ABUSE OF FORCE

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http://www.newswithviews.com/Ryter/jon242.htm

ABUSE OF FORCE

By Jon Christian Ryter

July 10, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

Two very public stun gun incidents in September, 2007 caused ABC News

to raise the question that should have been asked long before that

day: " Are cops using Tasers too often? " (Quote from ABC News article,

Sept. 21, 2007) ABC News reported that on Mon., Sept. 10, 2007

deputies from the Orange County, California Sheriff's Department

shocked a 15-year old old autistic boy with 50 thousand volts of

electricity because he was " acting suspicious, " but without doing

anything violent. Deputies found 15-year old Karras, who

disappeared while attending a counseling session at the Orange County

Regional Center in Westminister, was reported pushing a shopping cart

down Newport Avenue. Police were asked to find the autistic boy by

his mother, Doris Karras. Thus, the police knew the " subject " was a

15-year old with diminished capacity even though he stood 5'10 " and

had a beard. Karras told the Los Angeles Times that had the police

officers spoken to her son in a non-threatening manner, he would have

followed their directions without question or hesitation. A

pedestrian spotted Karras 16 miles from the clinic in Tustin.

The pedestrian called the Tustin police department to report

a " suspicious " person. The Tustin police called the Sheriff's office

which responded.

A spokesman for the Sheriff's Department, Jim Amormino, told ABC

News " ...the use of the Taser was definitely justified. The deputy

had two seconds of contact with the suspect before he started

screaming and running into traffic. If he hadn't been Tasered, he

could easily have been killed by a car. The suspect, the officers,

drivers on the road and pedestrians all could have been at risk if

the suspect continued into traffic. " Amormino said deputies were

justified because when the officers commanded him to stop, Karras

purportedly yelled something back at them and ran across Newport

Avenue. Lost on Amormino in his justification to use a stun gun on a

mentally challenged boy who posed no physical threat to anyone was

the fact that stun guns are supposed to be an alternative to deadly

force in subduing subjects who pose a deadly threat to law

enforcement officers.

That same evening a University of Florida senior, Meyers (who

was described by frequent Fox News guest correspondent

Malkin as a " goofball, " a celebrity-taunter and a YouTube publicity

hound who was seeking his YouTube moment in history), staged his own

date with the stun gun after Meyers grabbed a microphone in a roomful

of people listening to Sen. Kerry [D-MA] in order to ask the

Senator a series of questions designed to provoke him—and campus

police. Meyers wantd to know whether or not Kerry had ever been a

member of Yale's Skull & Bones secret society. In Meyer's case,

because he brought along his own videographer, we know he staged his

own assault by campus police in order to achieve his own very painful

15-minutes of fame.

On Tuesday as Meyers was making YouTube fame pleading with campus

police not to use the stun gun on him, University of Florida

president J. Bernard Machen called the incident, and the arrest, of

the college senior " regretful. " Machen launched a university inquiry

and asked the Florida Highway Patrol to investigate the justification

of the campus police to use a stun gun on a student who simply

refused to surrender a microphone. Like ABC News I found both stun

gun assaults—and they were assaults—troubling.

Pulse technology energy weapons (stun guns) are dangerous even when

used properly (which very few, if any, police departments do). Stun

guns today are rapidly becoming " gender equalizers " for the " weaker

sex " to deal with unruly men who are larger and stronger than they

are. No police officer anywhere knows the health of any person they

accost, and whether that person has a cardiac condition or some other

health problem that would be aggravated by an electrical charge from

a stun gun. Which means there is always a chance that a stun gun

encounter can be lethal for a person who is pulsed—particularly when

he or she receives several jolts. Stun guns are deadly weapons. They

are substitutes for deadly force. Theoretically, that's why they were

developed and put into use. Dropping a life-threatening, or bodily

injury-threatening suspect with an electrical charge is better than

dropping him with a 9mm slug.

According to the Taser™ website, their pulse weapons were designed

to " ...incapacitate dangerous, combative, or high-risk suspects who

pose a risk to law enforcement officers... " and is " ...a safer

alternative to other uses of force. " Most of the police agencies

which use them abuse them. Stun guns were not designed to subdue 15-

year autistic boys, nor were they designed to subdue college seniors

who ask embarrassing questions to politicians.

On Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007, Christmas shopper Beeland, a 35-

year old yoga instructor in Daytona Beach, Florida was questioned by

a checkout clerk at Best Buy for using what the clerk described as

a " suspect " credit card. The credit card was Beeland's. Embarrassed

because she thought she was being accused of using a fraudulent

credit card, Beeland began screaming at the clerk. The store

surveillance videos show Beeland antagonistically confronting the

clerk, with arms flaying. After Beeland turned and walked away from

the checkout, off-duty, uniformed Daytona police officer

approached the departing customer and without any sign of

resistance or provocation from Beeland, used her " gender-equalizer "

and shot Beeland in the abdomen with her stun gun, knocking her to

the floor. defended her action saying Beeland had

been " verbally profane, abusive, loud and irate. " Since when did loud

and obnoxious become grounds for using deadly force? (Everyone—the

police agencies which use them, the media that reports on the use and

abuse of stun guns, the legal system and the general public—need to

understand that since 337 people in the United States and Canada have

died in stun gun incidents, it is potentially a lethal weapon that is

used on people for crimes as minor as not moving fast enough when

ordered by a police officer.)

Beeland, whose crime was cursing at a Best Buy clerk who embarrassed

her, was charged with misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and

resisting arrest. Daytona Beach city fathers would have been hard-

pressed to make the resisting charge stick since Best Buy's

surveillance video showed there was no confrontation with , nor

did Beeland resist. , who was clearly out of her element,

simply pulsed Beeland. I wonder how much Best Buy paid Beeland to

settle what could have been a whopper of a lawsuit?

Furthermore, if the City of Daytona Beach was wise, they would either

fire or permanently put her on a desk. The American Civil

Liberties Union joined the Florida fray after Daytona Beach police

chief Chitwood defended 's action. This was the first

time the Daytona Beach police used a stun gun on a " subject " who was

not confronting the police officer nor resisting arrest. Most

certainly, if is not fired, stun gun use will probably become

more commonly used in Daytona Beach as a gender-equalizer.

When Milwaukee, Wisconsin armed their police force with 14 brand new

Taser™ pulse weapons in March, 2004, their officers used it 105 times

in the first 106 days—from March 16 to July 31—which amounts to once

a day. Milwaukee police sergeant Mike Kuspa explained that " [w]hen

officers have a new tool, they will use that tool more than any other

tool they have on their belt as long as it fits the guidelines. "

Statistics show that 96% of those shot with the stun guns were not

armed and posed no deadly threat to police. Seventy percent of those

struck by the pulse weapons were injured. In Milwaukee, according to

Kuspa, the stun gun is an alternative to pepper spray. Yet, where

Taser™ calls their pulse weapon " non-lethal, " the Milwaukee police

refer to it as " less-lethal " because the city can't be sure of the

company's claim. " It could be lethal, " he said. " May or may not. "

Few restrictions in the use—or abuse—of stun guns by police officers

are imposed on them by their respective municipal, county or State

governments according to the American Civil Liberties Union. In their

state-by-state investigation of stun gun abuse, the ACLU did an

exhaustive study of how police departments regulate the use of stun

guns, and the frequency in which victims of stun gun abuse die at the

hands of police officers for " crimes " as minor as making chubby cops

chase them. When the death rate from what should have been non-lethal

stun gun incidents—and the potential for lawsuits for wrongful death—

began to rise throughout the nation, county coroners devised the

medical diagnosis of " excited delirium " to explain how otherwise

apparently healthy people could die from a non-lethal electrical

charge. Since many of those who are stunned are drug abusers, many

die from complications due to pharmacological intoxication and

electrical shock. Some coroners attribute stun gun deaths to

positional, or postural, asphyxia. Death results when the subject

collapses into a breathing restrictive position—usually when the

subject falls in a face-down position. Coroners, who realize the

financial liability to their counties if death is attributed to

electrical shock are reluctant to inscribe those words on the death

certificates of those who succumb after being pulsed with a stun gun.

In Nov., 1993 47-year old Borden was arrested by Monroe County,

Indiana sheriff's deputies when they found him wandering aimlessly in

a drug-induced stupor. Borden was transported to the county lockup

without incident. He died in the jail because he was " dry-stunned in

the buttocks " by a jailer because, he said, " ...I asked Borden to

lift up his foot to remove his shorts, but he was being combative and

refused. I dry-stunned him in the lower abdomen. We got [him] to the

booking area. Borden was still combative and uncooperative. I dry-

stunned [him] in the buttocks. " After the second the jolt, the jailer

noticed that Borden was no longer responsive, and his face was

discolored. He was dead. His capital offense? Being on drugs and not

stripping fast enough to suit the jailer. The coroner listed a

multiple choice cause of death: heart attack due to an enlarged

heart, pharmacological intoxication, and electrical shock. The jailer

was charged with two counts of felony battery and battery while armed

with a deadly weapon.