the water off, the Doe Officer(s) continued to press his knee against decedent's back and continued to put pressure on it. Witnesses repeatedly asked officers to let decedent get up because he couldn't breathe, but their cries for help were ignored.
"By now there were in excess of 15 deputies and officers on the scene.
"After some time passed, decedent had clear spit bubbles coming out of his mouth.
"Witnesses yelled at officers that decedent was not breathing and pointed to the clear spit bubbles but again were ignored. Doe officer claimed decedent was 'faking it.'"
"Officers, after much pleading from witnesses, checked decedent's pulse and discovered he had stopped breathing after not feeling anything when they touched decedent's neck.
"Decedent had his handcuffs taken off and was untied and placed on his back on the ground. After some time had passed, an officer started doing chest compressions but none of the officers administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the decedent. Ultimately a witness at the scene administered CPR to decedent.
"Some time later, an ambulance arrived and took over trying to revive decedent."
Rosas' children are represented by Brian Claypool of Pasadena.
They seek punitive damages for wrongful death, unreasonable search and seizure, due process violations, supervisory liability, negligence, battery, and violation of the Bane Act.
The sued through their guardians, Claudia and Nora Nava.
Named as defendants are the City of Fresno, the County of Fresno, and Does 1-10.
The City of Fresno did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[Infernal Optimist]

Let's start a new meme: Taster = Torture.

Seriously, you should never, never, never (NEVER!) taser someone when it would not be appropriate to draw your gun! These jerks are just doing this to inflict pain, because they can. Routine traffic stop? Dealing with a heckler? Old ladies? People in wheelchairs? People in handcuffs? 9 year olds?

This is truly outrageous.

[beeline]

Link

Cop repeatedly Tasered teen in jail

BY STEPHANIE FARR

Daily News Staff Writer

A MEMBER OF the Colwyn Police Department is under investigation for repeatedly using a Taser on a juvenile while the boy was in a holding cell last week, according to borough officials and sources.

The 17-year-old boy was arrested for fighting on April 24, charged with disorderly conduct and placed in a holding cell, according to sources. The officer allegedly Tasered the boy up to nine times, sources said, for reasons that are still unclear. The juvenile was allegedly Tasered once in the head and may have been handcuffed, sources said.

Officials declined to confirm the identity of the officer who is under investigation. Deputy Chief Wendell Reed said that there is "somewhat of an investigation going on" and he's "been working on it for a minute."

"The investigation involves an officer involved with a juvenile, yes," Reed said. "The juvenile is fine, there is no issues, no problems. It's just more of a matter of procedure than it is the incident itself."

Colwyn Mayor Daniel Rutland seemed far more concerned about the matter.

"I can tell you right now suspensions are going to be coming," he said. "More than one will be coming."

He declined to say why more than one officer may be suspended for the incident, but he did say that he is looking into allegations of a coverup or, at the very least, that the proper protocols were not followed.

Rutland said that he was not informed of the incident until four days after it occurred, and that was only after he began receiving anonymous calls about it and started asking questions on his own.

"That's how I found out about it," he said. "I basically had to ask."

Although Reed said that the officer in question will be on desk duty while the investigation is ongoing, Rutland said that the borough doesn't have desk duty and that the officer would be off the schedule until the investigation is complete.

Reed is heading the department while Chief Bryan Hills remains out because of an ongoing legal battle with borough council. Hills was fired in 2009 for issues including a dispute over the amount of overtime used by police, but last year an arbitrator determined that he should get his job back. However, borough council continues to fight the decision.

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/healt ... .html?_r=1

The electrical shock delivered to the chest by a Taser can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden death, according to a new study, although it is unknown how frequently such deaths occur.

The study, which analyzed detailed records from the cases of eight people who went into cardiac arrest after receiving shocks from a Taser X26 fired at a distance, is likely to add to the debate about the safety of the weapons. Seven of the people in the study died; one survived.

Advocacy groups like Amnesty International have argued that Tasers, the most widely used of a class of weapons known as electrical control devices, are potentially lethal and that stricter rules should govern their use.

But proponents maintain that the devices — which are used by more than 16,700 law enforcement agencies in 107 countries, said Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser — pose less risk to civilians than firearms and are safer for police officers than physically tackling a suspect. The results of studies of the devices’ safety in humans have been mixed.

Medical experts said on Monday that the new report, published online on Monday in the journal Circulation, makes clear that electrical shocks from Tasers, which shoot barbs into the clothes and skin, can in some cases set off irregular heart rhythms, leading to cardiac arrest.

