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.
The stats only tell part of the story. I'm glad to note that there will be a annual December 4th blogging event called, “Stop Taser Torture, blogging for Justice.”
The goal is to unite the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day – Taser Torture in America, Canada and throughout the world.
Amnesty International says that between 2001 and August 2008, 334 Americans died after Taser shocks. The stun gun was deemed to have caused or contributed to at least 50 of those deaths, Amnesty says, citing medical examiners and coroners. Most suspects were unarmed, and many were subjected to repeated or prolonged shocks, according to Amnesty. The human rights group has called for governments to limit the use of stun guns or suspend their use. In November 2007, the UN Committee Against Torture released a statement saying “use of Taser X26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and… in certain cases, it could also cause death.”
Join in on December 4th. “Stop Taser Torture, blogging for Justice.” as we raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.
Well it looks like Taser International has said Uncle. The Makers of TASER devices say don't aim at chest. As reported by many bloggers, including the Electronic Village, news outlets and internet sources, Taser maker Taser International is advising police agencies across the nation to avoid aiming the devices at a suspect’s chest. The Arizona-based company says such action poses an “extremely low” risk of an “adverse cardiac event.” The Atlanta Journal reports that Law enforcement in Atlanta, Gwinnett and Clayton County said they are in the process of scheduling training for their officers who carry Tasers.
“It won’t be a huge change. It’s a difference of a few inches,” said Sgt. Tony Kessler, a training officer for the Clayton County Sheriff. “We still have the back and other parts of the body.”
Gwinnett Police spokesman Cpl. David Schiralli said the Taser manufacturer only “recommended aiming lower towards the abdominal region,” but said the 279 officers who have Tasers will be retrained.
Cobb County Police are already ahead of the game, spokesman Officer Joe Hernandez said. Cobb’s 100 Tasers are carried by only veteran patrol officers, the Tactical Team, Burglary Apprehension Team and robbery interdiction squad. More HERE
The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, marks the first time that Taser has suggested any risk of ill effects on the heart from the use of its 50,000-volt stun guns. More HERE
Electronic Village reports, Taser International, the maker of taser guns is advising police officers to avoid shooting suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose an extremely low risk of an "adverse cardiac event."
The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, marks the first time that Taser has suggested any risk of ill effects on the heart from the use of its 50,000-volt taser guns.
Electronic Village goes on to report that critics, including civil-rights lawyers and human-rights advocates, called the training bulletin an admission by Taser that its guns could cause cardiac arrest. For years, Taser officials have said in interviews, court cases and government hearings that the stun gun is incapable of inducing ventricular fibrillation, the chaotic heart rhythm characteristic of a heart attack. More HERE There have been more than 400 deaths in the U.S. and 26 in Canada since 2001, according to a study by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Tasers have contributed to more than 30 of those deaths, according to medical examiners.
Three of those occurred in the Gwinnett County jail after deputies used a Taser on combative inmates. Autopsies showed two of those deaths were the result of heart attacks, but did not cite what caused the cardiac arrest. The other death was ruled the result of “excited delirium” – a combination of cocaine, alcohol and physical exertion that excited his heart too much, according to the medical examiner.
A spokeswoman for the Gwinnett sheriff said Taser International's training bulletin has already been sent out to all of the deputies who carry Tasers. More HERE
"All future training will have it incorporated too," sheriff's spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais said Thursday.
Tasered While Black Publisher: Well it looks like this announcement by Taser International is having major impact on law enforcement standard operating procedures. Let's see if it make any difference on the streets of Amderica, or will cops actually aim at the chest in the future, as a way of killing people?
Yes, NYPD Orders Cops Not to Aim Tasers At the Chest.
Get this, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne tells the Daily News, "Until the NYPD can more fully evaluate the implications of the manufacturer's newly advanced recommendation, we are temporarily adopting Taser International's suggestion." Last year an NYPD officer fired his Taser at an emotionally disturbed man waving a long florescent light bulb atop a first story awning; the man fell to his death and the officer who gave the order to Tase subsequently committed suicide.
