NEWS: Police Taser Kills 18 Year Old

Is anyone still talking about this incident, or after it was found that the man who died had a ton of methamphetamines and MDMA in is system make the story not so interesting. I can't believe how people insist that police are so brutal and corrupt until they either walk the same steps, or learn enough later to see "off-base" their misguided preseptions were.

Oh yeah, there was backup on the way. Unfortunatley it takes others time to respond, and the officer called is still expected to approach any situation and begin to deal with it. Cops aren't all in the same place like firemen. They are patrolling different areas.

Absolutely this cop acted properly. Say she was your sister. What should she have done then? Fight with a guy hopped up on drugs who has superhuman strength?? Shoot him? And I believe the guy have more then small incidents on his arrest record, unless you consider "Burglary" small.

i find the taser gun use has once again used at high power without proper level and the victum was in a induced state meaning drunk or stoned.which a tazer gun should not be used on a person because it stops the heart.when will cops learn train and have proper people to do the job.this is a misuse of a weapon and this 18 year join the long list of dead who and been killed by high voltage which i really dont think it worth the price.

On one hand, what she did sounds perfectly reasonable.

On the other, cops are proven liars and will do anything to save themselves and their colleagues and she had plenty of time to make up the perfect (a little too perfect) story and of course, there are no witnesses to contradict her.

TASER is a replacement for .40Cal HP round to the chest, why is it wrong to use something may kill a very small portion of the target in place of a mean that will kill 20-50% of the targets?

And Pepperspray/OC aren't enough to stop all determined/drugged attackers, neither is military teargas...

ASP if used "correctly" can cause more damage that pistol round (energy tranfer maybe even greater)


Btw why do cops work alone in US?
Here in Finland there are always 2 cops working as a pair.

[edit on 27-6-2006 by northwolf]

Originally posted by Jehosephat
well Tasers deliver 50,000 volts, but only for a milisecond. So don't let the number scare you and make you go nuclear. Electric chairs used about 1000 to 3000 volts but that is over a few minutes... big differance to tasers.

There is a study in progress at UW-Madison to do independant study on Pigs, recently one of the scientists was takeng out of the study becasue of conflicts of interest.

WE will know in a year I guess

Voltage has naff all to do with killing power. I could kill you with 1 Volt or a 1 Million, ir doesn't matter. What kills is current, which is measured in Amps.

The Electric chair will have a higher current than that off the tazer. I don't know the specifics, but I would imagine that a tazer's current is millamps, where as the electric chair could be in the tens of Amps, or higher.... It doesn't taker many Amps to kill a person.

I don't feel sorry for criminals that tresspass in other people's property under the influence of drugs/alcohol. In fact I am quite relieved it wasn't someone innocent who was killed instead.

I've been following this thread for a while, sometimes with much frustration, so I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

First of all, the proper term is "less-lethal" not "non-lethal". Be it pepper spray, special mutions shotgun rounds, Tasers, what have you, all can potentially cause serious harm. However, the use of firearms, batons, even bare hands can cause more severe and long lasting effects than OC and the Taser. Broken bones, blunt trauma, brain damage, and death are all much more likely when traditional methods of restraining or stopping individuals are used. The whole science of "less-lethal" weapons is driven by law suits evolving from people getting hurt from hands, batons, bullets, etc. Believe it or not, OC and Tasers are much more humane than say... beating someone until they comply. Does anyone think that beating someone until you can cuff them is better than 5 seconds of discomfort?

Now, as for the effects of the Taser, I have been hit with it three times, and know some who have gotten hit with it more. It is manditory to get hit with it (for us) if you are to be certified to carry it. Guess what? We all lived, got up laughing about it (because it was over), and the effects of the Taser are completely gone once the current flow stops. And no, there are no different settings. Only one. And there are two ways to monitor its use. There is a data port where you can plug it into a computer and see when and for how long it was used. Plus there are a blue million little paper markers that are ejected from the cartridge when it is deployed, so that the taser can't be improperly used, then "covered up". Another post was correct when they stated that the amps in the Taser was probably in the mili-amp range. That is correct. The amps are extremely low, because in electrocution, it is the amplitude that kills. Once the Taser is fired, a current is sent to the target for 5 seconds, however it can be turned off sooner. The current is sent in cycles, several a second, which causes exterior muscles to contract and relax with each cycle. It hurts, but that's all. Most of the subjects shot have the current running in a line of about 12 to 20 inches across their bodies. A good example is from the center of the chest to the center of the abdomen. I've had the current flow from finger tip to finger tip, through the width of my chest, as well as from one foot to the opposite hand. I've seen this on others many times, as well. Again, everyone was fine at the end of 5 seconds.

