Posted on 04/25/2006 11:57:18 AM PDT by freepatriot32
GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. (April 25) - A woman in a wheelchair who swung knives and a hammer at relatives and police died after being shocked by a stun gun, officials said.
Police tried to talk Emily Marie Delafield, 56, into dropping the weapons before they used the Taser to subdue her Monday, Police Chief Robert Musco said. Delafield lost consciousness after the electric jolt and later died at Orange Park Medical Center.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating and an autopsy will be conducted to determine a cause of death.
The two officers involved have been put on paid administrative leave during the investigation, which is standard procedure.
Tasers deliver a 50,000-volt jolt through two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing. About 7,000 of the nation's 18,000 police agencies had them last year, and they were used by police more than 70,000 times.
Amnesty International counted 61 U.S. deaths following Taser use last year. Taser International officials disputed that count, saying it linked some deaths to Taser use when there had been no such official conclusion.
Ever notice that the people you see getting tasered in all the stories about tasers on TV are all hulking young cops? I must have missed the older woman in the wheelchair testing.
Police used their taser guns more than 70,000 times last year. There were 61 deaths that involved taser guns last year. Lets do the math here. One in ever 1148 times someone died while or after being tasered. Or rather, you have a .0009% chances of dying from being tasered.
It seems that ever since they gave our officers Taser guns (here in Florida), they have a lot of misuse of them. Also, it seems that many people have died.
Oh no. A woman in a wheelchair swinging knives. Oh my, whatever shall we do?
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Well, from what I see by your post, go give her a hug. That way, when the knives are being buried in your chest, I pepper spray her.
The problem is that she didn't have those odds.
Get injured if you get to close.
Sometimes you just can't win. Say they had and she broke her hip, or busted her head open then the cops would still be in trouble. If you have an agitated person with wheels you can get hurt just like if they were standing. The electric ones are even worse. They can whip around real fast when you go for the battery. I wouldn't have shocked her unless she was an immediate danger though. She already had health problems.
Pepper spray would have been better.
Totally ignoring her until her fit was over would have been better still.
I agree. CNN was at the hospital this morning..hubby is an ER Doc there. He said he wanted to yell at CNN but there were a lot of "suits" were around.
And that is not even excluded among those 61 deaths the ones that died because of a pre-existing condition.
She was in a wheelchair!
And we don;t know yet, that it was the taser that killed her.
Pepper spray would have been better.
Totally ignoring her until her fit was over would have been better still.
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Yes, pepper spray was the best option IMO. I'm not sure I agree with leaving her alone. If she were to commit suicide, then the cops would have been hung out to dry for not "Doing Something".
And that is not even excluded among those 61 deaths the ones that died because of a pre-existing condition who just HAPPENED to die as the 50,000-volts coursed through their bodies. What a coincidence.
She was in a wheelchair!
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She was SWINGING KNIVES. I don't care if she has snoopy slippers on and cockeyed.
Pepper spray the nut.
Maybe.......
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Maybe not.......
Maybe she should have thought about that before throwing knives at a cop.
The cops are suppose to make sure she does not harm anybody and that includes herself.
Exactly; pepperspray, not electrocute. The point of the Taser gun was for those that weren't controllable by any other means except by lethal force; the Taser being the last alternative before lethal force.
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