A source also tells the News that Taser International did not actually notify the NYPD about the warning. The company has been vigorously defending their product despite repeated deaths and controversy, and some communities have banned officers from using them entirely. Earlier this month, a Florida teenager died after being Tased and falling off bicycle, and at Coachella in April, a naked wizard was Tased multiple times
One of my favorite bloggers, Villager, Publisher of the Blog "Electronic Village" has been tracking the tasering issue for some time. His blog has documented 42 taser-related deaths in the United States since the beginning of the year:
Jan 9, 2009: Derrick Jones, 17, Black, Martinsville, Virginia
Jan 11, 2009: Rodolfo Lepe, 31, Hispanic, Bakersfield, California
Jan 22, 2009: Roger Redden, 52, Caucasian, Soddy Daisy, Tennessee
Feb 2, 2009: Garrett Jones, 45, Caucasian, Stockton, California
Feb 11, 2009: Richard Lua, 28, Hispanic, San Jose, California
Feb 13, 2009: Rudolph Byrd, 37, Black, Thomasville, Georgia
Feb 13, 2009: Michael Jones, 43, Black, Iberia, Louisiana
Feb 14, 2009: Chenard Kierre Winfield, 32, Black, Los Angeles, California
Feb 28, 2009: Robert Lee Welch, 40, Caucasian, Conroe, Texas
Mar 22, 2009: Brett Elder, 15, Caucasian, Bay City, Michigan
Mar 26, 2009: Marcus D. Moore, 40, Black, Freeport, Illinois
Apr 1, 2009: John J. Meier Jr., 48, Caucasian, Tamarac, Florida
Apr 6, 2009: Ricardo Varela, 41, Hispanic, Fresno, California
Oct 2, 2009, Name Not Released, Age: Unknown, Black, Panama City, Florida
One of the greatest bloggers on the planet, Pam of Pam's House Blend has also been leading the fight against taser abuse. I and many other bloggers want congressional hearings on the issue. It's time to stop this 21st century Klan Justice.
Williams is black, and the two main arresting officers are white, but it's unknown whether race played any role in the incident.
Williams, who was released from jail on Friday, said he was manhandled and Tasered by police, even though he said he was never physically aggressive toward the officers and didn't resist arrest.
Williams said he was humiliated after his pants fell down during the incident. The officers allegedly left him outdoors in broad daylight, handcuffed on the pavement, nude below the waist. Williams said the Sept. 11 arrest also left him with an injured shoulder, limiting his mobility in his wheelchair.
A handful of residents in Williams' apartment complex said they witnessed the incident and supported Williams' charges. A short video clip, shot by a neighbor and obtained by the Sun-Star, shows Williams sitting on the pavement with his pants down, his hands cuffed behind his back.
A Merced police report, written by the responding officers, says that police tried to reason with Williams before the arrest, to no avail. The officers wrote that Williams was uncooperative and refused to turn his 2-year-old daughter over to Merced County Child Protective Services, among other allegations.
In the report, police also say a hostile crowd gathered as the officers tried to perform their duties.
The Merced Police Department spokesman declined to comment on the matter, saying he can't discuss it because the investigation is internal. Both the officers remain on duty. Read the excellent report on how this all happened HERE
Tasered While Black publigher says: "Let's see if President Barack Obama says anything about this! Our president was quick to support the black elite from police abuse, lets see if he is as quick to denounce this situation. by-the-way who is runnining the Civil Rights division at the justice department? It time for the U.S. Justice department to take the gloves off and stop the continued pre-trial electrocution of black folks in America.
