July 31, 2008--The grisly details of Baron Pikes' violent death are remarkable. There's the fact that Officer Scott Nugent jammed his Taser into the unarmed 21-year-old nine times in 14 minutes. There's the fact that Pikes was handcuffed during each of those 50,000-volt shocks. And there's the fact that witnesses heard Pikes, who was supposedly resisting arrest, plead to Nugent, "You all got me. Please, don't Tase me again."
Then there's the fact that Pikes died in Winnfield, Louisiana, which boasts a stunning history of police corruption. The police chief was previously convicted of drug charges, according to CNN, but got a pardon from the former governor, who is now in prison for racketeering. And the preceding police chief committed suicide in 2005 after being charged with buying votes and other fraud while campaigning for the job.
Nugent joined the force not long after his dad's suicide and has been responsible for 10 of Winnfield's 14 Taser incidents in the last year—12 of which involved black residents like Pikes. And there's more: Pikes is first cousin to Mychal Bell, one of the black high school kids in the Jena 6 who were initially prosecuted for attempted murder in a schoolyard fight that started with white students hanging a noose in a tree.
All of these eye-grabbing facts have drawn the attention of national news media, which has been cued in to Louisiana's special brand of justice since the Jena 6 case. Chicago Tribune reporter Howard Witt has led the way; CNN and others have followed up. But the shocking facts of Pikes' case notwithstanding, death-by-Taser is an increasingly unremarkable story, and one that is hardly confined to Louisiana. It is, sadly, yet another side effect of unnecessarily violent policing tactics deployed in black communities.
Amnesty International has been urging the Justice Department and local police departments to curb their growing Taser use for years. The group documented at least 290 deaths following cops' use of Tasers and similar weapons between June 2001 and September 2007. A Canadian blog, Truth Not Tasers, has compiled a list of 363 North Americans it says have died after being shocked. Another blog, Tasered While Black, keeps a running log of black Americans killed or abused in what it calls "police pre-trial electrocution."
Ironically, Tasers became popular in police departments as a way to tamp down police shootings. The weapons, known broadly as "conducted energy devices," have proliferated in recent years. According to a June Justice Department report, more than 11,000 law enforcement agencies now use some form of them. The most popular is the Taser X26, manufactured by Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz. More HERE
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