Police Officer used stun gun on students during friendly demonstration, one hospitalized.

January 13, 2010
chicagobreakingnews.com
posted by --Joel Hood and Andrew L. Wang

Kankakee, Illinois-- A police officer is on leave, students are puzzled and parents are outraged as the fallout from a Taser demonstration gone awry rippled through the halls of Kankakee Junior High School on Wednesday.

Kankakee police said an officer assigned to the school zapped three male students who had volunteered to be part of an unsanctioned, classroom demonstration on Tuesday. Police said the Taser was used on the students for about a second, but long enough to send at least one briefly to a hospital.

The officer has been placed on administrative leave while the Police Department and school district investigate...

The boy's mother, Alta Young, told Channel 7 that Maiden has a heart murmur and that when she found out about the incident, she took him to the emergency room. He was released soon after...

Although police and school officials would not confirm it, Young said this wasn't the first time the officer has used a Taser on students in class...

read entire article here

Angry shopper uses Taser at Joliet store

December 28, 2009
Chicago Suntimes

SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE

...Juan Varges was asked to leave the Gonzales Supermarket in Joliet on Friday, then returned about 5 p.m. with a Taser gun and attacked the store's 33-year-old butcher.

Varges, 18, was arrested Friday and booked into Will County jail on charges of battery, criminal trespassing and unlawful use of a weapon, police said.

No injuries were reported. But it had to hurt. This is what all the taser abuse comes to. Pretty soon kids will be taking them to school.

Again, Deputies Shock 'Out Of Control' Child With Taser

December 3, 2009
wftv.com

PUEBLO, Colo. -- Colorado sheriff's deputies shocked an "out of control" 10-year-old child with a Taser and arrested him.

Pueblo Sheriff's Capt. Jeff Teschner said Wednesday that the boy was not hurt when deputies took action Monday after arriving at his foster home, where he was reportedly destroying property.

Teschner says deputies were justified in their use of force. The deputies say the youth threatened them with a pipe and a stick, and threw a piece of wood at them. The boy was arrested on suspicion of menacing with a deadly weapon...

read entire article here

Officer Fired After Using Taser On Girl, 10

GOOD. When are they going to take these tasers away from these police officers? Children, old people, disabled--they kill people regularly--if they don't have any common sense why are they even police? Read this from wftv.com, Orlando:

Camera Was Not Attached To Device (of course, just like the Malibu Sheriff's office had no camera's set up at the station when Mitrice Richardson disappeared)

JILL ZEMAN BLEED,
Associated Press Writer
via wftv.com
November 30, 2009

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- The police officer in a small Arkansas town who used a stun gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl has been fired for violating department policy -- not for using the Taser itself but for failing to use the camera attached to it, according to the town's mayor.

Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel said he received notice of Officer Dustin Bradshaw's firing on Monday morning. Bradshaw previously was suspended for seven days with pay. His termination was effective Friday.

"The policy that Officer Bradshaw failed to obey is failure to have his camera placed on his Taser," police Chief Jim Noggle wrote in a memo to McDaniel. "It is the officer's duty to insure all of his equipment is present and in working order."

Complete cop-out. This way, old Bradshaw can still get a job in law enforcement. What a crock.

Read article here

...Police were called to the home Nov. 11 after the girl's mother couldn't get her to take a shower. "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to," Bradshaw wrote.

Wha??? Talk about poor parenting skills...

No charges in Taser use on Wyoming tractor driver

Aug 24, 7:11 PM EDT
No charges in Taser use on Wyoming tractor driver
By MATT JOYCE
Associated Press Writer
via tbo.com

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- Prosecutors say they won't file any charges after police used a Taser to try to subdue a 76-year-old man driving an antique tractor during a parade in Glenrock.

County and Prosecuting Attorney Quentin Richardson released a statement Monday after reviewing the state Division of Criminal Investigation's report into the Aug. 1 incident.

