Exposing how tasers, when abused, can become a high tech torture instrument.
Asking the question should
the penalty for resisting arrest be death?
Our plan, to track all incidents of taser torture against black folks....
Have you or a member of your family ever been tasered by the police? Was it reported in the newspaper, police report, or other news outlet? Write: TasedWhileBlack@gmail.com and tell us what happened. Want to make a donation to Tasered While Black? Write us at: TasedWhileBlack@gmail.com We will be glad to hear from you.
"Our officers had to use their Taser guns on at least three of them."
This Blog,Tasered While Black, collects information on tasing involving blacks. Here is a case involving some young black kids from Kansas City, who traveled to Independence, MO. Who were arrested recently. Police and news agencies are attempting to piece it all together regarding how teenagers fighting in a mall became an incident in which at least 3 teenagers got zapped by an officers taser. However it happened, one of the teenager's relatives is speaking out.
H/T to our source, The Blue Springs Examiner which reports:
The mother and grandmother of one of the Kansas City teens involved in a fight Wednesday at Independence Center said Friday they believe officers from the Independence Police Department and a mall security guard are the ones responsible for precipitating the brawl that was reported in the media.
Robin McDonald, the teen's mother and the teen's grandmother, Rhonda McDonald, told The Examiner that although the teen was involved in a one-on-one fight Wednesday evening outside the mall's entrance near Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar restaurant, the teen was hardly a participant in a brawl.
"From what I understand, they keep saying it was a group of 20 kids brawling. It was a one-on-one fight." Rhonda McDonald said.
Independence police officers used Taser guns after a mall security guard used pepper spray to break up the fight, which police officials said involved 20 to 30 teenagers.
Independence Police Chief Fred Mills said he has been briefed, but has yet to see the full reports because he is on vacation.
"There is no dispute that there was a fight, but I don't know what their (the McDonalds) analogies are," Mills said. "I haven't read the reports to know what happened with everyone involved. I'm at the same disadvantage as the mother and the grandmother because I wasn't there."
Independence Center officials, who rejected the description of the fight as a brawl, declined to comment Friday, referring to a statement released earlier. Ryan Oester, director of mall marketing for Simon Property Group, which operates Independence Center, wouldn't comment on whether surveillance video captured the incident. He denied The Examiner's request for of a copy of surveillance video.
"Whenever an incident like this occurs in our community, our primary concern is always for the safety and wellbeing of our shoppers and mall employees," Oester said. "We are committed to providing a safe, quality environment for our shoppers."
Police officials said Thursday two female officers responded to a call from security guards at 6:53 p.m. When the officers arrived and warned the teens to leave or face arrest, officials said, close to 20 teens became unruly, surrounding the officers, who put out a call for assistance.
"They (the teenage girls) were just flailing away at each other," Independence Police spokesperson Tom Gentry said Thursday. "Two of our female officers tried to break it up, but about 20 of the girls' friends surrounded our officers."
Gentry said mall security used pepper spray on the crowd, setting off pandemonium.
"Our officers had to use their Taser guns on at least three of them," Gentry said. "They were literally out of control." More HERE
Drug use is an addiction. It's a medical problem right? So why did Keith L. White addiction cause him to be electrocuted by police? Of course the Coroner who say he was not killed by the taser to protect the police. Now the Coroner Blames Death On Excited Delirium.
Watch out, if your addicted to Crack Cocaine, you could be electrocuted on the spot in America. Or Tasered While addicted to Crack.
Kan. -- Cocaine, not a Taser gun, killed a man who died after a struggle with police, the Wyandotte County coroner said Monday.Keith L. White, 44, -- whose family said he was a drug user -- died after police shocked him with a Taser gun as they tried to arrest him on Oct. 1.White had gone behind a church near North 57th Terrace and Nogard Avenue to smoke crack, his family said.When police tried to arrest him, White ran into a nearby creek and started fighting with officers, according authorities. More HERE
She was rushing her son to school. She was eight months pregnant. And she was about to get a speeding ticket she didn't think she deserved.
So when a Seattle police officer presented the ticket to Malaika Brooks, she refused to sign it. In the ensuing confrontation, she suffered burns from a police Taser, an electric stun device that delivers 50,000 volts.
"Probably the worst thing that ever happened to me," Brooks said, in describing that morning during her criminal trial last week on charges of refusing to obey an officer and resisting arrest.
