Free Republic

As a portrait photographer, I am always trying to make people feel comfortable in front of my camera so I can capture a real emotion from them. But what if I was able to make people feel so uncomfortable in front of the camera that I could guarantee an interesting portrait every time? This is the idea behind my latest series: The Taser Photoshoot. I've edited two different videos as well as a behind the scenes in the full post below.

The bullets kept coming. An off-duty police detective, who had been trying to help capture a fleeing suspect, was on the ground, shouting to be heard over 19 gunshots unleashed at him. "I'm a cop, I'm Hallandale Police," Hallandale Beach Detective Anthony Distefano yelled to Broward Sheriff's deputies. He continued yelling: "Kilo 12, 10-37 Distefano." "Kilo" is police speak for a plain-clothed detective, and 10-37 is a police code that indicates he's law enforcement. Sgt. Andrea Tianga, who was featured on the reality TV show "Police Women of Broward County," and Deputy Christopher Manekas thought the gun-carrying detective was the...

Friends and family of a teen who died after a Miami Beach police officer shocked him with a Taser will mark the one year anniversary of his death with music, poetry and a film. Wednesday evening they gather at the abandoned restaurant where police say they caught the 18-year-old Israel “Reefa” Hernandez spraying graffiti on the walls.

On August 20, 2013, Sherman police stopped Lesa Surratt’s vehicle for failing to signal a lane change. An officer removed Surratt from the vehicle. From there, she was placed in the rear of a patrol car but without performing a search, the suit claims. Surratt’s passenger, Monica Garza, was also placed in the patrol car. Brian McClarin, a narcotics officer, had directed the traffic stop. The complaint acknowledges that Surratt removed a small amount of cocaine she was concealing and began swallowing it. One of the officers realized what was going on “and climbed in the back seat, across the...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A young hospital patient is tased by Baltimore City Police, then falls into a coma and dies. The department launches an investigation into the officers’ actions at Good Samaritan Hospital. The death of a 19-year-old hospital patient this week is the focal point of a Baltimore City Police investigation after they say one of their officers tased the teen who was in a violent altercation with Good Samaritan Hospital security earlier this month.

A Washington man is dead after police tasered him four times and beat him with their fists and a flashlight, according to eyewitnesses. Neighbors report that what happened between 44-year-old Ron Hillstrom and University Place police was essentially murder. “You beat this man to death last night for no reason and we caught you, period,” said one of Hillstrom’s neighbors, who saw the incident. Police were called to the parking lot of Hillstrom’s apartment complex in the early morning hours. Hillstrom was having some sort of psychotic episode: He was pacing in a circle and muttering that people were after...

Last May, Kelly was asleep in the passenger seat when his friend was pulled over for drunken driving on Interstate 71 between Cincinnati and Columbus, according to The Columbus Dispatch. When Ohio State Trooper Bryan Cook woke Kelly, he was startled and began flailing his arms, according to the lawsuit. Fayette County Deputy Clinton Sines then drew his Taser, opened the passenger door and shouted for Cook to get out of the truck and show his hands as he grabbed the back of Kelly's sweatshirt and tried to pull him out, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit says Sines was apparently...

Photo: Alma E. Hernandez, For The San Antonio Express News Henry Vichique, shown with his pregnant wife, above, is the 19 year old man who was tased by police for carrying a WWII Russian rifle in a San Antonio residential neighborhood while walking home.  From the Houston Chronicle: San Antonio police arrested him March 30 while he was walking home with a loaded Russian World War II-vintage rifle slung across his shoulder. The event occurred after dark.   Police at the scene told Henry that people had reported that he had been pointing the rifle at others.   Henry replied that...

Exhausted but delighted, Frank Almond can't wait to be reunited with his partner. That would be the exquisite Lipinski Stradivarius stolen from Almond, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, during an armed robbery Jan. 27 after a Frankly Music concert at Wisconsin Lutheran College. Milwaukee police recovered the violin and arrested three suspects in the case. Two of those suspects remain in jail. "Chief Flynn personally called me last night, actually early this morning, which I very much appreciated," said Almond during a phone interview, his first since the theft occurred. The violinist is out of the state and returning to...