“This is no longer arguable,” said Dr. Byron Lee, a cardiologist and director of the electrophysiology laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. “This is a scientific fact. The national debate should now center on whether the risk of sudden death with Tasers is low enough to warrant widespread use by law enforcement.”

The author of the study, Dr. Douglas P. Zipes, a cardiologist and professor emeritus at Indiana University, has served as a witness for plaintiffs in lawsuits against Taser — a fact that Mr. Tuttle said tainted the findings. “Clearly, Dr. Zipes has a strong financial bias based on his career as an expert witness,” Mr. Tuttle said in an e-mail, adding that a 2011 National Institute of Justice report concluded there was no evidence that Tasers posed a significant risk of cardiac arrest “when deployed reasonably.”

However, Dr. Robert J. Myerburg, a professor of medicine in cardiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said that Dr. Zipes’s role in litigation also gave him extensive access to data from medical records, police records and autopsy reports. The study, he said, had persuaded him that in at least some of the eight cases, the Taser shock was responsible for the cardiac arrests.

“I think when we put together the preponderance of what we know about electrical shocks with his observations, there’s enough to say that the phenomenon occurs,” he said. But he added, “I suspect the incidence of these fatal events is going to be low and can be minimized by the precautions.”

Police officers, he said, should take precautions when using the weapons and avoid multiple shocks, prolonged shocks and shocks to the chest.

“I’d rather see Tasers out there than bullets flying around,” Dr. Myerburg said. “But if you have a choice, if the circumstances allow you to avoid either, then physical restraint should be considered.”

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/short ... and-s.html

Two research papers published this week throw further light on the health risks of the Taser stun gun. This striking image shows the central issue examined in one of the papers: what happens when one of the two barbed darts fired by a police Taser struck a 27-year-old man on the side of the head. Although Isabel Le Blanc-Louvry and colleagues at the department of forensic medicine at Rouen University Hospital in France do not reveal when or where this occured, they say the victim had been drunk and resisted police requests for his ID. The police fired the pneumatically powered Taser to incapacitate and subdue him - but somehow nobody noticed a dart remained stuck in his head, until he later went to hospital complaining of a persistent headache.

In the ER, the dart was found to "have penetrated the frontal part of the skull and damaged the underlying frontal lobe", the team report in Forensic Science International. "We observed that the length of the Taser dart is sufficient to allow brain penetration," they write. The man made a full recovery.

The controversial weapon's woes continued in the journal Circulation this week, where cardiologist Douglas Zipes at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis reports that Taser strikes near the heart can kill. In a study of eight cases where cardiac arrest was induced after tasings by US police departments, seven victims died. "Electronic control device stimulation can cause cardiac arrest" due to ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation, he concludes.

Although more recent advice from Taser International, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based maker of the weapon, is for officers to avoid the chest area when firing its stun guns, in the melee of a police operation that is not always possible. Last year, a teenager died after being tased in the chest and his parents were awarded $10 million in damages - an amount Taser has since had reduced to $4.3 million on appeal.

[elfismiles]

Except that tasers are abused by law-enforcement as much or more as the guns they wield.

There are tons of efforts by we-the-plebs to ban their use among the police. But there are even efforts by police and civic authorities to ban their use / ownership by the plebs. So again, "you have no right to defend yourself - just sit back and take it from the criminals until the authorities arrive to protect you."

www.StopTasers.net

I see common ground.

How about: Tasers. Everywhere.
No, they are not totally non-lethal, they are capable of precipitating deaths.
But, on the whole, magnitudes safer than bullet-y guns.

Oh, except, one condition:
All law enforcement and military are limited to tasers, too.
Stun guns, tranquilizer rifles, phasers, etc.
No more bullets, though, ever made.

(Except for maybe, like, one SWAT sniper in each PD, in case a hostage is about to be killed, etc.?)

Common ground, yay!

viewtopic.php?p=497011#p497011

[FourthBase]

Except that when tasers are abused, you are far, far, far, far less likely to die. The total number of deaths related to or precipitated by tasing seems large but: 1) They are related to and precipitated by tasing, occur at some point after a tasing, no one's brains are spilled the instant a taser is used 2) They represent a minuscule fraction of all the times a taser is used/abused, a much, much, much smaller fraction than gun deaths per all the times guns are used/abused 3) They can be minimized by enforcing the proper training, protocols, and punishments covering their use -- i.e., how many people die when a taser is used only responsibly and necessarily? If you don't think it's ever possible for cops to act responsibly and use force only when necessary, then surely you also object to their being equipped with simple batons, too, and surely you want their hands literally tied behind their back to prevent them from executing a stranglehold...or not, right? Cops are going to be outfitted with something, right? Some kind of gun, even? And you would prefer a pistol that shoots bullets which can slice through your chest faster than the speed of sound? Versus what, if used responsibly, is a painful and incapacitating but almost-never-lethal jolt of electricity? Really? Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot. Or, if you prefer, tasing yourself in the foot.