She was found guilty of the first charge because she never signed the ticket, but the Seattle Municipal Court jury could not decide whether she resisted arrest, the reason the Taser was applied.
To her attorneys and critics of police use of Tasers, Brooks' case is an example of police overreaction.
"It's pretty extraordinary that they should have used a Taser in this case," said Lisa Daugaard, a public defender familiar with the case.
Law enforcement officers have said they see Tasers as a tool that can benefit the public by reducing injuries to police and the citizens they arrest.
Seattle police officials declined to comment on this case, citing concerns that Brooks might file a civil lawsuit.
But King County sheriff's Sgt. Donald Davis, who works on the county's Taser policy, said the use of force is a balancing act for law enforcement.
"It just doesn't look good to the public," he said.
Brooks' run-in with police Nov. 23 came six months before Seattle adopted a new policy on Taser use that guides officers on how to deal with pregnant women, the very young, the very old and the infirm. When used on such subjects, the policy states, "the need to stop the behavior should clearly justify the potential for additional risks."
"Obviously, (law enforcement agencies) don't want to use a Taser on young children, pregnant woman or elderly people," Davis said. "But if in your policy you deliberately exclude a segment of the population, then you have potentially closed off a tool that could have ended a confrontation."
Brooks was stopped in the 8300 block of Beacon Avenue South, just outside the African American Academy, while dropping her son off for school.
In a two-day trial that ended Friday, the officer involved, Officer Juan Ornelas, testified he clocked Brooks' Dodge Intrepid doing 32 mph in a 20-mph school zone.
He motioned her over and tried to write her a ticket, but she wouldn't sign it, even when he explained that signing it didn't mean she was admitting guilt.
Brooks, in her testimony, said she believed she could accept a ticket without signing for it, which she had done once before.
"I said, 'Well, I'll take the ticket, but I won't sign it,' " Brooks testified.
Officer Donald Jones joined Ornelas in trying to persuade Brooks to sign the ticket. They then called on their supervisor, Sgt. Steve Daman. More HERE
Massachusetts - State authorities have given a controversial special education school in Canton a one-year extension of its authority to use electric shock treatments on students, provided the center makes a series of significant changes. Report says orders went unquestioned; No checks of teens
This In the state of Massachusetts in which the Governor is Deval Patrick. You know the guy that understands the needs of the poor. This just proves that just because he is the the Governor and the first black Governor of Massachusetts (2nd black Gov. in American history) does not mean he will protect the poor and those in need. Was he not the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Justice Department under Clinton? Maybe the Gov. needs to stay at home and handle this situation instead of stumping for Obama I hope Obama does not start this type of program nationally inside public schools and Federal prisons.
Massachusetts - State authorities have given a controversial special education school in Canton a one-year extension of its authority to use electric shock treatments on students, provided the center makes a series of significant changes.
more stories like this
Among them, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center must prove that it uses shock treatments only for the most dangerous and self-destructive behaviors and that the aversive therapy actually led to a reduction of those harmful actions.
The center must also stop electric shocks for "seemingly minor infractions," such as getting out of a seat without approval or swearing. And it must show greater commitment to phasing out shock treatments, especially for those about to leave the school to enter mainstream society.
Past reauthorizations have been for two years, rather than the one year given this time.
Jean McGuire, assistant secretary of the state's Office of Health and Human Services, said the state has issued this conditional reauthorization well aware of the events last August in which two teenagers wrongfully received dozens of electrical shocks at the direc tion of a caller posing as a supervisor. The caller told staff to wake up the teenagers and give them dozens of shocks each based on alleged behavior that had occurred at least five hours earlier.
McGuire said the center has promised to eliminate delayed punishments and end the delivery of shocks to students who are sleeping. While the school's critics want the state to ban any form of shock treatment, McGuire said the state also had to consider the many parents who defend the school as the only effective place for their hard-to-teach youngsters. More HERE
You remember The Black Pregnant Black Women who was tasered in Ohio. The Tasering occurred Nov. 18 when Valreca Redden, 33, went to the police department and asked officers to take custody of her 1-year-old son, the report said. well here is some good news. Source: WCPO.com
A probationary police officer who shocked a pregnant woman with a stun gun has been fired, and four others have been disciplined following a departmental investigation, the safety director in this Dayton suburb said Friday.
Officer Michael Wilmer, who joined the police department in December 2006, had already been terminated for unrelated reasons, which included driving city-owned vehicles at excessive speeds and posting unauthorized pictures on his MySpace.com account, said Safety Director Michael Etter.
