Posted on 07/05/2014 1:02:32 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows
An Indiana cop was allowed to keep his job after police brass recommended he be fired for shoving a paraplegic man out of his wheelchair during a confrontation on the street, officials said.
Lafayette Police Lieutenant Tom Davidson was one of several officers called to confront the wheelchair-bound man, Nicholas Kincade, at North Ninth and Elizabeth Sts. on Oct. 1, 2013, officials said.
Kincade, 25, had allegedly told employees at a nearby charter school that he was carrying a gun, the Lafayette Journal & Courier reported.
The cops quickly determined that Kincade wasn’t packing heat and only found a pocket knife that he said he carried for protection.
Footage from a camera mounted to an officer’s patrol car shows the uniformed officers talking to Kincade, who was warned that he could be charged with trespassing if he returned to the school’s property.
But when Kincade started to leave, his motorized wheelchair hit Davidson in the leg and the officer promptly knocked the man to the ground.
“It was just inappropriate,” Police Chief Patrick Flannelly told reporters on Tuesday.
“The subject was complying at that point in doing what we’d asked him to do.”
Kincade tumbled to the ground and cut his face when he hit the pavement.
“Now you’re going to jail,” the officers tell Kincaid as he’s cuffed.
“I didn’t see you,” the handicapped man said.
Kincaid was charged with battery against a law enforcement officer, but the case was dismissed five months later.
Flannelly said officials with the LPD reviewed the 33-minute clip of the ordeal and recommended Davis, the highest-ranked officer at the scene, be fired.
Flannelly said the use of force could have easily been avoided if Davidson simply took one step out of the way.
But the department’s Civil Service Commission voted that Davidson only be punished with a 30-day suspension and placed the officer on supervisory probation for a year.
He was transferred to the department’s Administrative Services Division in order to “put some distance” between the department and the incident, Flannely said.
“Guy in a wheel chair mouths off to cops all day long and then runs over a cops foot on the way out. Maybe it was an accident or not.
But when you play games with cops - don’t be surprised when you are on the ground with cuffs.”
Maybe cops need to start being the one on the ground and in cuffs.
Whatever you think, contempt of cop is not a crime. A cop’s ego does not make law. This sound much more like a cop looking for an excuse to take revenge for having his ego bruised.
Accidents do happen. Strange how the slightest little thing sets cops like this off, but we are supposed to ‘understand’ any access by a cop.
What you call playing games with cops, is other people remembering they are citizens, not subjects.
There are a bunch of people that need to be fired, have their retirement stripped, and be prosecuted. If their fraud produced performance bonuses then they need to cough that money back up or have their assets seized.
They were outmanned....
Bad employees usually get promoted under Obama (FedGov anyways)
They got home safe that night - that’s all that matters.
Authority and power are supposed to be accompanied with a sense of responsibility. If they take anything a citizen says personally, then they are not suited for the job. If they take the slightest opening to use unnecessary force, they are not suited for the job.
The cops were lucky they didn't get him and them seriously hurt. They flipped the chair over on it's side. It is not wise to stand near the front of a motorized wheelchair near the joy stick. Accidents do happen including people hitting them.
The officer would have known the chair was fixing to move. Motorized wheelchairs will click {relays engage} when the joystick is moved into any direction. How the back tires are pointed can also effect how the chair initially turns upon command. Notice the guy is also on a sideways incline adding more for the guy to deal with because he wants it to go straight and not start downhill in what would have been to his left.
A simple HALT would have sufficed. The man is a paraplegic and any number of factors they had no clue about like rods in the spine could have left him quad if he had them.
I had a cousin who was downtown at some street festival. She's a quad. Some how her chair tipped forward and threw her out. The initial response of well intended person could have done her serious harm. They ran toward her wanting to lift her up. Another cousin saw what happened and yelled don't touch her. He knew how to safely lift her. She does have rods in her spine.
I've had my feet ran over a few times with motorized wheelchairs while I was wearing tennis shoes. Seriously it's not that big a deal. I yell ouch ouch ouch jokingly and my wife says Oh I'm sorry. Never in 29 years has the pain anywhere approached a level of anger or severe pain for that matter. Yes they weigh 300 pounds but 300 pounds is not on the persons foot. The weight is spread out over four wheels. She's done it to me with every chair she's had at least once likely several times and I've accidently ran it into myself a few times by accidently hitting the joystick.
