Posted on 05/07/2006 12:43:59 PM PDT by seowulf
REDMOND - The Redmond Police Department is facing a $1 million lawsuit after a woman says an officer used his Taser on her during a medical emergency.
Video from the police car camera shows that something was wrong with Leila Fuchs last July when police pulled her out of her car. For nearly 10 minutes when officers first pulled up, they say she remained unresponsive.
"She's just gotten into this collision at Redmond Way and 145th -- small accident," said defense attorney James Egan.
But he says it's the decisions an officer made when Fuchs wouldn't unlock her door that has them suing the department.
Egan says his client was suffering from a diabetic episode when medics tried to get her attention.
"So the medic brings a window hammer here," Egan says, pointing to the video.
Then, Egan says an officer took matters into his own hands.
"He bashed in the passenger side window, opened the door, and immediately ordered her to open her driver side door," Egan said. "Even according to (the officer), she was dazed, catatonic, and non-responsive. At that point, he pulls his Taser out, and says if she doesn't open it, he will shoot her."
Egan says the officer used his gun and hit Fuchs with 50,000 volts of electricity.
"He didn't shoot her for one second," Egan said. "He shot her for the full five seconds… and caused her to stiffen and scream, according to his police report as this happened, and here she was suffering a medical emergency."
Police reports claim officers could initially smell the odor of alcohol in the car, but after they got Fuchs out and did a breath test, they determined there was no trace of alcohol found.
"He jumped the gun... literally," Egan said. "And that's when he tried to electrocute someone he apparently thought was intoxicated."
Calls to the Redmond Police about the video and the lawsuit were not immediately returned Saturday evening. Police records, though, back up the fact that the Taser was used and that Fuchs did not have any traces of alcohol in her system.
Tickets, unmarked cars, tanks, swat teams, they are all about collection of revenue.
Serving the public is a joke. They very seldom write tickets for one of their own. If the law was meant for everyone, why not? Just as a regular citizen is told, you shouldn't of broke the law, why shouldn't the same thing apply to unionized cops?
A Sterling Heights cop wrote people tickets for not having their parking brake set in their driveways, (flat as a pancake). Their union kept him on the job. This is what they have become.
Tasering the sheep, or just fleecing them for their parking brakes, whats the difference, as long as they respect the authority of the rancher.
And if you find out more accidents are caused by heart disease? Or people over the age of 65 / under the age of 18? Should we deny them driving rights as well?
The problem with simply denying a license to diabetics is, first of all many of the wild episodes you hear about happen before people are diagnosed. Many people are diagnosed as a result of an episode that makes it obvious something is wrong with the person. My sister was a nurse, and was diagnosed when one day as she was leaving the hospital after her shift, she simply walked off the side of a loading dock type entry at the rear entrance of the hospital, instead of taking the steps. Luckily she was not seriously injured, but about 5 minutes later she would have been behind the wheel of a vehicle in traffic.
Also after diagnosis and proper treatment, many diabetics never experience a crisis with their blood sugar again. Those that do may be years in between events.
Perhaps a better question would be "Are you immune from any conditions which could impair your ability to drive?" Withholding licences from those who could have strokes, heart attacks, etc. would include everyone. There are many categories, other than health, that could be used for license rejection.
Thanks for your thoughts and support.
Would it have to rise to a real crime first, like having 11 items in an express line?
Are there traffic Nazi's? Yes. I agree alot of it is Chicken Excrement.
I don't see anything wrong with unmarked cars. I don't have a problem with SWAT, per se.
I don't write everybody I stop a ticket, I probably give just as many, or more, warnings than I do tickets.
I've also seen cops, 6 from my own department, go to jail. I've seen others arrested, some for domestic violence, some for drunk driving. So, cops don't always get a free pass.
I've also seen a captain shamed in the paper for having some of his troops issue citations to kids riding bikes without helmets and not having city bike licenses.
I never heard of being able to cite someone for not having their parking brake set... in their own driveway?? Wow... wonder if we can get something like that passed.
And, I can't remember how many cops I've seen get washed out before their year was on, or fired because they had bad attitudes.
Except for a female who couldn't find her fanny with both hands who was able to garner support from the N.O.W who saw to it, through the courts, that she was given a 35K a year desk job for 5 years. After she washed out of the training program.