[FourthBase]

On the other hand, even if there were a taser distributed to every stable man, woman, cop, rent-a-cop, teacher, etc. in the country, they should not, must not be used casually. Yes, they are currently (no pun) being used casually by law enforcement. That is wrong, often cruel, often unconstitutional, and occasionally dangerous, fatally so. They should be treated like guns, used like guns, regulated like guns. If they were, then there'd be just a hint of a relative downside to letting everyone have a taser (and/or other non/less-lethal arms) and making guns obsolete (by banning LE from having guns and then more generally discontinuing bullets)...but the upside would be enormous.

[FourthBase]

Don't shoot me! Don't tase me, either! But if it's going to be one or the other, then, yes...

Please tase me, bro.

Then at least I'll have a much, much better chance of surviving, and going on to sue you.

[elfismiles]

Noe Nino de Rivera still in ICU with brain damage / image via Twitter.

ACLU and Others Seek to Ban Tasers, Pepper Spray in Texas Schools
Move comes as student is in critical condition following Taser incident

Adan Salazar
Infowars.com
December 5, 2013

The ACLU is leading a coalition of civil rights groups in attempting to get pepper spray and Taser devices banned from use in Texas schools, a reaction to a tragic incident that took place last month in which a high school student hit his head following a Taser incident suffering a traumatic brain injury.

Joined by six other civil rights groups, the ACLU argued to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement on
Wednesday that officers confronting students should resort to de-escalation and crisis intervention techniques, much like hostage negotiators reason with or talk people out of dangerous situations.

“Tragic incidents like this one demonstrate why the state should not grant police free rein to wield weapons in schools for the apparent purpose of maintaining order,” said ACLU of Texas Executive Director Terri Burke, according to the Houston Chronicle. “Schools should be safe havens from this type of police use of force. I hope the commission will heed our call to end use of Tasers and pepper spray.”

In November, Cedar Creek High School student Noe Nino de Rivera, 17, was alleged to have interfered with two sheriff’s deputies working as resource officers, who were attempting to break up a fight between two female students.

The student fell and hit the front of his head when one of the officers, Randy McMillan, used a Taser to subdue him. He sustained a traumatic brain injury and remains in a coma at the St. David’s Medical Center in Austin where doctors believe he will recover, according to the family’s lawyer, Adam Loewy. However, Loewy says, “he will have a very serious, permanent brain injury, and we won’t know the extent of that until he wakes up.”

C.A. “Chuck” Brawner, the police chief at the Spring Branch Independent School District, acknowledged that deaths have been attributed to Taser and pepper spray use , but says eliminating the two non-lethal weapons may put officers, students and faculty at risk.

“When you take away the pepper spray and you take away the Taser, what do you have left?” Brawner reportedly asked. “What if there are several people and you have one officer and they can’t control them and they could get away and cause other problems, how do you stop them? When you start taking away other options other than a firearm or a nightstick, what else are you going to use?”

In 2012, human rights group Amnesty International estimated 500 taser related deaths had occurred since 2001. Similarly, the ACLU reported in 1995 that “one person dies after being pepper sprayed for about every 600 times the spray is used by police.”

While eliminating Tasers and pepper spray may seem like a good idea at first glance, de Rivera’s attorney believes it may make more sense to invest in better overall training for police.

“There needs to be a balance struck between preserving the safety of students and teachers, and making sure students do not get hurt by law enforcement officers in the school,” Loewy said. “The major way to do that is to improve training, not necessarily an outright ban.”

http://www.infowars.com/aclu-and-others ... s-schools/

[Elvis]

Father of 5 Dies in Custody After Deputies Use Taser

Family members on Wednesday mourned the loss of a father of five and a beloved newspaper pressman who died while in police custody after deputies used a Taser stun gun on him.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local ... 44901.html

[elfismiles]

Ya know ... I was just thinking the other day that it seems like I've been hearing a lot fewer reports of taser incidents. Perhaps its just my attention being elsewhere but the thought occurred to me that perhaps the Taser company has deployed some effective online counter-measures to the reporting of these incidents.

But as Elvis just indicated ... this issue has not yet left the building.