Glenrock Police Chief Tom Sweet says tractor driver Bud Grose ignored an officer's traffic command and then kept driving until officers pulled in front of him.

Sweet says an officer shocked Grose with a Taser, but that failed to subdue him.
.
Old folks, pregnant women, children...the police are way to taser crazy. What is it, a macho thing? Are they excited they finally get to shoot someone? sheesh.

Enid police taser nursing home patient

JESSE WELLS REPORTING
kfor.com

ENID, OKLAHOMA -- Police in Enid use a taser to subdue a 69-year-old nursing home patient.

Investigators say the elderly man, Lester Harris, had become disruptive over the weekend. That's when staff at Enid Senior Care called 911.

When officers arrived, Harris supposedly hit one of the officers in the stomach.

To get control of Harris, police twice used their tasers.

Harris' daughter says her dad suffered a stroke 2 weeks ago, and thinks police used excessive force.

"There's just so much that's wrong. Why taze a 70-year old man in a nursing home?" said Linda Ward.

Enid police defend their actions.

"We have to make sure the staff and officers are protected, and of course the person [we are] arresting," said Lt. Eric Holtzclaw.

Harris was arrested for assault and battery on a police officer.

He's since been released on bond and is being kept at a hospital in Enid where he's doing fine.

Read entire article here.
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We need to take these tasers away from the cops. They are taser crazy.

Nude Man Dies After Being Tasered by L.A. Sheriff's Deputies

Sunday, February 15, 2009
FOXNews.com

LOS ANGELES — A man running naked in the street died after he was shocked with a stun gun by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.

Deputies answering a disturbance call in suburban Lakewood at about 10:15 p.m. Saturday saw a man running naked in the street and acting irate, Deputy Keith Ho said. They tried to calm the man but he remained belligerent. When he advanced toward the deputies, Ho said they hit him with pepper spray and a taser electric stun gun.

Ho said after the man was handcuffed, deputies realized he wasn't breathing. They began CPR and paramedics were called but the man was pronounced dead at a hospital.

His identity hasn't been released, and the death is under investigation.

Americans dropping dead as police get Taser-happy

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Americas dropping dead as police get Taser-happy

Are cops underestimating stun gun's lethal power?

Posted: December 28, 2008
By Drew Zahn© 2008

WorldNetDaily

Even though the news is inundated with stories of people dying after being stunned by Tasers, police departments all over the nation are adding the electric-shock weapons to their arsenals, convinced the benefits outweigh the risks.

Research by WND revealed several news stories from just this month of police departments newly equipping themselves with the electric stun guns, including law officers in Maryland, Florida, New York, Michigan and even a small community of 15,000 in Pennsylvania, where the 22 full-time officers will be receiving 12 new Tasers.

In other cities, the number of Tasers already in use is skyrocketing: Durham, N.C., plans to double its police arsenal from 110 to 235, and a Georgia police chief is hoping to add 1,000 more stun guns to the Atlanta metro.

The Taser company's website includes testimonials from dozens of police departments, from nearly every state in the U.S.; and a statement from New York's Deleware County Sheriff's Department – which armed itself with Tasers last week – claims 13,400 law enforcement, correctional and military agencies in 44 countries use the device, having fired it on a cumulative total of more than 624,000 people.

"Are everyday citizens justified in arming themselves? Get "Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defense," and find out!

The Taser stun gun is the most common brand of a conductive energy device, or CED, which fires 50,000 volts of electricity through its target from as far as 35 feet away, causing uncontrollable muscle contraction and temporary immobilization.

For many of law enforcement agencies now using the device, the Taser is viewed as a safe alternative to guns, nightsticks or physical force in restraining uncooperative subjects.
In Johnsonburg, Pa., Police Chief Bryan Parana is proud to boast the first police department in his county to use Tasers.