The investigative report prepared by Trotwood Police Maj. Quincy Pope said Wilmer was justified in using a Taser stun gun to subdue the woman but committed an error in judgment and violated department policy by administering the device to the woman's neck, an area reserved for the most violent subjects.
Wilmer also failed to summon medical help or ensure that photographs were taken and documented inaccurate information, all in violation of policy, the report said.
Sgt. Richard Wright was suspended for one day for failing to see that photographs were taken of the woman's neck and to ensure that she received medical evaluation.
Another sergeant was given a written reprimand for disseminating unprofessional messages, Etter said. An officer received a reprimand for failing to document a domestic violence complaint, and another officer was given a counseling form for failing to properly log the use of a stun gun, Etter said.
He said all the disciplinary measures had been served. More HERE
Black Accountability Project: The firing and disciplinary action would not have happened if there were no video and no bloggers like Tasered While Black.
For those of us who follow the Texans closely, this is pretty surprising. Fred Weary has a reputation for being a quiet, nice, religious family man. He is just about the last guy in the NFL you would think would be busted for resisting arrest. More HERE
Merry Christmas Black Man and Black Woman you have been tasered while black! Well that's what Madison Police Department must have been thinking when they tased a black man and woman in a mall for no reason other than for being black in a mall. See video.
You see Police used a stun gun on an unarmed man are defending their use of force, even as the man's family threatens a lawsuit against the department. MADISON - Police who used a stun gun on an unarmed man are defending their use of force, even as the man's family threatens a lawsuit against the department. An officer used a Taser on a man identified as Major T. Lemon, 44, after police said he resisted attempts to escort him from West Towne Mall in Madison. The incident occurred Christmas Eve about 1:20 p.m. in the mall's food court, which was packed with holiday shoppers. Police Sgt. John Rife said officers escalated the situation only when they had no other choice. "People are going to form their own opinions on whether that was reasonable or not, but hopefully they can say that we tried to get as much information as we could and do it as safely as we could," Rife said. Tara Emery-Walls, the general manager at the nearby Arby's, felt that officers overreacted. "I didn't think it was right," she said. "A bunch of people were in here shopping.
There were kids in here." Officers were called to the mall after someone reported seeing a man with a gun. Police found a man fitting the suspect's description and tried to escort him out, according to an incident report filed by Police Sgt. David Samson. Lemon had his hand in his pocket and began to physically resist, the report said. "The suspect then made statements that he was going to punch an officer," the report said. The officers tried to take Lemon down and a scuffle ensued. Another officer who saw the struggle fired a Taser at Lemon. One of the stun-gun probes hit Lemon and the other hit his wife. Both were handcuffed but the wife was later released with no charges or injuries. Lemon told authorities he had a heart condition so the Madison Fire Department brought him to an emergency room, where he was evaluated, cited for resisting and obstructing arrest, and released. No weapon was found. More HERE
Madison Police Department should be held accountable. What do you think?
Shawn Williams of the AfroSpear's Dallas South blog reports that,
Jon Nielsen of the Dallas Morning News tells the story of a Waxahachie man who was shocked twice by a stun gun after police responded to a diabetic seizure call. This event occurred last April, as more and more stun gun abuses are coming to light.
According to Nielsen, court records claim that police entered the home in the 700 block of Perry Street in Waxahachie without a search warrant, twice shocked Mr. Nelms with a stun gun, laughed at him and left him on a bedroom floor.
Black's holding new white majority City Council in New Orleans Accountable. Tasered by police for doing what he had to do. Demonstrate against the city councils plan that he disagreed with.
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Get the latest video's on New Orleans Housing Crisis HERE
What should be done about the crisis in New Orleans? Did the demonstrators go to far. Or is this another part of a plan to eliminate black people from New Orleans? What do you think?
Tasered While Black blog has launched its new video channel where people can upload videos related to the tasing of blacks - all videos will be screened and approved.
Bloggers are encouraged to join The Tasered While Black Video Channel today. Don't forget to provide webcam as a AfroSpear Freedom Technology Christmas or Kwanza gift to someone who has a computer but just does not have a webcam. Webcam's are very economically now, they go for as little as $30.00 Consider giving a gift to economically disadvantaged youth or a low-income senior to connect to others via the internet. We want our communities to begin to broadcast their opinions and solutions on the important issue of the tasing of black folks across America. You are also encouraged to visit the new Tasered While Black Video Channel and join today! Leave a video message if you have a webcam, or buy one as a AfroSpear Freedom Technology Christmas gift for a family member or for yourself.