Your very welcome. And you for yours.
I assume this holster was not for a taser, which explains your hesitancy to draw and fire. Perhaps a taser is just a little too easy to use.
If I'm confronting some whack-job and I've got the authorization to use a taser in circumstances like these ... I don't know ... all kinds of bad things can happen quickly. Let me just say that, although there may have been other and better ways to handle this person (especially knowing what we know now), I can understand his use of the taser.
I believe they have improved insulin over the years. I've had diabetes for 30 years and have had my share of insulin reactions. Never while driving, thank God. I always carry in my car a very sweet drink with the cover very loose. I currently take a Humalog Mix 75/25 and sometimes my sugar will go as low as 38 and all I feel is a slight shakiness. My doctor once told me it's an incrediably hard balance to achieve as we must take into consideration food, exercise and insulin. And if all that isn't enough, we had a cat who developed diabetes, and I had to give him one unit of insulin per day. The cat was 18 and I do think it was "old age diabetes". I never minded testing and taking insulin - it's the insulin reactions that I hate.
Hey, YOU'RE the one making excuses for this woman by hinting that this goes on all the time with diabetics. I doubt that, but if what you're saying is true, then we shouldn't let these people drive a 2,000 pound car down the highway.
Now, if you're also saying that this goes on all the time with people with heart disease, or over 65, or under 18, then, of course, they should be prohibited from driving.
Is that what you're saying?
Now, that there is a massively huge tin-FOE! Members of this forum who are eager to convict the cop on the basis of this story make me a little anxious. I don't recall exactly but I think I said I didn't see a justification. that's a lot different from saying there is no justification. I'll be interested to see what comes out as this develops.
hahaha... that's called the FR Knee Jerk. Just Playa' Hatin'...
And, Lord only knows how much the media loves us too.
Be careful!
No - quite the opposite. I'm saying it's a rare but unfortunate occurrence that's extremely difficult to control. Hence my opinion that your demand to ban diabetics from driving is an hysterical overreaction.
I think we may have a misunderstanding here. I am not ready to say this guy was wrong to use his taser. I'm also not ready to say he was right. I don't know enough yet.
Just sitting there looking spacey and not following orders would be enough to get my pulse going, but I'd still like to see some agression, or at least LONG period of non-compliance. Was there backup there? Who knows the ethos of his dept. or the siutation in general, but I think my first thought would be to radio Dispatch and report a non-compliant, non-responsive citizen in one of the vehicles and ask for backup.
The city tried to fire the cop , but the city could not beat the union.
My middle daughter had chronic problems when she first started school. Around late morning she would become easily upset, angry, and uncooperative. The school wanted to give her Ritalin, but I pulled her out and homeschooled her instead.
We finally figured out she had a chronic hypoglycemic condition (diabetes runs in my wife's side of the family). If she's allowed a high-carb breakfast, her blood sugar spike, and then crash, and when it crashed she would sometimes go nuts. She would start crying hysterically, get very angry, be repeating the same phrase over and over like a lunatic. The only way to deal with it was to get a little sugar into her somehow (fruit juice or soda), then follow it up with a high-protein meal to level out her blood sugar.
EMTs carry little packets of some jelly-like high-glucose stuff they can put into the mouth of someone having a hypoglycemic attack. If blood sugar is allowed to drop too low and the person goes unconscious, brain damage can ensue as the brain cells are starved of glucose and start to die.
Current EMT training includes procedures for identifying symptoms. Since cops are generally first on the scene when someone is in (or causing) trouble, it seems like a good idea for police to have some basic training in this area, so they don't wind up killing too many diabetics
What people don't get is that in the best of circumstances, any LEO who approaches a pulled-over vehicle without his alarm-system set to "hair-trigger" is probably not long for this world. I'm lucky in a way because one o he frist times I was involved with a disabled vehicle I found myself being approached by somebody waving a small club around and yelling threats.
So, while I was hauling out the old "shootin' arn", I had a very strong, "This can NOT be happening" thing going on.
So I'm sort of in "expect the unexpected" mode when I approach a vehicle.
So I GREATLY appeciate the citizen who stays in the car, lets me see his hands and works with me.
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