Posted on 11/13/2004 1:40:34 PM PST by freepatriot32
MIAMI (Nov. 13) - Miami-Dade police have acknowledged using a stun gun on a second youngster just weeks after subduing a 55-pound first-grader with a 50,000-volt shock.
In the second instance, a 15-year-veteran officer used his Taser to immobilize a 12-year-old girl who was playing hooky from school.
Police Director Bobby Parker defended the decision to shock the 6-year-old boy on Oct. 20 because he was threatening to injure himself with a shard of glass he was holding, but he said Friday that he could not defend the decision to shock the fleeing girl, who was apparently drunk.
According to the incident report, officer William Nelson responded to a complaint that children were swimming in a pool, drinking alcohol and smoking cigars about 11 a.m. on Nov. 5.
Nelson said he noticed the girl was intoxicated and told her to get dressed so he could take her back to school.
"While walking the girl to the police car, she took off running through the parking lot," Nelson wrote in his report.
Nelson, 38, said he chased her and yelled several times for her to stop. Nelson said he pulled out the Taser and fired when the girl began to run into traffic. The electric probes hit the girl in the neck and lower back, immobilizing her with 50,000 volts.
Nelson said he fired "for my safety along with the girl's safety." Paramedics treated the girl, who went home with her mother.
Parker said department policy permits officers to use the Taser to apprehend someone, but he said he expected his officers to use better judgment, especially when police had no plans to arrest someone playing hooky.
The first incident had already exposed the department to more criticism for its use of Tasers, which it has begun distributing in greater numbers to officers.
"The police could have handled this better," said the 6-year-old boy's mother, Kathy Rojas. "They did not have to shoot him."
Parker said that, in light of the disclosure of the second incident, the department will review its policy.
BUMP to that.
"While walking the girl to the police car, she took off running through the parking lot," Nelson wrote in his report.
Since the girl was being detained and transported why wasn't she handcuffed in the first place? The officer says he suspected she was drunk? Cutting school being drunk and still no handcuffs? Seems to me this officer let the situation get out of control by choosing to be nice to this young girl and not subject her to physical harm? Just my opinion.
The article indicates that they had already tried talking him down. His response was to inflict further injury on himself by cutting his leg. See the fifth paragraph, as follows:
The officers talked to the boy without success. When he cut his own leg, one officer shocked him with a Taser, then another grabbed him to prevent him from falling, police said.
The Taser prevented the kid from hurting himself any more than he already had, and from stabbing the officer who grabbed him.
Perhaps. Not if I were on the jury, however. "Nothing else to lose" is the problem with the current system. Litigation lottery, is what it is, and the tickets are free.
Besides, try hiring a lawyer to perform a service, then not pay. He'll go after that big screen TV in a heartbeat. But the defendant can't?
Maybe the lawyers who bring these suits should also be held financially accountable. The plaintiff's lawyer should be able to recognize a frivolous lawsuit when he sees one. If he stands to gain 33% of the judgment, let him put a little on table if he loses.
"each suit should include an automatic countersuit"
Nah, won't work. Many of these cases never get to court, even when the claim is obviously frivolous, since it would cost more to defend than what the plaintiff wants.
Loser pays prevents the frivolous suit from even being filed. There's a good article here.
We don't know all the details, but if the second kid was running into traffic, the cop could have kept her from being hit...esp. if she was drunk.
No, its not a good point as it is purely unbased speculation.
Nelson said he fired "for my safety along with the girl's safety."
So the cop was scared of a 12 year old girl and he had to taser her. I wonder is this girlie-man cop got beat up by 12 year old girls when he was 12.
Get this guy off the force and let the real men and women on the force protect our neighborhoods.
If this article were about that, you'd be screaming to high heaven about over-reacting jackbooted thugs being scared of little 12-year-old girls.
Running out in front of an oncoming bus to snatch a kid away from certain death doesn't always work out as well as it does in the movies and TV.
And being terrorized by 12 year old girls scares the pants off this grown man sworn to uphold the law in any way he sees fit. Get this girly-man cop off the force. He's a danger to children as well as to the welfare of the community he's supposed to be protecting. Those recurring nightmares he no doubt has of beatings he sustained from 12 year old girls (probably because he was a girly-boy) in 7th grade are taking a toll on everyone else. His own personal problems should not become everyone else's problems. This guy's unfit to even own animals much less be a parent.
YES!....The parents need to be flogged ( I'll volunteer to do it ) The kids need to be removed from the home and just for the hell of it...Sterilize the idiots so they don't reproduce anymore!
WhatEVER the case; I am not going to go for the 'utilitarian' argument - ends justifies means rationale here.
Maybe the boy should have cut himself; if even severely enough to need medical attention; maybe he would have learned that 'actions have consequences'. . .or maybe; had there been a stand-off and patience demonstrated; maybe the boy would have eventually opted for a cheeseburger instead.
Of course, this is an open ended speculation. What is not however for me; is the idea that carrying/threatening/using a weapon against a child is the right thing to do. Much less, a weapon that delivers 50,000 volts of control.
I also think this using this kind of power; is as damaging the recepient as it is to the one who uses it. The real pain; however is certainly not a shared experience.
Sorry. . no. . .I just will not go there.
This quote illustrates the bizarre topsy-turvy universe a police officer enters everyday he goes on duty. Despite their ostensible power over others, any decision they take is open to question and public opinion is always stacked about 3:1 against them.
mvpel writes:
>>Could you please explain in specific detail, step by step, how you would have taken down an angry six-year-old waving around a sharp piece of glass with which he's already cut himself a few times, without using a Taser?<<
From the news article:
"The cop caught him before he hit the floor."