"It's one of the most researched electronic devices out there. What I want to get across is it's not electrocution," Parana told the DuBois Courer-Express, "It is an electronic device which incapacitates."

The safety of the device, however, is becoming a matter of hot debate, and, as more and more news stories are beginning to reveal, it's an electric device that can also kill.

Two days after the city of San Jose, Calif., agreed to pay $70,000 to the wife and child of a man who died in 2005 after police jolted him with Tasers, the city is the center of controversy again after area law enforcement officers fired the device into 26-year-old Edwin Rodriguez.

Family members drove Rodriguez to the Valley Medical Center after he suffered an attack of his chronic schizophrenia. When he resisted treatment, however, police pinned him to the ground and stunned him with a Taser, reportedly four times.

Rodriguez died within the hour, the fifth person to have died in the city after being shocked by police since San Jose issued Tasers to officers in 2004.

According to the human rights organization, Amnesty International, deaths like Rodriquez happen too often to be freak accidents.

An Amnesty International report titled "USA: Less than lethal?" records 334 people have died after being stunned by Tasers in the U.S. between 2001 and August 2008, including 55 in California and 52 in Florida.

"Tasers are not the 'non-lethal' weapons they are portrayed to be," said Angela Wright, author of the report. "They can kill and should only be used as a last resort."

Proponents of Tasers, however, disagree that the devices pose any serious health threat. Deputy Dan Deering, a Taser trainer for Michigan's Jackson County Sheriff's Office – which began using the weapons in the fall – told the Jackson Citizen Patriot that there are "stacks and stacks" of medical documents backing the Taser's safety.

"Tasers generate a lot of volts, but not a lot of amps," Deering told the newspaper. "It's not the volts that kill you, it's the amps."

Police also testify that the weapons reduce injuries to both officers and suspects, and that even the threat of a Taser's excruciating pain is often a sufficient deterrent.

In Howard County, Md., which lies between Baltimore and Washigton, police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn told the Baltimore Examiner, "We've actually only had to discharge the devices about once a month because simply having the weapon displayed is enough to get suspects to comply."

Critics worry, however, that the very confidence police officers have in Tasers causes them to underestimate their potentially lethal power.

"We're seeing more fatalities following their use," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Peter Bibring told the Mercury News, "and it raises questions about whether they are as safe as the manufacturer claims."

Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Charles Steele Jr. questions the plan to equip Atlanta's police officers with the stun guns.

"What the problem has been," Steele told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "is that people who've been given permission to use them … say, 'Oh, it's not a real weapon to a large degree, and I'm going to use this gun without thinking of the ramifications."

And while the Taser company, the Associated Press reports, maintains that the devices cannot kill, the increasing use of the stun guns – and the increasing number of deaths connected to their use – is starting to draw critics in both the courtroom and the laboratory.

In June, the San Jose Mercury News reports, a federal jury found Taser International partly responsible for the 2005 death of Robert C. Heston, whom Salinas, Calif., police jolted repeatedly during an arrest. According to California Lawyer magazine, the verdict was the company's first courtroom loss after 70 dismissals and settlements.

And while the Amnesty International report did concede that most of the 334 deaths it recorded were attributed to other medical factors such as drug intoxication, the report cited that coroners have concluded Taser shocks did indeed cause or contribute to at least 50 of the deaths.

A study done by researchers commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and reported by the Associated Press also concluded that over time, Tasers can begin to malfunction and fire with up to 50 percent more power than their manufactured limits. Further, the study found, even stun guns firing at expected electrical levels carry some risk of inducing cardiac arrest.

"Scientists who had evaluated the Taser to start with said, 'Well, there's zero probability of death.' I'm sure that's not the case," Pierre Savard, co-author of the study, told The Arizona Republic. "I'm 100 percent certain that cardiac diseases increase the risk of death after receiving Taser shock. I think there's enough scientific evidence for that."

Taser International, the AP reports, called the study flawed.