Borden, 47, died the evening of Nov. 6, 2003, while being booked into the Monroe County Jail after he was arrested for violating his probation by Lawrence County Police Department training officer John Potter.
According to police and Emergency Medical Services reports, Borden was incoherent and disoriented when he was taken into custody at the Monroe County Jail after the arresting officers spoke with the Lawrence County Probation Department and ambulance personnel -- against advice from EMS, who urged officers to seek medical attention for him.
Borden was shocked multiple times with a taser by Monroe County Officer David Shaw for being uncooperative, according to police reports.
After lying unresponsive on the floor, Borden received medical attention from a jail nurse. Ten minutes later a Bloomington Hospital team arrived, and shortly thereafter, Borden's body was carried out of the jail on a stretcher.
Monroe County Coroner David W. Toumey previously told the Indiana Daily Student in a Dec. 15, 2003, story that Borden died of a heart attack, drug intoxication and electrical shock.
Eugene Snelling tells INSIDE EDITION that he still is unsure why he was tasered by an Austin police officer in November 2006.
It's the latest dash cam video that's raising new questions about the use of tasers by police.
A motorist in Austin, Texas, is tasered just moments after being pulled over for going just five miles over the speed limit.
From the video, the officer can be heard yelling at the driver to lay on the ground, after he had already tasered the man. The driver questions the cop, and tells him that he was hurt by the taser.
INSIDE EDITION spoke to 32-year old Eugene Snelling, the driver who was pulled over.
Snelling says that after exiting his vehicle the cop "shoved me a little bit, and the next minute, I was tased."
It happened when Snelling, his mother and cousin were on their way to Thanksgiving dinner, and were pulled over by Corporal Thomas O'Connor. The video, taken last year, has just been released by the Austin police, with the faces blurred.
As the dash cam video rolls, what started as a routine traffic stop turns ugly in just seconds.
Cop: "Let me see your drivers license and proof of insurance." Driver: "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me get it." Cop: "No. Not 'whoa, whoa, whoa.' Driver's license and insurance or get out of the vehicle." Mother: "Ok, give him the license." Driver: "No, this guy's sitting here yelling at me for whatever reason..."
As the driver gets out of the car, the officer pulls out his taser.
Cop: "Step out of the vehicle." Driver: "I have no idea why you're acting..." Cop: "Step out of the vehicle. Take your seat belt off, step out of the vehicle and give me your driver's license and proof of insurance." Driver: "I have no idea..." Cop: "Get to the back of the vehicle; put your hands on the vehicle. Get to the back of the vehicle. Stop."
It is then that the officer tasers Snelling. Lying on the ground and writhing in pain, the driver asks why he was tasered.
Cop: "You're under arrest and you're going to jail." Driver: "Going to jail, for what?" Cop: "For failing to give me your driver's license." Driver: "I'm not failing to give you anything."
Snelling tells INSIDE EDITION that he still unsure why he was treated in this manner.
This is just the latest controversial use of a taser gun by police. In this latest tasering, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo has apologized to the driver and is now using the video as a training tool for all his officers.
Corporal O'Connor said he felt threatened by the motorist. The officer was suspended for three days after the incident, but has since returned to his job.
I recently posted on what I considered a video that showed the brutial tasing and torturing of a black man in Georgia back in 2004. No I'm not talking about 1904, I'm talking 2004. And no I'm not taliking about the 3 words, "hi tech lynching' used politically by snow flaker Clarence Thomas during his U.S. Supreme Court nomination. (you remember Clarence Thomas, who was nominated by, get this, Republican President George H.W. Bush).
I'm talking about a real High Tech Lynching, torture and killing of a black man in Georgia just a few years ago. After watching the video in horror, I decided to look into the federal laws against this type of high tech lynching, if any. Then I started to wonder what was the history of prosecution of lynching in America? As there seems to be no prosecution of African Americans taser torture victims, who are being tortured every day in the streets of America by means of the new high tech lynching tool, the taser.
AAPP: Now it appears the threat of lynching has been influenced by another major event, internet activism.