The Fort Worth, Texas Police Department is out of control. There goal is to terrorize it citizens. It does not matter, Police are using tasers as a means to get citizens to comply with their orders. We believe tasers are lethal and should not be used by law enforcement. 50,000 volts of electricity discharged into a human body is inhumane. We request congeressional hearing on the use of the tasers. If water-boarding is torture, tasers should also be considered torture. The UN is ban them as well... ***
The Publisher of Tasered While Blacksays: Finally the National Office of the NAACP is discussing the issue of Black folks getting Tasered While Black. We salute the fact that Ben Jealous has joined in this fight. I hope that the National office of the NAACP's new involvement is sincere, and is not just another PR effort that they have been famous for in the past.
Let's see if the NAACP will join the already established effort of the Afrospear and Tasered While Blackto gain a Congressional Taser Hearings or will they go it alone, and establish a new effort for PR purposes... Only time will tell.
Benjamin Jealous
As reported on the NAACP Website and the Afro Newspaper in Baltimore Maryland, (September 17, 2009) - The NAACP is renewing a push for federal standards on police use of force after the shooting of an unarmed Black man by two White police officers inside a church while day care children watched, the Associated Press reported.
According to witnesses, the man was surrendering but officials in Rockford, Ill., deny this description of events, saying Mark Anthony Barmore attempted to grab an officer's gun after they cornered him in the church.
However, both sides agree Barmore ran when officers approached him in the church parking lot, highlighting the suspicion and fear that can poison relationships between police and minority communities across the country.
"There are no national standards for the use of force (or) training for use of force," Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, said Sept. 11. MORE HERE
Cincinnati police say the preliminary investigations says Officer Anthony Plummer's actions were not in compliance with Cincinnati Police Departments policies and procedures. Also, the tasing investigation has been recommended to be conducted by the internal investigation section.
Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.
Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.
"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.
Official comment from the Cincinnati Police Department was not immediately forthcoming. Councilman Thomas, however, said that in a phone call with a senior officer early Sunday morning he was told that police would be reviewing the incident.
A source with knowledge of the incident tells 9News that the officer who used the Taser is Anthony Plummer.
Plummer was investigated by the Cincinnati’s Citizen Complaint Authority in a 2006 complaint stemming from another Tasing incident in which use of excessive force was alleged. In that incident, Plummer was found to have used excessive force.
Additionally, sources tell 9News that Plummer was terminated for issues related to excessive force but reinstated last year after arbitration. More HERE
Let's not get it twisted. Tasering is out of control all over America and Canada. let's not thing that it's only black folks who are getting tased. No. it's everyone, the young, the old, the sick, seniors, the poor, the blacks, the poor whites, the Native Americans, the gays, the mentally ill, the latinos. We all in the same boat.
This is just another reason for Congressional Taser Hearings.
Get this, In January, an Onondaga County sheriffs deputy pulled over Audra Harmon, who had two of her kids with her in her minivan. A routine traffic stop escalated quickly.
Check out the video:
Get this, as reported by NBC Local Station, WOAI, in Onondaga County, New York -- A routine traffic stop ended with a mother being tasered in front of her children.
It started after the woman was pulled over because the police officer said she was talking on her cell phone and speeding.
"I handed him my license and registration and as he started to walk back towards his car, I got out of my car under the impression or hoping that he would show me the camera tape," explained mom Audra Harmon. "He asked me to get back in the car and then he pulled out his taser and said I was under arrest. I said, 'Don't do this in front of my kids.'"
Harmon was in the car with two of her children, ages five and fifteen, when she was pulled over and ticketed for talking on her cell phone and speeding. Police officer Sean Andrews also charged her with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and tasered her twice.
"The first shot jolted me, and I was trying to get back in the car again, because I was scared," Harmon recalled. "And then he yanked me away again. And that's when he tased me, and I went down on the ground."
Harmon claims the incident is an example of police brutality. In a statement to NBC News, the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office says they can't comment because of the lawsuit. But the department said, "An internal investigation of the incident involving Deputy Andrews...is and has been under review..."
"These weapons, and they are weapons, they are so easy to use, and they're easy to abuse," said Curt Goering, Executive Director of Amnesty International. "Officers are using this weapon in circumstances where live ammunition would never be allowed, and people are dying after having been tasered."