"Regardless of whether or not the anomaly (high-firing guns) is accurate," Taser Vice President Steve Tuttle said, "it has no bearing on safety."

"Independent medical and scientific experts have determined TASER devices to be a safer use-of-force option compared to traditional use-of-force tools," asserts the company's website. "Field studies have reaffirmed the life-saving value of TASER devices."

Stunning Revelations

Stunning Revelations
inthesetimes.com

The untold story of Taser-related deaths
By Silja J.A. Talvi

TASER International Inc. maintains that its stun-guns are “changing the world and saving lives everyday.” There is no question that they changed Jack Wilson’s life. On Aug. 4, in Lafayette, Colo., policemen on a stakeout approached Jack’s son Ryan as he entered a field of a dozen young marijuana plants. When Ryan took off running, officer John Harris pursued the 22-year-old for a half-mile and then shot him once with an X-26 Taser. Ryan fell to the ground and began to convulse. The officer attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but Ryan died.

According to his family and friends, Ryan was in very good physical shape. The county coroner found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in his system and ruled that Ryan’s death could be attributed to the Taser shock, physical exertion from the chase and the fact that one of his heart arteries was unusually small.

In October, an internal investigation cleared Officer Harris of any wrongdoing and concluded that he had used appropriate force.

Wilson says that while his son had had brushes with the law as a juvenile and struggled financially, he was a gentle and sensitive young man who always looked out for his disabled younger brother’s welfare, and was trying to better his job prospects by becoming a plumber’s apprentice.

“Ryan was not a defiant kid,” says his father. “I don’t understand why the cop would chase him for a half-mile, and then ‘Tase’ him while he had an elevated heart rate. If [the officer] hadn’t done that, we know that he would still be alive today.”

Ryan is one of nearly 200 people who have died in the last five years after being shot by a Taser stun gun. In June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would review these deaths.
Over the same period, Taser has developed a near-monopoly in the market for non-lethal weaponry. Increasingly, law enforcement officials use such weapons to subdue society’s most vulnerable members: prisoners, drug addicts and the mentally ill, along with “passive resisters,” like the protesters demonstrating against Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s attendance of a Rick Santorum fundraiser in Pittsburgh on Oct. 9.

Taser has built this monopoly through influence peddling, savvy public relations and by hiring former law enforcement and military officers—including one-time Homeland Security chief hopeful, Bernard Kerik. And now that questions are being raised about the safety of Taser weaponry, the company is fighting back with legal and marketing campaigns...

Taser’s stun guns are designed to shoot a maximum of 50,000 volts into a person’s body through two compressed nitrogen-fueled probes, thereby disrupting the target’s electromuscular system. The probes are connected to the Taser gun by insulated wires, and can deliver repeat shocks in quick succession. The probes can pierce clothing and skin from a distance or be directly applied to a person’s body—a process known as “dry stunning”—for an ostensibly less-incapacitating, cattle-prod effect.

“The impetus for Tasers came from the often community-led search for ‘less-than-lethal’ police weapons,” explains Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police Department and author of Breaking Rank. “[There were] too many questionable or bad police shootings, and cops saying, correctly, that there are many ambiguous situations where a moment’s hesitation could lead to their own deaths or the death of an innocent other.”

According to Taser’s promotional materials, its stun guns are designed to “temporarily override the nervous system [and take] over muscular control.” People who have experienced the effect of a Taser typically liken it to a debilitating, full-body seizure, complete with mental disorientation and loss of control over bodily functions.

Many Taser-associated deaths have been written up by coroners as being attributable to “excited delirium,” a condition that includes frenzied or aggressive behavior, rapid heart rate and aggravating factors related to an acute mental state and/or drug-related psychosis. When such suspects are stunned, especially while already being held down or hogtied, deaths seem to occur after a period of “sudden tranquility,” as Taser explains in its CD-ROM training material entitled, “Sudden Custody Death: Who’s Right and Who’s Wrong.” In that same material, the company warns officers to “try to minimize the appearance of mishandling suspects.”...