For most of the history of the United States, lynching was rarely prosecuted, and when it was, it was under state murder statutes. In one example in 1907-09, the U.S. Supreme Court tried its only criminal case in history, 203 U.S. 563 (U.S. v. Sheriff Shipp). Shipp was found guilty of criminal contempt for lynching Ed Johnson in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Starting in 1909, over 200 bills were introduced to make lynching a federal crime, but they failed to pass. During the Roosevelt Administration, the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department tried, but failed, to prosecute lynchers under Reconstruction-era civil rights laws. The first successful federal prosecution of a lyncher for a civil rights violation was in 1946, and by that time, the era of lynchings as a common occurrence was over.
Many states now have specific anti-lynching statutes. California, for example, defines lynching, punishable by 2-4 years in prison, as "the taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer," with the crime of "riot" defined as two or more people using violence or the threat of violence. Read More about Lynching HERE
Rewind!
Although lynchings became much more rare in the era following the civil rights movement, they do still occur sometimes. In 1981, KKK members in Alabama randomly picked out a nineteen-year-old black man, Michael Donald, and murdered him in retaliation for a jury's acquittal of a black man accused of murdering a police officer. The Klansmen were eventually caught, prosecuted, and convicted, and a seven million dollar judgment in a subsequent civil suit bankrupted a subgroup of the Klan, the United Klans of America.[20]
In 1998, James Byrd, Jr. was murdered by Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King, in Jasper, Texas. Byrd, a 49-year-old father of three who had accepted an early-morning ride home with Berry, King, Brewer, was instead beaten, stripped, chained to a pickup truck, and dragged for almost three miles (5 km). An autopsy suggested that Byrd was alive for much of the dragging and died only after his right arm and head were severed when his body hit a culvert. [3] The three men dumped their victim's mutilated remains in the town's segregated Black cemetery and then went to a barbeque. [4] Many of the aspects of this modern lynching echo the social customs surrounding older lynchings documented in Without Sanctuary. King wore a tattoo depicting a black man hanging from a tree as well as Nazi, Aryan and Confederate Knights of America symbols.
Local authorities immediately treated the murder as a hate crime and requested FBI assistance. The murderers were later caught and stood trial. Brewer and King were sentenced to death. Berry received life in prison.
In 2006, five white teenagers—Justin Ashley Phillips, 18; Kenneth Eugene Miller Jr., 18; Lucas Grice, 17; Christopher Scott Cates, 17; and Jerry Christopher Toney, 18—were given various sentences for the second degree lynching of Isaiah Clyburn, 17, a young black man in South Carolina. South Carolina law defines second degree lynching as "[a]ny act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person and from which death does not result shall constitute the crime of lynching in the second degree and shall be a felony. Any person found guilty of lynching in the second degree shall be confined at hard labor in the State Penitentiary for a term not exceeding twenty years nor less than three years, at the discretion of the presiding judge."
I have been wondering, how come there are has been no American Crusade Against the Tasering of Black folks, like there was an American crusade against lynching?
Fast forward - 2003,04,05 and 06. There were limited voices being raised in the states concerning the high tech lynching of black folk. But at least the United Nations was looking at what has been going on. They saytasers are a form of torture.
I guess most white bloggers are scared of getting labeled by the FBI and or Homeland Security. i must give up some respect to bloggers like The Liberal Journal.
I'm glad Einstein was not scared, even though he was branded as a communist sympathizer.
But I guess black folks can't be scared, the only fear we may have is the fear of our children or our children's children getting branded, tortured and Tasered While Black.
I wonder why Obama, Edwards, Hillary and the rest of the Democrats (that's who we vote for by over 80% every 4 years) have gotten a free ride on the question of black folks being Tasered 'and tortured' While Black.
It appears no one in black leadership, except local branches of NAACP and the afrospear have been concerned. Maybe it's because older black leaders are more concerned about Bill Clinton being every bit as black as Barack or get this, how many black women Bill Clinton has made love with?
Thank God for the afrospear, and thank God for local branches of the NAACP.
A Taser is a type of gun. It is similar in appearance to a conventional gun, having a handle, squeezable trigger, and a blunt barrel. Instead of firing bullets, however, a Taser incapacitates someone for a short time by the use of electricity. Tasers are most often used by security forces, including police, to quell disturbances without causing injury to the people involved.
The Taser gun is one of three types of weapons that are known collectively as stun guns. The other two devices are known as the hand held stun gun and the liquid stun gun. As their name implies, these weapons are designed to be a non-lethal defense, rather than an offensive weapon capable of causing deadly injury.