A 14-year-old Tucumcari girl is recovering at an Albuquerque hospital after being shot in the head with a Taser dart by Tucucmari Police Chief Roger Hatcher.
Now, her parents say they want the police department to review its policies for using the Taser.
Her mother, Stacy Akin, said her daughter underwent surgery Friday morning at University of New Mexico hospital in Albuquerque. “One of the darts entered her skull,” said Akin, interviewed by telephone.
After a CAT scan, a hospital resident told her the dart was “in her brain a little bit, but not much,” Akin said.
Hatcher is on administrative leave at the moment, but claims he had no choice because she was running away from him toward traffic. More HERE Sign the petition.
As reported by By Tami Abdollah at the LA Times, The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation into Orange County's troubled jail system, examining a decade's worth of allegations that deputies mistreated inmates and used excessive force to keep control.
Officials from the department's Civil Rights Division are seeking to determine whether incidents of violence by jail personnel amount to a pattern of violating inmates' rights, the Sheriff's Department confirmed.
The Orange County district attorney criticized deputies earlier this year for a "code of silence" that he said hampered prosecutors' ability to investigate possible criminal activities.
Among recent cases: An inmate was stomped to death by fellow prisoners after a deputy allegedly told them falsely that the man was a child molester. A county grand jury later criticized the Sheriff's Department for trying to impede the investigation into the death and concluded that there was evidence of rampant abuse at the Theo Lacy Jail in Orange.
The department has also been criticized for using Taser stun guns on handcuffed or restrained inmates. More HERE
Carter, a 67-year-old black man from Hartford, Conn., came to town two years ago to track down his runaway son. The teen had hooked up with some bad influences on the city's south side, and Carter caught up with him in the rough-and-tumble Allied Drive neighborhood. As he tried to restrain his inebriated son, he yelled for someone to call the cops, who promptly showed up, found the two struggling on the street and shot Carter in the back with a Taser.
"I felt this thud in my back and I thought I'd been shot because my whole body went limp," he recalls.
Carter says the cops, without identifying themselves as police officers, approached him from behind. One of them yelled, "Get off him. Get off him now." Carter says he had no idea who was yelling at him.
"Instead of them saying this is the Madison police, or coming around front where I could see them, they just Tasered me in the back," he says.
Carter is one of 65 people in Madison who were shot with a Taser in 2007, and one of more than 300 who have gotten the 50,000-volt jolt since the Madison Police Department began using the revolutionary stun guns in 2003. Every Madison officer on the street is trained to use them -- and many of them do. Since the devices took their place in the pantheon of tools cops place on their duty belts, someone in the Madison community has been "Tased," on average, about once a week. More HERE
Well it looks like the Tasering of people in America has gone completely off the chain. Looks like black folks are not the only ones getting tased. Police are now tasering seniors big time!
Check out what happened in Glenrock Wyo. — Glenrock Police Chief Tom Sweet said two officers “probably didn’t do things the best way” when they used a Taser on a 76-year-old man driving an antique tractor in a parade. Sweet spoke at a packed town hall meeting Monday, nine days after Bud Grose was hit with a Taser during the town’s annual Deer Creek Days.
The officers are on paid leave while state Division of Criminal Investigation agents investigate.
Mayor Steve Cielinski and most of the Town Council apologized to residents and asked for patience. Cielinski promised the findings will be made public.
“If we have to stand up and take it on the chin, we will,” Cielinski said.
State investigator Tim Hill has said the two officers contend Grose disobeyed orders. Grose hasn’t commented publicly, however, and investigators have not disclosed many details of what happened.
Sweet originally said it didn’t appear any policies were violated.
Some at Monday’s meeting called for the two officers to be fired. Several people who witnessed the event told the crowd police repeatedly shocked Grose with a taser.
“Those two were the most out-of-control officers I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Scott McWilliams, a witness who said he was shoved by one of the officers. “These two guys got to go.”
Mike Pyatt, a former Glenrock police officer, called on town leaders to make changes at the department.