That's pretty quick. The Tueller Drill, which I teach in my CCW classes, indicates that most any adult can cover a distance of 21 feet from a standing start in appx 1.5 seconds. How far away you figure those 3 cops were from the 6 year old if one could catch him before he dropped from a taser hit which is almost immediate, even in the case of a large unruly adult male, using modern police EMD tasers.
Distract the kid with a loud noise or shouting his name from one direction and from the other direction a prepared officer rushes the kid and grabs the arm of the hand holding the glass. Even on the very remote chance the kid has a chance to turn even a 6 year old will start to react instinctively against a surprise oncoming threat rather than to purposely cut himself, but then that might present some risk to the officer.
These "trained" officers were adults possessing common sense?
Anger management and violence reduction classes taught to kids, by police and/or teachers, stress talking and de-escalating a situation IRT conflict resolution. That's what we tell the kids to do themselves. In this case however we bring in 3 armed uniformed cops in addition to a security guard and the "child educators" already in the room with a disturbed/distraught child to "calm things down".
I have disarmed a grown man with a knife and an attitude before....I somehow think that that's a little more difficult than a six year old with a piece of glass.
But I geuss we wouldn't want to hurt the little dear. Would we?
Perhaps the cops were nervous that they would be overpowered by him.
A solid static shock from a doorknob on a dry day after shuffling across a carpet can be as high as 12,000 volts, and you don't even feel static until it gets to 1,500 volts.
You are way off the deep end if you are seriously suggesting that a six-year-old be allowed to permanently disable or kill himself just to teach him "actions have consequences." The kid is an innocent victim of either a serious mental illness or serious abuse by the adults in his life.
Patience demonstrated? They tried to talk him into a cheeseburger until he started slicing at his leg. How much longer would have have them wait before saving him from bleeding to death?
The right thing to do was to use the least possible amount of force necessary to keep him from hurting himself any further, or anyone else, and that's exactly what the Taser provided.
So are are you telling us that there was no point during the course of disarming that grown man that you thought your life or health might be in the slightest bit of danger?
If you could have stood 20 feet away and disarmed and subdued him, wouldn't you rather have done that instead of tangling with him and his knife up close and personal?
mvpel writes:
>>The right thing to do was to use the least possible amount of force necessary to keep him from hurting himself any further, or anyone else, and that's exactly what the Taser provided.<<
I doubt seriously the effects of EMD police tasers have been tested on 6 year olds since I also doubt seriously they were ever intended to be used against them. If you can come up with a SINGLE legitimate study regarding same I'd like to know about it. Taser.org claims no child has ever been involved in a test and also claim they have nothing to offer that is strictly scientific regarding children.
In fact, I am unable to find any documented, controlled, independent medical studies, other than claims by the company, regarding the taser and adults. I have been looking for one and no luck so far. I'd appreciate any input you can offer. Taser International is the monopoly company that markets the M-26 and X-26 Taser to police and M-18 which is also popular with civilians.
The more I check into this the more I discover the reputable medical evidence about the safety of the Taser is uncertain and inconclusive at best while police are using them more and more under questionable circumstances. Taser use in Tucson, AZ is being seriously questioned after a police sergeant used a taser last July to "pacify" a 9 year old handcuffed, hospitalized, female mental patient and the LA Times reported June 5, 2004, that a local Los Angeles hospital is at risk of losing its federal Medicaid funding because it relies on police Taser use to subdue psychiatric patients. The Portland Oregon PD has banned the use of tasers by police on pregnant women, the elderly and children and the Minneapolis PD is considering the same.
IMO the risk of damage caused by some minor rough physical handling is less than the unknown risk posed by using a taser on a 6 year old.
I'm suggesting the police should have used past PROVEN techniques and the minimum amount of physical force required to "subdue" the child. Since you want to speculate, had the child died from the taser jolt due to, let's say, a cardiac, respiratory or convulsive disorder what would you be saying now?
>>All this drama over "50,000 volts" misses the crucial issue that it is a few ten-thousandths of an amp, designed to override the electrical impulses of the central nervous system.
A solid static shock from a doorknob on a dry day after shuffling across a carpet can be as high as 12,000 volts, and you don't even feel static until it gets to 1,500 volts. <<
I am a retired Electronics Engineer and am not unfamiliar with the effects of electricity on the human body. Static electricity effects are not the same as the Electro Muscular Disruption cause by the "T-Waves" induced by the taser. You've probably seen the old classroom demonstrations using a 250,000 volt static electricity Van de Graff generator that cause a students' hair to stand on end and no other effects at all including any to the Central Nervous System or muscles that a taser is designed to cause.
freepatriot32 writes:
>>http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10170605.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp<<
From the story cited above:
>"When you have a 6-year-old who is on medication and very disturbed, maybe some of that crisis intervention training would be very handy," he said, referring to a program that teaches officers how to deal with the mentally ill.<
The Los Angeles Times reported 6/5/2004 that about 40 people nationally have died as a result of Taser use since 1999. Although the manufacturer claims these deaths are a result of other causes, Taser International training materials curiously describe the device as "less lethal," not "non-lethal." There has been no thorough, independent and impartial evaluation of the medical effects, much less the psychological effects, of electro-shock weapons like the Taser.
The company claims the deaths were the result of other causes and does NOT acknowledge that taser shocking could have CONTRIBUTED to the deaths. Those other causes, according to Taser International are mainly the result of adult drug use, especially cocaine and amphetamines, both stimulants.
Now we find out the 6 year old boy was on "medication". Like Ritalin maybe, a DEA Schedule II prescription stimulant commonly given to kids nowadays? Instead of "given" perhaps I should say "force-fed" by the authorities to make them "controllable"
The plot thickens.
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