Stun guns like the Taser operate by disrupting the electrical flow of signals through nerve cells. This electrical flow drives the ability of the muscles to respond to commands from the brain, and allows information that the body receives from the outside world (i.e., touch, taste, smell) to be communicated to the brain. The disruption of the nerve cells is achieved by the generation of an electrical charge by the Taser that has a high voltage and low amperage. Put another way, the electrical charge has a great deal of pressure, but is not intense. The pressure of the charge allows the charge to penetrate into the body, even though several layers of clothing. In order for it to be effective, the person must be close, even in direct contact, with the electrodes of the Taser. Because the electrical charge is not intense, the brief surge of electricity is not powerful enough to physically damage the person's body.
Inside the body, however, the electricity is powerful enough to temporarily disable the nervous system. This occurs when the added charge mixes with the electrical impulses flowing through the nerve cells. The added electricity overwhelms the meaningful signals, making it impossible for the brain to interpret the signals from the nerve cells. Confusion, difficulty in balance, and muscle paralysis results.
Only about one-quarter of a second is required to incapacitate someone. Once the electrical swamping of the nerve impulses has abated—within a few seconds to a minute—recovery is complete with no adverse effects. Tests have shown that even heart pacemakers are not affected by Tasers.
The electrical signal from a Taser can be generated as a single burst, or in rapid pulses. If the pulses are similar to the frequency of the natural pulses that occur within the nerve cells, then the muscles are stimulated to contract and relax. However, there is no coordination behind the work, since the connections between the muscles and the brain have been disrupted. The muscles will become depleted of energy and tired. Even when the normal electrical rthyhm is restored, the muscles often remain too tired to respond for a short period.
Because a Taser acts on muscles, and as there are muscles all over the body, a Taser applied almost anywhere over the body can cause total immobilization.
Stun guns, including the Taser, consist of a transformer, oscillator, capacitor, and electrodes. The transformer generates the voltage; typically between 20,000 and 150,000 volts. The oscillator introduces the pulsations in the electrical charge. The charge is built up in the capacitor, which releases the charge to the electrodes. It is the electrodes that send the charge into the body, when the electricity bridges the gap between the oppositely charged electrodes.
In a Taser, the electrodes are not fixed in position. Instead, they are positioned on the ends of two long pieces of conducting wire. When a trigger is pulled, a release of compressed gas expels the electrodes out from the gun. In addition, the electrodes have barbs on them, so that they can stick to clothing. This design of the Taser allows a charge to be transferred to someone who is 15 to 20 feet away. Hand-to-hand contact, in this instance, is not necessary. The disadvantage of this design is that only one shot is possible before the electrodes have to rewind, and a new compressed gas cartridge loaded into the gun. Some models of Taser have the attached electrodes, so that if the flying electrodes miss the target, the shooter can move in and try to touch the subject with the stationary electrodes to deliver the stunning dose of electricity.
Coming to an American urban community or an Iraq police department soon!
The ultimate in Laser Technology.
Wireless Taser! When One taser is just not enough!
Consisting of stackable arrays of six “darts,” Taser’s Shockwave technology — which will likely go to market next year — will be used for military applications, says a company spokesperson, “not for a riot in Toronto.”
Until now, the electric-shock gun consisted of two barbed darts attached to wires that shoot out and strike the victim, immobilizing the person with 50,000 volts of electricity, causing severe pain and intense muscle contraction.
But the wires could only extend a few metres. With the new "extended range electronic projectile," or XREP, the Taser has been turned into a kind of self-contained shotgun shell and can be fired, wire-free, from a standard shotgun, which police typically have in their arsenal already.
The first electrode hooks on to the target, the second electrode falls and makes contact elsewhere on the body, completing the circuit and activating the shock. It can blast someone as far as 30 metres away, and, unlike the current stun guns, whose shock lasts five seconds, the XREP lasts 20 seconds, enough time to "take the offender into custody without risking injury to officers."
Taser International spokesperson Steve Tuttle says the XREP would be perfect in a standoff. "Here's someone you just don't want to get anywhere near," he says. More HERE
Don't have your hands in your pocket in Erie, PA. That is only for people who have a right to place their hands in their pocket. Candidly I would be more concerned about Cheney than I would 1 Guy surrounded by Vice Cops.
A group of vice officers serving a search warrant used a Taser on a man who refused to take his hands out of his pockets, who police say "could have been armed." He was not armed, but he sure got tasered, because anyone with there hands in their pockets could be armed in Erie. so tell your kids, don't walk with your hands in your pocket in Erie, you could get "Tasered While Black."