That being said, there some risk with people with heart problems or who are on drugs (especially drugs). But when you are faced with the choice of either shooting a raging behemoth with either a .45 or a Taser, asking them if they have a heart condition first is not a priority. Also, sure Tasers are blamed for deaths, but the fact that people swallow several rocks of crack prior to getting Tased gets little notice, because "death by Taser" makes better headlines. Anyone eats that much crack is going to have some problems with their ticker, Taser or no. And there is some research being done into these deaths, because believe it or not, death hurts the "less-lethal" industries. If you can't step outside the "cops are brutal killers" thing, then think of the corporate greed. Lawsuits cost money. Tasers that kill indiscriminately... baaaad.

As for the officer's use of force: From the information in the two articles, I think everything was entirely appropriate.

[edit on 27-6-2006 by hogtie]

Great information Hogtie.

I think what a lot of people don't consider, is what if the same incident occurred, but there wasn't an officer involved.

Delerious guy trespassing on some ladies land, lady feels frightened by the mans approach, zaps him with her stun gun, guy dies. Would your position be any different?

To an end, I think that many people tend to be more prone to preconceived notions where officers are involved. Now, I'll concede that certain members of the law enforcement community, have, throughout history, abused their positions of power, etc. etc. etc., but most of them are good people just trying to do their job, but many people dislike them just because they're cops.

------
Don't hate the soldiers for fighting the war.

Unit 541,

You're right, and Hollywood (the place, not the person) doesn't help. Just like it turned anyone in spec ops into Rambo, cops are either one-shot super men or scum. Nobody seems to think of men in women in the armed forces or law enforcement as thinking, breathing human beings with their own intentions, opinions, families, pride, guilt... everything. The thought that soldiers are tools of a corrupt govt. comes from some place that does not understand that the US is actually dependent on the free thinking, and free will of its citizenry to execute policy. Sure there is influence and corruption, but we have the freedom to choose and to act. One of the few places in the world where this is so.

Sorry. Got off topic.

To anyone who thinks tasers are "evil", consider this: Statistically, the percentage of people who have died from any "less-lethal" weapon deployed by police has not risen. From old straight batons, to stun guns, to chemical agents, to tactical batons, to tasers, the percentages are nearly identical. The same amount of people die in police related "in-custody" incidents no matter what secondary weapon used. So how is it the taser?
Also, how many millions of police officers have been tased in training without report of any serious physical harm? I know for a fact, one of these officers previously had open heart surgury and was not injured by the taser. How can that many people....men and women...young and old....fit or unfit, get tased without incident if the taser is the problem? Are you going to say there is this giant conpsiracy to cover deaths of police officers who were killed in training? Let's be real. And the idea that police shouldn't use tasers on people who are bombed out of their gord on meth is just ignorant. A guy outsizing you already, charging at full speed toward you in a field in the middle of the night, after saying something about killing someone....frankly I don't care what weapon they use at that point, but I bet the taser would be most effective at apprehending a subject without injury to either party(cop or the subject). Police do not get paid to get hurt or get killed. That's why we give them weapons in the first place. They have families to go home to as well.

This all sounds like the arguments against police using chemical agents in the 1980's.
I think some would be well served by reading a few articles about "excited delirium".

As far as the current of a taser: It's .04 Amps. A coffee pot runs on about 5 Amps. A defibrillator has between 80-100 Amps.

And a person "in an induced state of mind" is not a "victim"(that would be a criminal), unless the meth fairy came in his sleep and placed a big bag of "magic pixie dust" under his nose. A taser only has one setting, there is no "high power", or low power, and a taser is same strength as most of the old hand held "stun-guns", just delivered in another manor, and usually spead a little farther between the electrodes. As far as her training, do you know what training she had? I don't think anyone should comment on her training unless they know what her training is, and you, yourself are qualified to say that it was insufficient. Was the suspect trained in snorting meth? poppin "X"?

As far as her having "plenty of time to make up a story", I believe there was a credible witness(the homeowner) at the scene, who confirmed the officer's story. And I'll still take a cops word of 99 percent of the people they deal with. You can't argue with toxicology reports either. Meth and MDMA(X-tacy) kill peolpe every day, whether hey are tased or not.

Bottom line: People are going to die from similar incidents. The idea behind the taser, and any other weopon police use is to limit this to the least possible amount without putting the police officers in any more danger then already exists in the job. Remember, they are still the "good-guys", the ones you hate unless you need to call them. I think its time to start putting the blame more on the the real people at fault. The people snorting the meth, the crack, or whatever. That cop did not ask to get called to the scene that night. She didn't ask this guy to snort the meth, or take the "x". She didn't ask to owner to call, concerned about her horses. She didn't ask the guy to charge her. And I am quite certain she did ask to have to tase the guy either. And she certainly did not ask him to die. If there weren't people doing this stuff, there wouldn't be cops. He is the reason cops are here. And he, HIMSELF, is the reason he is not here anymore.