Her first chair learning to use it she parked it on top of my foot LOL. That was a big 1985 era Rolls with the large 20" drive wheels.
HUM sounds like they had a verbal argument, the guy started to move on, the cop stood there while others moved and in the close proximity he got hit. When he said I didn't see you he likely meant he didn't see his foot that was extended out. I know to clear my feet from a wheelchair once it starts moving.
The setting options of the wheelchair also factor in as to how much steering response he has. There can be anywhere from two to a dozen settings and some are for indoor and some outdoor. Indoor offers a tighter turning radius but at lower speeds. Outdoor mode has less steering reaction and higher speed because the joystick being moved changes the steering. It prevents the chair from making violent fishtailing actions at higher speeds he would have likely been using. The chair can possible do 5-7 MPH in outdoor mode. It also changes the braking. You do not want the chair to suddenly stop when doing 5 MPH.
Next thing is why was he a Paraplegic? MVA maybe with head injury? They can be temperamental and in some cases child like in responses but usually harmless. The best way to defuse it is to not keep arguing. Stop for a minute, talk about something else, then go back to your questions. Obviously he had enough cognitive abilities that the doctors ordered the chair.
All they had to do was turn the darn chair off and threat was over. They could have raised the darn arm rest. Escape over motion stopped. They could have grabbed his left arm and held it. Surely four cops could hold one Paraplegics arm still. They could have even prevented him from moving simply by pulling the lever that disconnects the gearbox from the motors. They flipped the chair. Very bad judgment on their part for many reasons.
What disturbed me was the quick push from the officer. It's obvious he did not see him as a threat to start with or he would have chosen a different posture. The guy began moving the other cops moved their feet even though they were further away to give him room to move but the officer in front didn't. Moving that one foot a few inches would have likely prevented it. He didn't. Why?
As I posted in another reply I've been ran over by motorized wheelchairs before. It doesn't hurt that much. Actually I just parked my wife Permobil C300 on top of my bare feet and it took some doing to make it do that. It was on indoor mode. A little uncomfortable but I wasn't yelling. She wasn't in it but the chair weighs 300.
Exactly. The other two cops obviously were done with him and moved to give him room. I looked at the guys left hand on the control kinda blurry but he was trying to correct the chairs direction because it had been pointed toward the curb. His last move before it hit the shoe was toward the street or to his left. Curbs are a serious danger to motorized wheelchairs and users fear them for good reason. He needed more room on the officer to his right side and it appears he was trying to stay as far up hill as possible and still miss him. His body position told him one thing but cops foot stuck out in front way beyond where he was standing by what looks like about 18 inches. I would have moved my darn foot in toward the wall badge or no badge once I heard the relays click. The push at him came way to fast also. This stinks. Verbal abuse or no that is no reason to push a man like that. It would have taken substantial effort to have tipped that chair over the man using it could not have done it.
The media doesn't know the difference and often confuses the two. I'd bet he's an incomplete quad. That is the term used when the person has some useable movement like the ability to use a motorized wheelchair but not enough strength to wheel themselves.
I think the cop needs an education. He needs to spend some volunteer time in a spinal cord/head injury rehab center.
A motorized wheelchair is in the neighborhood of around 300 pounds and often capable of carrying another 300+ pounds.BS. The fat pig didn't limp or miss a beat.
Really.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/140703122438-cop-push-wheelchair-story-tablet.jpg
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/140703122438-cop-push-wheelchair-story-tablet.jpg
I am with the cop on this one. From the video, it appears as if the guy deliberately ran over his foot.
Possibly. In any case I think it's understandable that someone might lash out as soon as they're run over.
There's a big difference between an action that's impulsive and one that's calculated with respect to the level of responsibility. It's hard to hold someone completely responsible for something they do if there's no time for them to think about it. That's not to say they shouldn't be punished at all, of course.
A person that disturbs the neighborhood after dark with screams of fright is very different from the person that chooses to wake everyone up with yells.
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