“We will hold you accountable,” he said. More HERE
Check out the post by Digby who is guest-blogging today on the Glen Greenwald column.
He writes; Like Glenn, I write a lot about civil liberties, which have been at the heart of the national conversation since the beginning of the War On Terror and the expansion of the national security state. But my interest in civil liberties predates 9/11 and until then was usually pointed at the far more prosaic issues of police and prosecutorial misconduct (and the inevitable conclusions any study of those things brings to the issue of the death penalty). Nowadays, the theme of civil liberties seem to be a sub-plot to a James Bond flick rather than "To Kill A Mockingbird." And yet, I think the two are intertwined much more closely that we think. In our apparent acceptance of torture as a legal method of interrogation, the bar of civilized official behavior has been lowered to the point where we are accepting torture in everyday life as if it's nothing. Indeed, we are using it as a form of entertainment.
I'm speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. "Don't tase me bro" is a national catch phrase.
Tasers aren't benign however. They kill people. Nobody knows exactly why some people die from being tasered, and they certainly don't know how to tell in advance which ones are at risk. But there have been hundreds of deaths similar to the one below, which nobody can adequately explain:
A Detroit teenager who police say fled a traffic stop Friday died after being subdued with a Taser. He is the second Michigan teen to die following a Taser stun in less than a month. Warren Police say they don't know why the 15-year-old bailed out of a Dodge Stratus he was riding in during the stop on Eight Mile near Schoenherr, leading officers on a half-block chase that ended in an abandoned house on Pelkey in Detroit. The car was stopped for having an expired license plate. In the scuffle, officers shocked the teen one time with a Taser, police said. Shortly after, he became unresponsive and died.
Taser International has successfully defended themselves in lawsuits by attributing the deaths to drug use and if that doesn't work do to the fact that drugs were not present in the victim, they rely on an unrecognized medical condition called "excited delirium", a disease that only afflicts people who die in police custody. Juries apparently find this convincing. Taser has only lost one case.
But that isn't the real problem, although it may eventually be the path by which tasers are banned for use in civilized countries. As awful as the possibility of death is, tasers would be a blight on any free people even if they weren't so often deadly. Tasers were sold to the public as a tool for law enforcement to be used in lieu of deadly force. Presumably, this means situations in which officers would have previously had to use their firearms. It's hard to argue with that, and I can't think of a single civil libertarian who would say that this would be a truly civilized advance in policing. Nobody wants to see more death and if police have a weapon they can employ instead of a gun, in self defense or to stop someone from hurting others, I think we all can agree that's a good thing.
But that's not what's happening. Tasers are routinely used by police to torture innocent people who have not broken any law and whose only crime is being disrespectful toward their authority or failing to understand their "orders." There is ample evidence that police often take no more than 30 seconds to talk to citizens before employing the taser, they use them while people are already handcuffed and thus present no danger, and are used often against the mentally ill and handicapped. It is becoming a barbaric tool of authoritarian, social control.
Last week there were three taser episodes that made the rounds on the internet. (There may have been more, but these were the three most discussed.) The first was of a drunken, belligerent man at a baseball game who after 41 seconds of discussion was tasered while sitting in his seat. Indeed, the video shows that the taser threw him down onto the cement steps where he rolled down several. Since this scene must have happened literally thousands of times over the years, you have to wonder what they must have done in the past. Somehow I doubt they pulled out a gun and shot them.
The second incident was this sad tale of a man who allegedly refused to come out of a store restroom. Police blew pepper spray under the door, kicked it open and instantly tasered the man. It was only afterward that they discovered he was deaf. Police tried to book the man anyway, but the magistrate refused to accept the charges.
It was the third incident, however, that should get civil libertarians' serious attention. It featured an Idaho man on a bicycle who happened to ride past a police stop in progress on the side of the road. He had nothing to do with the stop, but was pulled over by the police and told to produce his ID. He said, correctly, that he had no legal obligation to produce ID and the police insisted he must. The situation escalated and he demanded that they call a supervisor to the scene when the police said they were going to arrest him. He ended up being tasered seven times -- you can hear him moaning in pain on the tape at the end. (In an especially creepy moment, the police try to confiscate the tape of the incident.)