P.S. Good Information Hogtie

Hogtie, excellent information. Most people don't realize the difference between non-lethal and less then lethal. Good point that all of those options can kill the suspect but for the vast majority of the population won't. We use these options to avoid loss of life not cause it, use of these options has also cut down on injuries to law enforcement and suspects. It seems to me that the officer in question used sound judgement and conducted herself in a professional manner. The reason most cities/counties don't have two officers per patrol is lack of money to hire enough officers thereby forcing officers into potentially dangerous situations without adequate backup. I understand the mother's pain but shooting a moving suspect in the leg is not a reasonable expectation. It is difficult to hit a moving target in daylight let alone at night. I don't know about everybody but I'm trained to shoot for center of available body mass to stop the action not to shoot to kill.

I would hope that all departments use firarms only as "lethal" force, as mine does. A bullet is too unpredictable for anything else, not that it couldn't have been justified in this situation, but I believe she already had the taser out. Not a whole lot of time too change weopons anyway. We don't pull afirearm out to "wing" somebody.

cujo0154 and gallopinghordes,

I think we're all in the same boat. Besides, getting accurate details on proceedure to the public is not something the trial lawyers want. It makes it too hard for them to win the civil suit if the general public knows they're blowing smoke.

I am not advertising for this website, but it is a site set up to begin to establish a standard by which such law suits will be measured. I encourage everyone I know to take to survey on this site. It was set up by one of the premier LE trainers in the country, Sam Faulkner. He is an amazing teacher and the site is assist prosecutors, and people of the jury have a base of thousands of peoples opinions(civilian and LE) concerning use of force in different situations.

Eventually there will be a base of thousands of opinions so when an officer is sued for use of force issues, the courts will have these records to say "yeah this officer acted in the manor the public and other LE thought he/she should have". This should stop a lot of the "frivolous" law suits filed against police officers. At the same time if the officer acted outside what these thousands of people felt he/she should have done, it won't get in the way of civil "justice". Which, as I hope most officers feel, I dont have a problem with bad officers who act outside reason, and make us all look bad, paying the price. So, enough of me BSing. check it out.


www.responsetoresistance.com

I also hope anyone interested in this topic will learn as much as possible about exited delerium. I feel it has a huge bearing on peoples perception and beliefs reargding "in custody" incidents involving subjects under the influence of various mind altering drugs. Good reading. And if you are an officer there are things your department needs to do to preserve evidence in such cases that must be done within like 24-48 hours of the incident. It could save your department and citizens a lots of money in civil cases.

Police have to deal with people like this all the time:

www.azcentral.com...

Bail has been set at $50,000 for a man accused of using an electronic stun gun to injure two Phoenix police officers.

Authorities said Wednesday that Brandon Amar Alverson, 19, is being held in a Maricopa County jail on several charges, including attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and resisting arrest.

Police said the attack took place Monday evening after police responded to a domestic-violence call at an apartment complex in the 3300 block of West Dunlap Avenue, near the Metrocenter shopping mall.

A fight erupted as officers attempted to take Alverson into custody, police said.

As they tried to handcuff him, he grabbed a Taser and flashlight from one of the officer's belts and used them to stun and beat police, investigators said.

Alverson was eventually subdued after backup officers were called to the scene.

I have no problems with them subduing people like this by whatever means is necessary.

NON-LETHAL >>>MY A$$

the taser (ONCE SHOT) stays ATTACHED to the subject

as long as you PULL THE TRIGGER they get zapped

the police DROP the suspect
( they dont cuff you right away cause you are DOWN)
oops he is trying to get up.........zap him again!!!!!

F'in TORTURE is more like it!!!!!

p.s.

anybody been to the nut house.......
they zap the heck out of you........ and call it THERAPY.....
COOKING YOU ALIVE..........

you people who are FOR it

LET ME ZAP YOU WITH IT .........JUST ONCE


NO WAY! you say???? thats what i thought!!!!!!!!

[edit on 13-7-2006 by yeah right]

taser is convenient too.......for the cops

inflict as much PAIN AS THEY WANT

and leaves NO ABUSE MARKS...........

VERY CONVENIENT

Funny how people always cry over tasers but don't offer any alternatives.
So Yeah Right, are you saying they should just use guns instead?

for the life of the officer ......YES

after being tortured with electroshock (THERAPY) ....YES

an officer zaps me with a taser after what i went through.....yes

they had better KILL ME with it.............cause i get back up...... they are done for