Erie police patrol officers started carrying Tasers this weekend, though the nonlethal weapons got their official tryout on the city's streets weeks ago, Patrol officers got the Taser X26 on Saturday, after the officers completed training and certification on Thursday, police spokesman Lt. Kirk Werner said.
While patrol officers have yet to fire their Tasers in day-to-day use, Werner said Monday, the Bureau of Police used the weapons three times in special assignments to control suspects.
The officers who used the Tasers in those instances were members of the SWAT team or vice squad, the units that received Taser training first, said Lt. Les Fetterman, head of the Erie police's training unit.
Fetterman said the incidents occurred over the past two weeks. Read More Here
H/T Police Brutality Blog for reporting on the 17-year old Alex Lombard, III still has burn marks from the stun gun. He was stun-gunned four (4) times in one incident. His father, a retired police Lieutenant from the same New York City Police force, said, "I was just hurt by what happened, to think that members of the service, of the police department I worked on, could do this to my son." More HERE
CBS New says, "These pictures speak for themselves."
Fredrick County Maryland School Resource Staff now have lasers. Now they are part of a growing effort to tase anyone black. now we learn that a school officer has used a taser on teen at High School for hugging his sister.
Yes, you heard me right, a Frederick County (Maryland) Sheriff's Office says a resource officer used a Taser to subdue a student for the first time since the officers began carrying the devices last spring.
Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Jennifer Bailey says Corporal Jody Maybush used the Taser on Thursday at Tuscarora High School when the teen tried to keep Maybush from taking his sister to the office after a fight.
Court documents state 18-year-old Dereck Holland put his arms around his sister, and refused to let go when Maybush ordered him to. After a warning, Maybush gave what Bailey called a low shock and Holland ran down a hall before collapsing.
Holland was taken to Frederick Memorial Hospital and then to the Frederick County Adult Detention Center. He is charged with disorderly conduct and several other charges. More HERE
And you thought you heard it all. No, this one is serious crazy. Check this out! An Orlando Cop Used A Taser Gun On Man Who Refused to provide a Urine Sample Yes, back on or about March 9, 2005 - Orlando police arrested Antonio Wheeler on a drug charge and took him to an emergency room because Wheeler claimed he had eaten cocaine.
Once at the hospital, Wheeler was asked to give a urine sample. When he refused, he was handcuffed to a hospital bed.The medical staff at Florida Hospital then tried to insert a catheter to get the sample.Wheeler started thrashing around, so police shocked him with a Taser gun twice, officials said.Wheeler said he resisted their efforts to insert a catheter in him because he was afraid he would be hurt. He said his arms were pinned up by his shoulders."(My) legs were pulled down and strapped to the mat. I could not move. He Tased me," Wheeler said.He said when he yelled for help, the officer climbed on top of him and ordered him to shut up."He was on top of me, with the Taser. Before he jumped on me, he said, 'I guess I have to do this the old-fashioned way,'" Wheeler said.After he was stunned with the Taser gun for the second time, Wheeler said he provided the urine sample.In his report, Officer Peter Linnenkamp admits using two short Taser bursts to get Wheeler to calm down and produce a urine sample. Only the minimum force necessary was used, Linnenkamp reported."This attempt was deemed medically necessary by the staff," he said.The report does not state, however, why it was medically necessary.Attorney Tom Luka, a Taser critic, has filed more than six civil lawsuits against police agencies for excessive force. In this case, he said the Taser gun was used to force Wheeler to give evidence, not as part of medically necessary treatment. More HERE
When Shawn Hicks returned to his North Braddock home on Stokes Avenue after a Saturday night out on the town with friends, he didn't bother turning on the lights.
Instead of heading to his bedroom, Mr. Hicks, a 29-year-old business major at Point Park University, plopped himself face down and fully dressed on his cream-colored leather sofa in his living room. He also neglected to deactivate his home security system, which has a silent alarm.
Surrounded by the darkness and familiar comforts of his home, Mr. Hicks was asleep within five minutes. He didn't know it at the time, but he was not destined to have sweet dreams that night.
"I felt a lot of voltage going through my body," Mr. Hicks said recalling the events of that late July weekend. "That's what woke me up."
Jumping to his feet, Mr. Hicks was aware of an intense sensation between the shoulder blades of his 150-pound body. It didn't stop there. His whole body felt as if it were on fire.