Now, many people will say that he should have just showed his ID, that it's stupid to confront police, that like Henry Louis Gates you get what you deserve if you mouth off to the cops. And on a pragmatic level this is certainly true (although I would reiterate what I wrote here about a free people not being required to view the police in the same way they view a criminal street gang, which is to say in fear.) But the fact remains that there is no law against riding a bicycle without ID, and there is no law against mouthing off to the police. Certainly, there can be no rationale behind using a weapon designed to replace deadly force seven times against someone under these circumstances.
These are just three incidents that happened last week. There's nothing special about them. They happen every day. Even this horrific scene, which is so shockingly authoritarian (excuse the pun) that it makes you feel sick, is not unusual:
A former Southern Virginia University and Brigham Young University adjunct professor of political philosophy and jurisprudence, Dr. Lowery entered the Utah Third District courtroom alone on November 22, 2004, to make oral argument before Judge Anthony Quinn. Two Salt Lake County Deputy Sheriffs sat at the back of the courtroom, one on each side of the door. Other deputies were in the foyer of the courtroom. No members of the public were present.
Dr. Lowery suffered from major depression, bipolar disorder, paranoia disorder, delusional disorder, and psychotic disorder. Judge Quinn granted one of Dr. Lowery's motions made under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II, which allowed for reasonable modifications of court rules, policies, or practices in order to accommodate Dr. Lowery's multiple mental disabilities.
Near the end of his oral argument, the traumatic content of the argument moved Dr. Lowery into moderate mania, and he characterized a previous crabbed ruling by Quinn as "bullshit."
Impatient for the speech to end, Judge Quinn took that as an opportunity to order the bailiffs to take the professor into custody and cool him off.
The plaintiff's state of agitation was caused by his mental disabilities. The deputy sheriffs' approach only caused the situation to escalate. As five or more Salt Lake County deputy sheriffs/bailiffs seized Lowery from behind, he shouted, "I am cooled off; I deserve to be heard. I deserve to be heard, your Honor, and you are violating my access to due process at this very moment. I am not violent and --"
Judge Quinn interrupted him with ordering the bailiffs to take Dr. Lowery to a holding cell. A split second later -- unclear whether following the judge's orders or acting on his own accord, a bailiff sent 50,000 volts of incapacitating electricity into the lower back of the unsuspecting professor. As the courtroom video shows, nothing in Dr. Lowery's behavior suggests that the bailiffs had any reasonable motive to believe they or the judge were in physical danger.
Yet the taser gun fired more than once.
The repeated electric shocks blew Dr. Lowery over the podium, and he landed face down on the floor, with two bailiffs on his back. The electric blasts caused Dr. Lowery's bowels to empty twice. He screamed, "Help me!" while he complied with a bailiff's order to stay on his belly, neither capable nor willing to offer resistance. Then, suddenly, he went unconscious.
Remembering they were still on camera, the bailiffs shouted at Dr. Lowery to not resist again (though his resistance was only instinctive) and threatened him with more electrocution. When they realized that he could no longer hear them, they dragged the man across the floor, put him in a chair, and massaged his heart. One bailiff called for paramedics. [...]
Since no one but the victim and the abusers were in the courtroom, this crime remained unknown to the public until recently.
Tasered While Black publisher says, "This is a damn shame. This report is revealing that 29 percent of people who are the receiving end of force from a police officer are African American. Get this, thirty four percent of people who have a gun pointed at them by a police officer are also black, according to the report.
As reported the Portand Observer, a city auditor report on the use of force by police has drawn mixed reactions from city officials.
The report analyzes data from 2007 through 2008 to provide a snapshot of police use of force in Portland, revealing trends that have garnered praise as wells as alarm.