Casualties and cruelties

In the span of three months—July, August and September of 2006—Wilson’s Taser-related death was only one among several. Larry Noles, 52, died after being stunned three times on his body (and finally on his neck) after walking around naked and “behaving erratically.” An autopsy found no drugs or alcohol in his system.

Mark L. Lee, 30, was suffering from an inoperable brain tumor and having a seizure when a Rochester, N.Y., police officer stunned him.

In Cookeville, Ala., 31-year-old Jason Dockery was stunned because police maintain he was being combative while on hallucinogenic mushrooms. Family members believe he was having an aneurysm.

And Nickolos Cyrus, a 29-year-old man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was shocked 12 times with a Taser stun gun after a Mukwonago, Wis., police officer caught him trespassing on a home under construction. An inquest jury has already ruled that the officer who shot Cyrus—who was delusional and naked from the waist down when he was stunned—was within his rights to act as he did.

Although the company spins it otherwise, Taser-associated deaths are definitely on the rise. In 2001, Amnesty International documented three Taser-associated deaths. The number has steadily increased each year, peaking at 61 in 2005. So far almost 50 deaths have occurred in 2006, for an approximate total of 200 deaths in the last five years.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have also drawn attention to the use of Tasers on captive populations in hospitals, jails and prisons.

In fact, the first field tests relating to the efficacy of the “Advanced Taser” model in North America were conducted on incarcerated men. In December 1999, the weapon was used, with “success,” against a Clackamas County (Ore.) Jail inmate. The following year, the first-ever Canadian use of an Advanced Taser was by the Victoria Police, on an inmate in psychiatric lockdown. Since that time, Taser deployment in jails and prisons has become increasingly commonplace, raising concerns about violations of 8th Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.

This summer, the ACLU of Colorado filed a class action suit on behalf of prisoners in the Garfield County Jail, where jail staff have allegedly used Tasers and electroshock belts, restraint chairs, pepper spray and pepperball guns as methods of torture. According to Mark Silverstein, legal director for ACLU of Colorado, inmates have told him that Tasers are pulled out and “displayed” by officers on a daily basis, either as a form of intimidation and threat compliance, or to shock the inmates for disobeying orders.

New Orleans resident Ivy Gisclair, held at OPP for unpaid parking tickets, Gisclair was about to be released on his own recognizance when Hurricane Katrina hit. After languishing with thousands of other prisoners in a flooded jail, Gisclair was sent to the Bossier Parish Maximum Security Prison. Once there, Gisclair apparently had the nerve to inquire about being held past his release date. Gisclair has testified that he was then restrained and stunned repeatedly with a Taser, before being thrown, naked and unconscious, into solitary confinement.

“I can’t imagine any justification for that,” says Jawetz. “[Prison guards] were kicking, beating and ‘Tasing’ him until he lost consciousness. A line was crossed that should never have been crossed.”

In March, Reuben Heath, a handcuffed and subdued Montana inmate, was shocked while lying prone in his bed. The deputy involved—a one-time candidate for sheriff—now faces felony charges.

Gisclair and Heath are among the inmates who have survived in-custody incidents involving the abuse of Tasers. Others haven’t been as fortunate. This year alone (2006), those who have died in custody in the aftermath of being stunned by Tasers include Arapahoe County Jail (Colorado) inmate Raul Gallegos-Reyes, 34, who was strapped to a restraint chair and stunned; Jerry Preyer, 45, who suffered from a severe mental illness in an Escambia County, Fla., jail and was shocked twice by a Taser; and Karl Marshall, 32, who died in Kansas City police custody two hours after he was stunned with PCP and crack cocaine in his system...