When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, his heart skipped yet another beat. Two North Braddock police officers, Gerard Kraly and Lukas Laeuricia, were standing in his living room. To this day, Mr. Hicks still doesn't know which is Kraly and which Laeuricia.
The shorter of the two officers did most of the talking. His mustached partner was a burly over-6-footer in his late 30s or early 40s. He held the Taser, the prongs of which were sticking in Mr. Hicks' back.
The polite family newspaper version of what Mr. Hicks said in response to being electrified translates roughly as "What's going on here?" The shorter cop, whom Mr. Hicks remembers as blond, asked him to calm down. The officer said that North Braddock police received a call from the security company monitoring Mr. Hicks' home. They believed a break-in was in progress More HERE. There is still more. The FBI reviewing Tasering of sleeping man. Hat Tip blogger Another Opinionated Youth who reports, Back in September, a man living in North Braddock, Pittsburgh, was tasered in his own home, while sleeping on the couch. The story is summed up below:
Shawn Hicks had come back from a night out and plopped down on his own couch in his own home. Unfortunately, he failed to deactivate the silent alarm on his home security system. According to Hicks, two police officers responded to the alarm, entered his home, and woke him with a taser between the shoulder blades. When Hicks tried to explain that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and that the officers were in his own home, they tasered him again. They next checked his wallet and ID, which confirmed his name and address. Then they tasered him again. The police then removed the taser pellets from Hicks’ bloody back, refused to get him medical treatment, and arrested him for “being belligerent.” They threw him in a holding cell until 5 am the next morning, when they released him without filing any charges. More HERE
What really happened? We the people may never know. Where were the Chief of Police and other elected officials during the meeting on October 9, 2007? They had promised to be there to provide answers. Is it because our Republic is quickly becoming a Police State?
A state, Wherein the news media refuse to report the truth, and where investigative reporting has become a thing of the past—in the so-called land of the free, and the home of too many graves?
News Media Whiteout machines, and Law Enforcement reports are all similar. This death of a 59-year-old American Veterans is no different from hundreds of others by the hands of Law Enforcement for whatever reasons. More HERE
Results are expected to be finalized Friday, investigators said. The results will now be turned over to the district attorney’s office, which will determine whether charges are filed against anyone involved in the incident. More HERE
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Baker, who passed away during an altercation with a Quitman Police officer, died from a spinal cord fracture and dislocation he suffered when he fell to the ground after being tased.
Additionally, the GBI said that Baker’s enlarged heart, due to hypertension, played a role in his death.
Hat Tip to Pam at Pam's House Blend. I'm sure after you read her post (we provide a link below) you will agree that something has to be done to stop the torture of people of all races in America.
By Pam
The abuse by law enforcement of the use of the "non-lethal" Taser device is nothing short of torture in many cases, where police pull out this tool too quickly, and unnecessarily, often when the victim has already been subdued. Other times the problem is that the level of use is outrageous -- multiple applications of the device on a person after they are down and no threat to law enforcement.
The stories of this sadism are well-documented at this point -- so many videos are turning up showing the misapplication of the Taser that you have to ask: where is the outrage? More HERE
OK, So I don't know if this girl was black or not. But I can only guess she was. She was shot in the back with a stun gun. Check out this story from Miami.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Miami-Dade County Police are reviewing their policy on using Tasers after officers stunned two children with the weapons in the past few weeks.
Miami-Dade police planned to hold a news conference Monday to discuss the incidents and possible disciplinary action stemming from them. The names of both children were being withheld by CNN.
The Taser temporarily immobilizes someone from as far away as 21 feet with 50,000 volts of electricity. The more recent of the two incidents occurred November 5, when a 12-year-old girl who was skipping school was found drinking and smoking in a swimming pool, Miami-Dade police officer William Nelson stated in an incident report. He said he responded to an anonymous call about the activities. He said he told the girl he was taking her to school. As they walked to the police car, she ran away. "I advised her to stop several times," he said in the report. She "continued running even to the point of starting to run into lanes of traffic."Nelson said he used the Taser for his and the girl's safety, striking her in the base of the neck and lower right back.
The girl was released into her mother's custody and taken to a doctor. More HERE
Miami-Dade County Police are reviewing their policy on using Tasers on kids.
As reported by Electronic Village, Chioma Gray is a 15-year old girl abducted from her hometown of Oxnard, CA.
