Posted on 08/21/2004 9:50:10 PM PDT by ambrose
Sat, August 21, 2004
Police taser honking grandma
Said woman, 66, tussled with officers
By AP
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Police said yesterday two officers have been disciplined and department policy changed following an investigation into the officers' use of a taser when arresting a 66-year-old grandmother who honked her car horn at a police cruiser. Louise Jones was arrested in June on charges of misuse of a car horn on a city street, resisting arrest and intentionally inflicting bodily harm on an officer. Her husband, Fred Jones, 74, was also arrested and charged with interfering with an arrest.
Police said Louise Jones tussled with officers when they tried to give her a ticket for honking the horn. One of the officers used the taser, which is capable of issuing a 50,000-volt shock, to stun her. The officers said Fred Jones then came downstairs and jumped on one of the officers' backs.
Louise Jones said she pulled away from the police when one of the officers grabbed her arm, and her husband said one of the officers had his knee on his wife's chest.
As a result of an internal investigation, the department has increased the threshold for when taser use is appropriate and now requires a field commander to look into each taser deployment.
Police have also developed a task force made up of community members and department personnel to look into the department's current taser-use policies.
"This was an unfortunate incident that I believe could have been avoided if there would have been a less confrontational environment," said Chief Richard Easley in a statement. "Officers of this department, however, are held to a very high standard in their professional conduct."
You seem to have missed some of that:
resisting arrest and intentionally inflicting bodily harm on an officer.
following an investigation into the officers' use of a taser when arresting a 66-year-old grandmother.
YOU seem to have missed THAT part. I don't give a damn what a cop thinks he is doing. Unless Granny assaulted them with a Firearm, they had NO business using a Taser on a 66 year old woman. If they really found that necessary, then I would suggest that these young "studs" be given some extra physical training so they don't get their asses kicked by geriatric drivers.
If it had been my grandmother, my Grandfather would be in jail for murder and there would be 2 dead cops.
One of the original articles...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A police officer used his Taser gun on a 68-year-old grandmother in her home Tuesday night, KMBC's Donna Pitman reported.
Louise Jones said it happened after she pulled up to her house near 50th and Euclid and saw a police car. She honked, and an officer got out of the vehicle.
"He said he could give me a citation ticket for honking my horn. I said it was an accident. It's not like I laid on the horn; I honked, right in front of my house," Jones said.
Jones said the officer went to a call at another home, then returned to her house to give her a ticket for honking.
"He grabbed me and I jerked away from him, and he said, 'You assaulted me,'" Jones recalled.
Police said Jones wouldn't cooperate and hit the officer. That's when the officer pulled his Taser gun and shocked her, Pitman reported.
Jones said the officer shocked her twice in the chest with the weapon.
"I hollered and screamed because I thought it was a gun," she said.
Jones' husband, Fred, heard the commotion in his home of 40 years and confronted the officer. The husband and wife were both arrested and jailed. Jones was cited for misuse of a horn on a city street, and her husband was ticketed for interfering with an officer.
[...]
Jones' co-workers at Cascone's, where she has been employed for 44 years, are all talking about what happened.
"We sure have been talking about it, we sure have. And don't any of us approve of it," said Jones' co-worker, Sarah McGee. "After all, this is an old lady. She's a mother, she's a grandmother, and pretty soon to be a great-grandmother.""
Law enforcement should be happy the WWII generation is dying off. They might be the last ones to remember what its like to stand up for freedom.
1. Were the Officers at fault, and what for..
2. Was the grandmother found to be at fault for any part of the incident...
3. Was she ( or her husband ) charged / convicted of any violation?
4. If so, what were those violations? Did she ( or husband ) plead guilty, nolo contedre, innocent? Judicial finding, or jury trial?
If no charges were placed against the grandmother, ( or husband ) then were actual charges filed against the police officers?
Were the officers found guilty or innocent? of what? what was the punishment?
The article states the officers were "disciplined", but it does not indicate what the discipline was, nor what it was for..
etc. etc..
68 years old! Obviously a major threat to society!
</sarcasm>
(Had a 68 year old member of my family been treated in such a manner, someone would have been looking at the "business end" of a loaded 12 ga. I can assure you!)
</rant>
"resisting arrest and intentionally inflicting bodily harm on an officer."
Oh, spare us. This is just the rubbish that they trot out after the fact to make it appear as if their abuse of this woman was justified.
An arrest for honking a horn? Don't you think an admonishment not to continue would have been better?
Exactly.. my husband kept toying with the idea.. told him he could do whatever he wanted when we were divorced...
LOL!!! Rolling on the ground LOL!
Can you imagine the jokes they guys are the butt of?
"It wasn't me. I wasn't anywhere near here. That's the truth. I'm innocent."
I'm not so sure Gramma, where exactly were you on the night of ...
Reading that tiny font, at first it looked like you said he's the "most impotent" man you know, lol...
Most will be very supportive.
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