Florida Deputies Inadvertently Taser Undercover Agent

Thursday, October 30, 2008 – updated: 8:36 am EDT October 30, 2008
PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Authorities say deputies responding to a call about a Pensacola liquor store robbery inadvertently Tasered an undercover state agent.
Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco worker Ira McQueen was trying to see if the clerk would sell alcohol to a minor.

The mixup on Tuesday started when a customer saw the clerk's arms raised and saw McQueen with a gun, and thought the store was being robbed. When Escambia County Sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene, McQueen didn't comply with demands and yelling between both sides ensued. Deputies Tasered him and released a sheriff's dog. McQueen was briefly hospitalized for injuries.

Sheriff's spokesman Glenn Austin says it appears McQueen was trying to tell deputies he was a state agent. The state agency is reviewing what happened.

Eustis Florida Officer Fired After Tasering Teen At Party

October 18, 2008

Boy, 15, Tasered On Camera As Entertainment

EUSTIS, Fla. -- A Eustis police officer was fired on Friday after using a Taser on a 15-year-old at a party.

Eustis police said Officer Dan NeSmith was caught on tape using the Taser on a willing victim for entertainment at the party.

The police department got wind of the incident and ran diagnostics on the department's Tasers.
The department found out that NeSmith's Taser had been used that night.

He admitted to using it and was terminated from the department.

Pine Hills, Florida mom says she was treated 'like a dog' when tased

Elaine Edwards' son David (rear) missed a lot of school in April, and deputies came to arrest her Sept. 12 at her Pine Hills home. She didn't know why, fought back, was tased and wants to sue. (George Skene, Orlando Sentinel / September 24, 2008)

Elaine Edwards had one question for the Orange County deputy sheriffs who came to arrest her last month: "What for?"

Deputies told the 41-year-old single mother they had a warrant for her arrest but didn't say — and they didn't have to — that she was in trouble because her handicapped son missed too many days at Robinswood Middle School in April.

That's why, Edwards said, she pulled away from deputies, sparking a struggle at her Pine Hills home Sept.12 that prompted deputies to shock her twice with a Taser.

Now Edwards faces a charge from the warrant — contributing to the delinquency of a minor — as well as new charges from the tussle with deputies: battery on a law-enforcement officer and two counts of resisting arrest with violence.

It's just the latest problem for a woman whose life has been marked by setbacks. Years ago, when Edwards was in jail for cocaine-related charges, her children were placed in foster care.

That's when, she said, her son David Jones lost both legs after contracting meningitis. In April, David, now 15, was unable to take the school bus to Robinswood Middle because the locks on his wheelchair — locks that must be engaged while the bus is moving — were broken.

Edwards, who is unemployed and couldn't drive her son to school because she doesn't have a car, said that's why David missed 17days in April. But Edwards said she told the school what was going on and thought his absences were all excused. Her daughter even picked up and dropped off David's homework until the lock was fixed and he returned.

Under Florida law, parents can be charged with a misdemeanor of contributing to the delinquency of a minor if their child misses more than 15 days of school and those absences are unexcused.

Edwards said there must have been a miscommunication because the absences should have been excused, adding that nothing justifies what happened when two deputies came to her house. When they didn't answer her question about the warrant, Edwards refused to identify herself and pulled away from Detective Jeffrey Mayer.

When Mayer grabbed her arm, Edwards said, she put her hand on top of his to get it off. She slapped his hand away, Mayer's report said. Mayer pulled Edwards off the porch and put her on the ground. She continued yelling and struggling with his knee in her back, she said.

Mayer couldn't cuff her, so he showed her his Taser and then shocked her in the back for five seconds, the report said."My heart rate went up, and it was hard for me to breathe," Edwards said. After handcuffing and tazing Edwards, Mayer explained that the warrant was because David missed too much school.

The tasing made two of her other sons, as well as two nephews, furious.

Edwards somehow got out of her handcuffs. Mayer tased her again. After one of her sons, Antonio Edwards, 21, punched out a window, Mayer drew his gun and called for backup, the report said. That son was charged with inciting a riot.

