Posted on 05/07/2006 12:43:59 PM PDT by seowulf
REDMOND - The Redmond Police Department is facing a $1 million lawsuit after a woman says an officer used his Taser on her during a medical emergency.
Video from the police car camera shows that something was wrong with Leila Fuchs last July when police pulled her out of her car. For nearly 10 minutes when officers first pulled up, they say she remained unresponsive.
"She's just gotten into this collision at Redmond Way and 145th -- small accident," said defense attorney James Egan.
But he says it's the decisions an officer made when Fuchs wouldn't unlock her door that has them suing the department.
Egan says his client was suffering from a diabetic episode when medics tried to get her attention.
"So the medic brings a window hammer here," Egan says, pointing to the video.
Then, Egan says an officer took matters into his own hands.
"He bashed in the passenger side window, opened the door, and immediately ordered her to open her driver side door," Egan said. "Even according to (the officer), she was dazed, catatonic, and non-responsive. At that point, he pulls his Taser out, and says if she doesn't open it, he will shoot her."
Egan says the officer used his gun and hit Fuchs with 50,000 volts of electricity.
"He didn't shoot her for one second," Egan said. "He shot her for the full five seconds… and caused her to stiffen and scream, according to his police report as this happened, and here she was suffering a medical emergency."
Police reports claim officers could initially smell the odor of alcohol in the car, but after they got Fuchs out and did a breath test, they determined there was no trace of alcohol found.
"He jumped the gun... literally," Egan said. "And that's when he tried to electrocute someone he apparently thought was intoxicated."
Calls to the Redmond Police about the video and the lawsuit were not immediately returned Saturday evening. Police records, though, back up the fact that the Taser was used and that Fuchs did not have any traces of alcohol in her system.
I hope she gets $10 million.
I hope she gets that cop's head on a platter.
Note to the makers of the Taser:
Make a new model that can fire probes that give a readout of blood-sugar
level on the gun (and documents it).
And then can follow up instantly if it's found the suspect is just a
plain old drunk or being consciously uncooperative.
(Heck, find a way to fire a probe that will do a blood alcohol level!)
And build in a mini-cam on the taser that will document the event.
That'll help settle any issues in court.
The way cellphones are going, that shouldn't add too much weight to the Taser.
What's needed are criminal charges filed against the officer.
The Orlando, FL PD are taser happy. I know these guys have a tough gig but tasing everyone in sight, helping folks commit suicide by police, and selectively filing reports, is not my idea of professionalism.
Yes. A multi million dollar award against the taxpayers does not punish the guilty party.
People with diabetes often seem intoxicated. If you have never seen it before you would never know.
The first time I saw it a veteran officer locked up a guy who was having problems with his diabetes. The guy seemed extremely drunk. Here he just had low blood sugar.
He was in our holding cell for about an hour and we all thought he was smashed.
The last time I had one it was a guy who had problems, lost control of his pick up truck and hit a telephone pole. He seemed intoxicated.
From that one experience I figured he may be diabetic and called rescue. Sure enough.
Another REAL problem is police departments wanting cops to taser first, ask questions later.
Oh well.
Did the dumbass even look for the door lock button?
Agreed. If it were expensive to be a stupid cop, we'd have a lot fewer of them. This one shouldn't be a cop at any price, IMO.
Oh, and if they are having problems with their blood sugar, they will be argumentive and even combative. It is difficult to tell. Cops are generally not taught about this, at least I never was, I had to learn it through experience.
I just remembered about a month ago a barbershop owner was down on the floor, low blood sugar. I waited till rescue got there. He started fighting with the rescue squad and I had to hold him down until they gave him treatment. He was back on his feet in a few minutes.
I'm a staunch supporter of law enforcement. Most are cool professional civil servants who provide an often thankless service to their communities. Adequate training and the incentive of professional pay (which makes the job more competitively closed to idiots) will go a long way towards preventing numskulls like this cop from ever putting on a uniform. Administrative shift to dog catcher is in order here.
He could probably get some Shister to sue me for holding him down.
For the public to have to pay is like electrocuting someone in a coma for failing to "respect my authority!"
While she should have been sure her blood sugar was o.k. to drive, the taser thing is way out of line. Stupid cop.
That's only one possibility. The experiences I've had with diabetics have been ones where the person was totally nonresponsive to the point where they couldn't walk or speak. Very scary stuff the first time you see it, but you'd never mistake that person for a threat. It sounds like this woman was in that kind of state when the officer tasered her.
I agree. The woman has a legitimate complaint, and the officer should be punished severely. But a lawsuit for a huge monetary reward is just greed. This woman's lucky she didn't kill herself or someone else when she became unable to drive that day.
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