Posted on 12/22/2004 2:19:07 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
MIAMI -- Miami police say they used a Taser stun gun to subdue a wheelchair-bound man who threatened them with scissors.
Police say they responded to a domestic violence all at a home where the man got into an argument with his girlfriend, then threw a soda can at her 13-year-old daughter.
Police say the man resisted officers and threatened them.
The man's name was not released. He was taken to jail, but no charges were immediately filed. Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
This is just shocking!
It's only a matter of time before we read of the first Taser use on a shackled ICU patient.
Don't underestimate paraplegics.
They do everything with their arms, so they can be very powerful and very fast.
As a paramedic, I have been on very similar scenes to this and I can easily see this as being necessary.
I know the article sounds funny.
But I have seen 4 big police officers being needed to stop one paraplegic with a knife. (After having already cut up a couple of people that tried to stop him before the police got there.)
And this is not the only one I have seen like this.
Please read my post 4 on this thread.
Every cop in Florida should be forced to stand in a puddle and subjected to a Taser shock.
This is at least the third grossly inappropriate use of a Taser in several weeks here. First schoolkids, now the handicapped.
There is NO excuse for this
I believe you!
That's why I posted without a smiley.
Folks might as well get used to this technology - it's not going away.
However, you know as well as I that some police will use the Taser wrongfully.
Better than pistols, I suppose, but people should never get used to the idea that excessive use of force is unavoidable.
Please consider my post 4 on this thread.
I have been there with handicapped people just like this that were still very capable of violence.
There are not enough facts in this article to make a determination that this wasn't necessary.
There is no mention of a weapon being used by the victim here. Just that he resisted arrest.
What of the school children who've been Tasered in recent weeks? These cops need to be brought down a peg or two.
I support the police in almost every instance, but there's a pattern of abuse developing in FL with their use of Tasers.
You weren't there... you have no clue what you are writing about.
I worked as a store detective once and had to fight a guy with NO LEGS in a wheelchair ... All he did all day long was work his upper body by wheeling his stupid carcass around town, stealing from people... It took two of us (both decent sized boys) quite some time to get him subdued and we were both injured. As an aside, I read that the moron was shot and killed by his wife a few years back... good riddance.
Also, standing in a puddle has no bearing on how a Taser affects the human body. Again... Ignorance.
Nor were you, speaking of ignorance
If you taser a paraplegic, do their legs twitch and kick, or not?
As a man who spent almost 31 years as an On-the-road police ( Calif. Highway Patrol) officer, you are SO correct! These people have very strong arms and upper bodies. They are usually taking something which numbs them from usual pain. The last aspect is they always plays themselves as victims.
BTW--I arrested a paraplegic for DUI. Thought I had done a first until I ran the guy's record. Mine was his THIRD arrest for DUI.
"It's only a matter of time before we read of the first Taser use on a shackled ICU patient."
When I was in the ICU last October, the care was neither intensive nor caring. My wife said that it was because of male nurses.
To me, a shot with a Taser couldn't have been any worse.
I have to agree, there have been lots of cases of misuse of the tasers.
This guy sure might have deserved it though. (I know you understand that).
I have seen a shackled ICU patient bite a hole in the hand of a nurse once, BTW.
(he got a sedative instead of a taser though!)
I hope some of the posters here realize that just because someone is in a wheelchair doesn't mean they aren't dangerous.
That sort of thing just begs for terrorists to play on our soft hearts. That has nothing to do with this article of course.
Speaking of wheelchair bound terrorists, do you happen to remember what month Yassin got the hellfire missile in his lap?
If you don't know offhand, I'll look it up later. My mother and I were discussing him on Sunday and I couldn't remember. I forgot about it until now.
It might as well have been a knife.
You are right, I wasn't... which is why I'm not stupid enough to claim that they were either right or wrong. I didn't say they were right, I don't have all the facts. I try not to be a moron by declaring truth in issues I know very little about.
As I'm sure you do, too...
First sentence in article ... threatened them with scissors. Sounds like a weapon to me.
Vermonter: Nor were you, speaking of ignorance
The difference is that Gerasimov wasn't trying to say that the police behaved inappropriately based on nothing more than gut reaction to words on a page. What Gerasimov did do was provide an example of a situation where he was personally involved with a belligerent individual in a wheelchair in an attempt to show that not all wheelchair bound individuals are incapable of being a danger (as is implicit in your first post in this thread).
No need for a Taser, just kick over the wheelchair.
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