Police stun 75-year-old

The Rock Hill Police Department is investigating why an officer used an electric stun gun on a 75-year-old woman who refused to leave a nursing home where she had gone to visit an ailing friend.

The woman, Margaret Kimbrell, said she suffered bruises on her leg and face after she was knocked to the floor by the force of the weapon, called a Taser.

Police Chief John Gregory said Tuesday the department is reviewing whether Officer Hattie Macon's use of the Taser was appropriate -- a step that is taken in unusual or high-profile cases.

"On face value, it looks like it was," he said. "We have a person who was asked to leave, who refused and who attempted to assault the officer."

Gregory did not say when the review would be completed. Kimbrell said Tuesday she's considering legal action against the department.

Kimbrell went to EdenGardens of Rock Hill, a retirement home on Constitution Boulevard, Friday evening to visit a friend who was scheduled to have colon surgery this week, she said.

Soon after she arrived, a staff member called police to have her removed for trespassing. A relative of the friend told an EdenGardens administrator she did not want Kimbrell there, said Larry Boesen, the home's executive director.

Police and Kimbrell offer two different versions of what happened after police arrived.

According to the police report, Kimbrell was sitting in a chair in a waiting area when Macon, 35, ordered her to leave several times. Kimbrell refused, jerking her arms away when Macon tried to lead her toward the door.

Police say Kimbrell eventually got up but walked toward the cafeteria after spotting someone she knew. At that point, the officer blocked Kimbrell and told her she was under arrest. Kimbrell then swung her arm at the officer, according to the police report.

"As weak as I am, how could I do that?" said Kimbrell, who has arthritis and suffered six broken ribs in a recent fall in her back yard. "Maybe I was trespassing, but I didn't know it. I thought they would understand."

She said she got upset because no one would tell her where her friend was -- or even if he was alive.

Kimbrell said Macon pressed the Taser to her back and used it during the exchange, causing Kimbrell to hit the floor.

"It was the worst pain," said Kimbrell. "It felt like something going through my body. I thought I was dying. I said, 'Lord, let it be over.'"

Kimbrell said she asked the officer and others at the scene to dial 911 because she was hurt. According to the police report, no one was injured in the incident.

Kimbrell, of 1211 Meadow Lakes Road, was taken to the police department and later issued a citation for resisting police and trespassing. She spent three hours in a police holding area until her daughter, Donna, picked her up around 10 p.m., she said.

Kimbrell said she later learned her ailing friend was out taking a walk during the incident.

According to the department's policy manual, cases when officers can use Tasers include when a suspect is threatening to punch or kick, or when officers "reasonably believe a suspect poses a credible threat."

"I have to believe at that moment, that's what the officer had to believe," Gregory said. "We have to look at what was reasonable under the circumstances. The determination about somebody being right or wrong has not been made."

Macon, who joined the department almost 18 months ago, remains on duty, said Gregory. The department has received no previous complaints about her performance.

"I can't overemphasize how concerned I am," said Gregory. "This case is getting a lot of attention, and I understand that ... If we find excessive force was used, we will take the appropriate disciplinary action."

The department is aware that Kimbrell and her family are planning to file a formal complaint, Gregory said.

Nearly all of Rock Hill's 110 police officers have carried Tasers since last year, Gregory said. They've been used 57 times this year with no injuries reported, he said.

Before they are issued the device, officers must complete a four-hour training course that includes having a Taser used on them. They also must take a refresher course once a year.

The devices have proven safer and more effective than batons and pepper spray, Gregory said.

"We have noticed a substatial reduction in injuries to suspects and officers since we've used them," he said. "It's kept us from having to fight people. We haven't had to beat anybody with clubs."

Gregory said an official from the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy had called Tuesday morning to ask if the department could lead a Taser training exercise for other state agencies -- a sign that the department's policies are well-respected.

I am very hard on bad cops. When found, I am happy to arrest them. More, if in command, I would strip them publicly and leave them in town square --- in the locks --- in only underwear and with sign proclaiming their crimes against the people of the community.

That said, I knock myself out and will probably die some day, coming to the aid of good cops.

Where there are bad ones, there are almost always bad commanders but especially bad politicians and worse, really bad district attorney's. In other words, the problem is usually not the cops but their immediate civilian bosses who are trying to make themselves look good in a political light, and so they are "tough on crime" and easy on the budget giving much latitude to cops.

Cops are tragically distanced by their departments and by their actions, sometimes, from the people amongst whom they were recruited.

The office of police is essential as being a department of the common law --- distinct from federal or national police.

A local and state police officer is one of us, who takes on the responsibilities that we otherwise would have to and sometimes do have to.

American citizens are sovereign, and we are all, as responsible adults, are charged with the responsibility to enforce our laws.

That job is not the exclusive work of cops, judges, lawyers, and politicians.

Indeed, there is a common statement that you will hear in the liberal media and splashed across the stage in public productions, that "You can't take the law into your own hands!"

That statement is incorrect.

The law is in our hands, and it is supposed to be in our hands, and we must dutifully adhere to it and enforce it, if we are to make just work for each other.

The "gov't officials" are our agents, whom we elect, appoint, and hire to do our work for us, because we are otherwise quite busy.

The power of ordinary Americans is great. The traditions of our rule of law and the common law which bypassed the Constitution at our founding, and are in a large part due the credit for the success of our Constitutional form of government, are necessary instructions from our very early development on up to being elders and (hopefully) with wisdom, pointing out the basic ingredients of how our justice system actually works.

Not what you see on television, but what you see everyday yet take very much for granted.

Cops are generally safe at their work --- anybody may see that they are outnumbered --- yet why is that, they can seem to enforce the law almost single-handed?

Because we are right there with them.

The last thing we need to do in this country, is disarm the citizenry. That will surely result in a police state with evermore cops at every corner and in every building, but worse.

When the people are disarmed, but their crisis is great, they will find and get arms ... and who will have them?

Cops.

Ask any French gendarmie of the Second World War, who was really and truly on the side of the French Resistance. He will tell you about how dangerous it was to be armed among those who longed for freedom.

My point is, the badge does not make you safe.

The yellow line down the street, does not either keep you from human responsible agency gone awry.

We live in a dangerous world that will always be a dangerous world.

We are mostly free because we enforce the concept, day to day, of having our local courts systems work out our differences peacefully.

Our Constitution is a peace treaty.

There was wisdom in our Founding Fathers, gained by a review by them, of the centuries of failures of governments intent on controlling the people ... which time and again led to and still leads to ... war.

To have freedom and maintain the peace, we must be vigilant and dutiful and make especially our state and local laws well, and work well.

Including all aspects of how we enforce them.

We all enforce them.

Americans are naturally anti-authoritarian --- that is, against bad government authority and bad government authorities, agents, officials, what have you.

Every day, we generally live in peace and freedom because we know and the local cops and judges know, and the politicians should know, that any false step will be crushed by the people.

Why do judges' decisions generally work?

Because we are generally at peace with them.

Should we become further burdened by a government pent on governing by judiciary, instead of by we the people as we properly under our rules, make the laws instead of judges, then, as the crisis develops, as free people have done throughout history, the judges will discover they have no place to hide.

Cops, in general, are overly-credited with wrongs that really derive from how distanced they are from us, by the gov't bureaucratic-mindset of lawyers and judges and politicians.

Such power-hungry people want the police to be so-isolated from us.

We do not.

We can not, if we are to have peace and freedom.

I do not want "world peace."

I want what Reagan wanted: world peace and freedom.

God bless.

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