Community Comment

Taser Death of Teen

Posted by JeanieS

March 25, 2009 9:55 a.m. • 14 comments

I always wake up to my radio - usually the news, sometimes music - some song that will rattle around in my head over and over and over - but it beats the shrill siren of the buzzer. This morning, however, I think I’d prefer the buzzing. First words from the news caster: “A teen died Sunday after police in Michigan used the stun gun on him.” That nasty taser stuff again. I think tasers should be banned. I think they should be outlawed. Police are not being trained sufficiently to use them appropriately. They should be used instead of (in place of) a gun - and only in situations where the use of a gun is the only recourse.

I was watching The Mentalist last week, where the character Chief Theresa Lisbon is confronted by a bad guy who just punched one of her colleagues, when he stands in front of her and says, “you want some, too?” And she says, “no thank you” and tases him. In real life, I would call that misuse of a taser - that she was not in a life and death situation and didn’t need to use a gun.

Tasers just add fuel to the gang-in-uniform good-ol’-boys-club we’re-so-much-better-than-you “police” platform. There needs to be an overhauling done.

For more, see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29865217/ “Amnesty International critical of Taser death.”

Jeanie

14 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

lewis8457 on March 25 at 9:22 a.m.
I see the city is going to sneak in a possible tax increase to compensate for the needed police shooting range the taxpayers voted against. I wonder why they need a shooting range? They like the taser so much more they can get real close so they can see the citizens eyes bug out when the fire the taser.

Unless of course like Otto the citizens face is buried in the floor then they taser just for kicks.

The taser needs to be outlawed it is too deadly of a weapon in the hands of todays, kill, em before they can get to trial cops.

also a side point , the police property room does not have fire sprinklers. Isn’t that a law the rest of Spokanes buillding owners have to follow?
lewis8457 on March 25 at 9:24 a.m.
so sad, i don’t know what i would do if the police killed my son. There is no justice anymore.

So sad………
ChefGus/ John Olsen on March 25 at 10:16 a.m.
Well, having had a triple bypass four years ago… a Taser used on me IS a lethal weapon …. and I’d treat it as such if aimed at me. John
JeanieSpokane on March 25 at 10:56 a.m.
John - that’s the thing. How does the taser user determine if his victim is healthy enough. Heck, **I’m** not healthy enough to withstand tasering. And don’t give me the “excited delirium” pre-existing condition excuse. If someone was **not** pointing a potentially lethal weapon at me, I wouldn’t be excited or delirious.
ChefGus/ John Olsen on March 25 at 11:09 a.m.
I am not a cardiologist… but I’d guess that the “electrics” on most of us that are over 50 are not likely to tolerate a laser 50K volt jolt.. and walk away from it… not nearly as well as a young police officer who is in great shape… the “Teen Death” should have an autopsy and see if the cardiac pacemaker ( our own natural one) was short circuited or what exactly caused the young person’s death../?
garfnagn on March 25 at 7:05 p.m.
This was a shocking story. So what is even more so shockng is that the cit of Spokane is considring making their police officers into dogcatchres. I can just hear this now “We had to shoot Fluffy when we saw her go for a milkbone in that alley, you cant critisize us if you havent been in are shoes” Then everyone will be upset because Fluffy was shot going for an alleged milkbone but then someone will say “i saw the whole thing and Fluffy was only licking herself and she isn’t a her! and there wasnt a milkbone anywehere’ and then a tape will turn up and everone will be like “oh sure, Fluffy wasNT going for a milkbone Flufy was only liking himself” and before you know it the mayor will say “we stand by our officers and there story of Fluffy and his dangerous milkbone threat.” And then she will lose relection because Spokanites are a lot of things including cheap and bad driver but they are not dog killers.

I expect that if the Spokane cit police are made into dogcatchers there will be very few dogs taken into shelters for raoming around and packs of dog gunned and tazed down in the streets and put in the wrong kind of muzzles and sat on by big fat officers who need diets. Please Mary Wermer, do not deputize your officer as dogcatchers, we know they are blue heros everyday fighting thugs and neerdowells but not pugs and newfoundlands.
lewis8457 on March 25 at 10:37 p.m.
I think it would be cool if the cops were dog catchers they would spend so much time chasing dogs and cats they would not have any time to murder citizens.

imagine seeing a cop car driving down the street with bunch of dogs in the back seat, now that’s justice.
Jeffrey_Grey on March 26 at 5:38 a.m.
And then who would protect us from the criminals, Lewis?

Or are there no criminals in the world except for cops? (The folks in Oakland, CA might have some thoughts on that.)

This unrelenting, one-sided, broad-brush bigotry - yes, I said bigotry - is making it increasingly hard to take you seriously.
Jeffrey_Grey on March 26 at 5:58 a.m.
Returning to the topic at hand…

I completely fail to understand why a TASER is considered to be a step *lower* on the scale of escalation than a nightstick. That is to say; why can a cop so freely make use of a TASER in a situation where he’d be reluctant to use his PR-24?

How many people have been killed by a PR-24?

How may people have been killed by a TASER?