Complaints concerning the use of force by police are down substantially, from 118 in 2004 to 50 in 2008. The report also showed that Portland police use force in less than one percent of all calls for service and less than five percent of arrests.
However, the report also revealed more disturbing trends.
It revealed that 29 percent of people who are the receiving end of force from a police officer are African American. Thirty four percent of people who have a gun pointed at them by a police officer are also black, according to the report.
The report also concluded that while police are using force on fewer mentally ill suspects overall, their use of Tasers on this population has risen, with 26.4 percent more reports. It notes that people with mental illness tend to be armed more frequently, and more combative.
It also showed disparities in where police use force. Twenty nine percent of all use of force reports were generated in the police bureau's East Precinct, while only 10 percent came from North Precinct.
Forty one percent of all use of force reports were generated by just 15 percent of all officers who submitted more than five use of force reports.
Police Chief Rosie Sizer received a sanguine reception when presenting the report to Portland's Citizen Review Committee, a nine-member panel that helps improve police accountability. The committee was so pleased with the drop in police use of force that there was talking of breaking out champagne glasses, and barely touched on the more negative findings in the report.
"I think this whole effort has been extraordinarily good for the Police Bureau, and it's been extraordinarily good for our relationship with our community," said Sizer, who attributed the drop in use of force to the implementation of recommendations made by a task force in 2007 that called for better training for officers.
The only criticism came from Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch who pointed out that the bureau had no new recommendations to further improve the Police Bureau's use of force numbers. He also complained that the figures don't count the pointing of a Taser weapon toward a suspect as a police use of force.
Sizer also presented the report to City Council last week.
Mayor Sam Adams raised the issue of the African Americans being disproportionately on the receiving end of force by police, which Sizer said the bureau would continue to look into, which was reinforced by Michael Bingham, the chair of the Citizen Review Committee. More HERE
Alachua County, Florida - The Alachua County Sheriff's Office says a Lieutenant didn't know a mother was pregnant when he tasered her stomach. See photo HERE
A pregnant Leslie Donaldson says she was trying to help break up a fight between neighborhood kids. That's when the sheriff's deputy showed up. He tazed one of the boys fighting then said he had to taser Donaldson.
"She raised her arm to the deputy. The deputy felt threatened like she was going to hit him potentially," said Alachua County Sheriff's Lieutenant David Clark.
Clark is a certified taser instructor with the Sheriff's Office. He says when he tasered her stomach, he didn't realize she was 8 months pregnant.
Donaldson says she still has the marks on her belly.
She was arrested for battery, after she was taken to a hospital to be checked out.
Donaldson filed a report about the incident and the Sheriff's Office is investigating.
Rebecca Piscopo, reportsSelma patrolman Joshua Layhew tasered a Micro man in the police department parking lot on Webb Street last Wednesday.
Prior to being tasered, Gary Sanders, 40, 320 Trailer Park Rd., in Micro, pushed Layhew away, and had his fist balled to throw a punch, according to Layhew’s report.
Sanders came to the Police Department at 5:30 p.m. last Wednesday, which also happened to be his birthday, looking for paperwork for an incident, which happened earlier in the year, according to arresting officer David Nielsen.
Officer Tomeka Moore explained to Sanders he would have to go to the Magistrate’s Office for his own paper work.
He was then asked by Moore to leave because she said he was intoxicated and “agitated,” according to the report. Nielsen then came out of the department, and said he needed to leave.
Sanders allegedly cursed at Nielsen using the f-word. He then went to his car where there was an unknown female whom Nielsen said he believed to be Sanders’ mother.
“Officer Layhew asked her to remove him,” Nielsen said. Sanders turned to Layhew and reportedly cursed again, but this time at Layhew.
The police then asked Sanders to get out of the car because he was under arrest.
As Layhew and Nielsen removed him from the vehicle, Sanders, who was intoxicated, allegedly pushed Layhew away. That was when he said he noticed Sanders’ clenched fist. More HERE
