i cannot even begin to deal with this.
Aug. 18th, 2009 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
note: pams house blend has issues. i have greatly cut down on my use of them as a result. sometimes though, they are the only blog that I know of that comprehensively reports on certain situations so I will follow them and link them from time to time.
From Pam's House Blend.
Taser happy police state
Judge Rules It's Legal To Taser Someone For DNA Sample, As Long As It's Not Done "Maliciously"
*blink*
*blink*
and who will determine the maliciousness thereof?
From Pam's House Blend.
Taser happy police state
...The abuse of this device is disproportionately deployed against minorities (surprised, no?). In Houston, an audit found incredible statistics:
Black officers are less likely to use Tasers, but black suspects are more likely to be jolted with the weapons, according to the first city audit of Taser use by Houston Police officers, KPRC Local 2 reported.
...The audit of 2.8 million calls to police from January 2000 to June 30, 2007, found black suspects make up 66.9 percent of all people zapped with the device, despite making up 46 percent of the total incidents and comprising 24.7 percent of the Houston population.
...The report spells out that most officers have only used their Taser one time, but one officer has used his on 13 people, another used it on 12 people. Two officers had shocked nine people each, and four officers had eight Taser incidents each.
...
* And our neighbors to the north are not immune from the sadism -- 82-year old heart patient Tased in hospital bed. Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers apparently couldn't subdue an elderly patient.
* A 56-year-old wheelchair-bound black woman died after being tasered 10 times. "My aunt was basically tortured like an animal or something." said Delafield's nephew, Ryan. Transcript of audio recording.
* In Vermont, Lawrence Fairbrother, 56, was tased in the back by state troopers while in a grand mal seizure. Your blood will run cold when you read what happened:
They found Fairbrother, who had suffered seizures for years, underneath a parked truck, flailing. His medication lay on the ground and Fairbrother, 56, was clawing at the dirt and pulling himself farther under the vehicle. Troopers repeatedly asked Fairbrother to come out from under the pickup, but Fairbrother did not emerge. Troopers dragged him out by his feet and, while he was lying down and seizing, ordered him to put his hands behind his back.MORE
They pulled his left arm behind his back, but when Fairbrother, still shaking, did not respond to an order to move his right arm, Trooper Hugh O'Donnell shot him between the shoulder blades with a Taser stun gun.
"What did I do?" Fairbrother asked, according to court documents.
"That's what we're going to find out," one of the troopers replied.
Judge Rules It's Legal To Taser Someone For DNA Sample, As Long As It's Not Done "Maliciously"
*blink*
*blink*
and who will determine the maliciousness thereof?
As long as it is not done "maliciously, or to an excessive extent, or with resulting injury," Niagara County, NY Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza ruled that using a Taser to obtain a DNA sample is legally valid. In the case of one Ryan S. Smith, accused of shooting and a gas station robbery:
Smith was handcuffed and sitting on the floor of Niagara Falls Police Headquarters when he was zapped with the 50,000- volt electronic stun gun after he insisted he would not give a DNA sample.MORE
He already had given a sample, a swab of the inside of his cheek, without protest the previous month. But police sent it to the wrong lab, where it was opened and spoiled. Prosecutors who had obtained a court order for the first sample went back to Sperrazza, who signed another order without consulting the defense.