After getting shocked and arrested, Edwards went to the hospital twice, once before her six-day jail stay and once after. Even on the painkillers, muscle relaxers and antibiotics that were prescribed to her, Edwards said, the pain from the Taser in her back and neck persisted.

She had a hard time walking and worries about how she'll care for her family. Edwards said she wants to sue the Sheriff's Office but isn't sure when or how. Cpl. Susan Soto, a sheriff's spokeswoman, said that, according to the report, Mayer did everything correctly. Since being hired in 2001, he has used his Taser 13 times, not an unusually high number, and always in line with department rules, she said.

Edwards, who faces a Nov.19 court date for the original misdemeanor charge, said she will continue to tell the truth about what happened in hopes that "justice comes out of it."

"They shouldn't treat people like that for a simple warrant like that," she said. "They treated me like a dog."

Naked dog walker Tasered in Tallahassee

Saturday, 13 Sep 2008

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) -- A 40-year-old man walking his dog in the nude was Tasered by police when he refused to follow an officer's commands.

David McCranie of the Tallahassee Police Department says an officer on patrol spotted the man shortly after 8 p.m. Friday.

The man was asked what he was doing and told the officer, "Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog,"McCranie said.

McCranie said using the Taser was the only way to subdue the man without having to hurt him. The man was then sent for mental-health evaluation and treatment.

Did they really need to taze this guy? He's obviously not all there. And what did they do with the dog? This tazing craze is really getting out of hand.

Broward deputies Taser mentally ill inmate twice in court

A Broward circuit judge had ruled the man, 22, was mentally incapable to stand trial
Joel Marino South Florida Sun-Sentinel August 30, 2008

FORT LAUDERDALE - Upset by a judge's ruling, a mentally ill defendant asked deputies to let him catch his breath before they carted him from the Broward Circuit Court back to jail on Friday, his lawyer said.

The deputies told him he had to go, according to Assistant Public Defender Anne LeMaster, and when he resisted, they shocked him with a Taser -- twice.

The county's Public Defender's Office says the deputies used excessive force and filed a complaint with the Broward Sheriff's Office. David Jones, 22, the inmate, was handcuffed and shackled, LeMaster said."It just seems as though Tasering was not necessary in this case," said Doug Brawley, head of the Public Defender's mental health division.

Jones asked for a brief break after Judge Geoffrey Cohen ruled the inmate was mentally incapable to stand trial and ordered transferred to a state mental hospital, LeMaster said.

Jones faces several charges from an April 21 arrest, including domestic battery by strangulation. Two deputies told him he had to leave. LeMaster said they tried to get Jones to stand up and one punched him in the face when he resisted. She said they then shocked him with a stun gun.

"He told them to remove the prongs and then became very abrasive," she said. "When they didn't, he said 'Why don't you just Tase me again?'" They did, she said.

Jones was hospitalized, but it was unknown if he returned to the Broward Main Jail on Friday night. "Any time a Taser is used, it's well documented and we'll look into it," said sheriff's spokesman Jim Leljedal.

Blind Woman Tased By Dayton Police

DAYTON, Ohio -- Dayton police said they went to an apartment building on Fernwood Avenue looking for a robbery suspect and ended up tazing the man's mother who is legally blind.
The incident happened on Fernwood Avenue Thursday.

Police said 49-year-old Denise Harris refused to talk with them and became combative, striking out at an officer. According to officers, when they tried to arrest her, she resisted and they tased her.

Neighors said the officers used unnecessary force on the blind woman, who is also suffering from diabetes and cancer.

Sgt. Charles Anderson said Harris will be charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, but the incident is under investigation.

Harris was taken to the hospital by an ambulance to be checked out.

I think cops all over are trigger happy when it comes to using these tasers on people. They don't seem to hesitate, and the mounting number of deaths from these tasers should serve as a warning.