Now I’m in no way arguing for the outlawing of TASERs. *Used properly in the proper circumstances* they are a very valuable, very preferable alternative to a cop’s sidearm. I’m arguing that they have become abused by being far too quickly and too often casually employed as an alternative to other ways of defusing a bad situation.

They’re not ‘casual’. They’re proven, deadly weapons and they need to be regarded and employed as such.
lewis8457 on March 26 at 9:41 a.m.
Jeff you are always the one that wants me to accept the police for what they are. And I did for many years until I friend was killed by them, with no justice in sight.

I am not a bigot I believe that justice should apply to all. Not just a select few.

And yes sadly I do believe most of our criminals in Spokane work at the Spokane Safety Building. How can I think any differently? Our police lie to us at will. If they get caught in a lie they will destroy or lose the evidence.

At a Shonto Petes trial recently uniformed SWAT teams were present and after the trial one of them stated he was just waiting for Pete to make a move. I am supposed to respect that? And what if Pete did make a move would it have been OK for them to attack him, like they did Otto? And after that Kirkpatrick said she is proud of her boys in blue. I am supposed to respect that, a chief saying it is acceptable to basically threaten a man in a court of law? The mayor is putting the tax for law enforcement back on a ballot but not the animals, and I am to respect that?

If I was stopped in my car and I got into an argument with the cop and he killed me that would be acceptable? Because don’t argue with the cops it is not like we are free people?

Get off your soap box pretending you have ever taken me seriously, your the first one who always wants me trust the police to put my gauntlet down.

And then what just give up and hope to god it is not me that gets put down next? Is that acceptable?

You are the bigot you refuse to let others state their opinions. If you don’t like my posts just scroll past them. I scroll through every one of yours.
JeanieSpokane on March 26 at 9:57 a.m.
I introduced this subject because I feel very strongly that the use of tasers is not regulated properly and as Jeff pointed out, a nightstick would be the more appropriate tool.

Let’s not call each other names, ok?

I have witnessed a situation where the man approached by police was calm and quiet. He was being taken to a police car to get him out of the situation before anything got carried away, and while they were walking to the police car (a male officer on one side and a female on the other, and the man is handcuffed), she held a taser to the back of his neck. Where was the necessity of this action merited? The man never once yelled, raised his fist, nothing. She would say she was doing it as a precaution. Precaution to what? How was a handcuffed man a danger to this officer? Thank God she didn’t fire the taser at the base of his neck.

I am saying that tasers are way too freely used, when some other method would be better.
richard on March 26 at 11:16 a.m.
A taser can stop someone who is lunging at you with a knife 10 yards away. A night stick; not until the thrusting knife is splitting your gut open.

It is always the same old story. In the 70’s there was all kinds of yelling and screaming about nightsticks. They were a “symbol” of police brutality; today it is the taser.

It is not a pleasant fact that we have so many people who are so selfish that they commit criminal acts against people and property, up to and including mureder.

Isn’t that the real issue here. if we didn’t have lousy criminals running the streets, we wouldn’t need those rotten cops with those evil tasers, or nightsticks, or guns, or German Shepards, or handcuffs, or sirens on patol cars, or badges … or people who risk their lives everyday to protect you, and you and you and me and all of our families.

As with any group, there are some cops who shouldn’t be or who have not been properly trained or supervised … and tragedies happen.

Should we ban the tools of the trade of police work? Or should we lock up criminals?
Jeffrey_Grey on March 26 at 12:48 p.m.
“A taser can stop someone who is lunging at you with a knife 10 yards away. A night stick; not until the thrusting knife is splitting your gut open.”

In the case of someone lunging at a cop with a knife and a clear intent to do serious bodily harm, a TASER would be “a very valuable, very preferable alternative to a cop’s sidearm.” (Indeed, in that case, the sidearm would be a perfectly valid response. So if the cop in question has the guts and the dedication to go for his TASER instead… I’d be the first to say, ‘Well done, Officer!’)

But that’s not the case we’re discussing, is it?

What we’re talking about in this particular case (and more than a few cases like it) is an unarmed, approximately 120-pound, 15-year-old boy in a wrestling match with three police officers. (Add in the *as yet unsubstantiated* allegation that the boy was handcuffed at the time of the tasing and this becomes very troubling.)

What we’re talking about isn’t an all or nothing call for the banning of TASERs. This isn’t about some straw-man ‘what if’ dealing with the chaos that would ensue if cops were left completely at the mercy of the forces of crime and chaos.

This is about the *reasonable* use of force. This is about the need for police to make good choices - not just the easy or most expedient choices - as they do their job of protecting and serving.
cantyoureadthesigns on March 26 at 12:51 p.m.
This case is going to be VERY interesting. The show-boating, controversial and extremely successful attorney, Geoffrey N. Fieger, is representing the interests of the deceased and his family.

Fieger, a legal pitbull, is one the top trial lawyers in the country, he was Kervorkian’s lawyer, and has won 10’s, if not 100’s of millions of dollars in high profile court cases.

He’s already got witnesses, albeit, likely biased, that say the kid was tasered after he was hand-cuffed, and that police did nothing to try and revive the kid, like CPR, and prevented others at the scene from doing so. Paramedics didn’t arrive for 20 minutes.