A Pittsburgh woman is suing authorities after she had to have her arm amputated because police officers used ‘excessive force’ while they arrested her and refused to give her access to a doctor. The mother-of-three, Amy Needham, 35, of Ross, says the officers entered her home to execute an arrest warrant for failing to show up to a preliminary hearing. When sheriff's office employees arrived, Needham said she was using the bathroom, but they broke down the bathroom door. Rough arrest: Police officers shocked Amy Needham, 35, with a Taser, applied arm bars and wrist locks, and put on handcuffs...

Police officers fatally shot an emotionally distressed man eight times in his Harlem apartment after one cop accidentally shot his fellow officer with a Taser, prompting the injured officer to scream "He's stabbing me, shoot him!"

Police officers in the city of Louisiana, Missouri used the stun gun to stop Ryan Miller after he kicked in a front door and tried to enter his house to rescue his 3-year-old stepson, Riley. Officers on the scene felt it was too dangerous to let anybody go in. ...Miller was tased three times, then handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police car. The boy's body was eventually found 12 to 15 feet from the front door.

The family of a 3-year-old killed in a northern Missouri house fire early Oct. 31 says it is outraged after police used a stun gun to subdue the boy's stepfather as he tried to run back into the burning house to rescue the boy. Riley Miller, the boy, died in the fire at the home in the town of Louisiana. A city police officer fired his stun gun at the stepfather, Ryan Miller, as he tried to re-enter the burning home. Authorities at the scene reportedly determined it was too dangerous to make an attempt to save the boy. "He...

A police officer in Pierre, S.D., recently used an electroshock weapon against an 8-year-old girl who was threatening to kill herself. Now, Police Chief Bob Grandpre is defending the officer’s decision. “He quite possibly saved the juvenile’s life that night,” said Grandpre of the unnamed officer, who remains on the job. According to Grandpre, three officers responded Friday night to a report of a suicidal 8-year-old girl who had allegedly stabbed herself in the leg. She was holding a 4.5-inch knife to her chest when officers arrived and refused to put it down. When one officer approached her, the girl...

(CNN) -- Police in North Carolina shot and killed a man running toward them Saturday morning -- but he may have just been looking for help after a car wreck. Officers responded to a "breaking and entering" 911 call at a home in Charlotte. The homeowner told dispatchers that a man had been knocking on her door repeatedly. Police say that when they got to the scene, a man matching the caller's description ran toward them. One of the officers fired his stun gun, but it was "unsuccessful." Another officer then opened fire, police said. Jonathan Ferrell died at the...

SAN DIEGO — Lawyers for the family of a Mexican man who died in a confrontation with U.S. border law enforcement officers in 2010 said in a court filing this week that agents changed and embellished their version of the incident to depict that he was combative and violent. Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, 42, was beaten and shot with a Taser while handcuffed in an area of the San Ysidro Port of Entry the night of May 28, 2010. The incident involved as many as 20 agents and officers from the Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs...

Police used a taser to electric shock a disabled man because he was standing on a bus, as he always does. The man prefers standing because of his spinal injuries, which make it uncomfortable for him to sit.

The use of a stun gun on a person who is in danger of falling is not allowed to be used in Phoenix, Arizona. But that didn’t stop officers from extricating a man from his roof by giving him a thorough tasering, followed by a choke drag face-down in order to “rescue him.” The father of the victim was a former detective who believes the police went too far. 44-year-old Michael Angel wasn’t violent when he got up on the roof. Phoenix police arrived and initially tried to get him down, but then they suddenly rushed him and began tasering...

MIAMI BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - Hundreds of friends and supporters of an 18-year-old graffiti artist who died after being shocked by a stun gun during a police chase in Miami Beach gathered on Saturday in a tearful rally at the site where he had been spray-painting. Colombian-born Israel Hernandez-Llach died on Tuesday after police shocked him with a Taser as he ran away from officers who caught him spray-painting the wall of a shuttered McDonald's. "He was a genius," said Lucy Rynka, 18, who graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School with Hernandez-Llach last spring. "He showed me how powerful...

<p>MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Miami Beach police say an 18-year-old died after being shocked with a stun gun as he resisted arrest for spraying graffiti.</p> <p>Chief Ray Martinez told the Miami Herald that officers spotted Israel Hernandez-Llach painting graffiti on an abandoned fast-food restaurant early Tuesday. Martinez said the teen ran, but was eventually cornered.</p>