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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.
They brought in Tasers as a non-lethal alternative to guns. But, it seems to me that because the policemen know that Tasers are non-lethal, they use them at every opportunity to release their frustrations.
As far as we know, she was neither argumentative nor combative.
I'm also saying that some police departments tell their officers that if someone does not comply with their verbal instructions the officer can taser that person.
Does that include a nonresponsive accident victim? A non-English speaker? A baby? A dead body? There are sometimes that you need to exercise common sense in interpreting department policy.
Just repeating what's been said. If this story is true, it certainly is an example of excessive force. As the wife of a diabetic and the mother of a hypoglycemic, I think this cop should lose his job -- permanently. Geez! What would he have done if she had been able to call him an S.O.B.? This cop is a menace to society.
LOL! That's at least a quarter of the population over 50. Are you under 30?
"AFAIC, all bets are off once this woman got behind the wheel in that condition -- she has no excuse, none, to drive impaired. Drunk or hypoglycemic, she could have killed someone."
Damn, good thing you weren't there, you might have just shot her.
Bump
Time for the taxpayers to reign in the tazer happy crew.
I will add that I would be esecially appreciative of the citizen who did all that after an accident. I didn't say anything about what I expected of the citizen or of myself. Cool your jets.
Do you think the state is inappropriate in pulling the license of someone with a seizure disorder until they've been seizure free for a while? Do you think the state is inappropriate in prohibiting driving with a BAC aboce a certain arbitrary level? I think it's a decent question. I don't have any numbers on how often people who suffer with diabetes are likeluy to go into critical hypoglycaemia -- and I'm not even sure I have the best form of the question. Maybe different sorts of diabetes, or diferent histories, or something like that would lead to better numbers.
Maybe some diabetics would coem to having run down a three-year-old on a bike and think that, had they but known that their type of diabetes could lead to such an occurrence, they would happily have yielded their licenses. I don't know. All I'm confident of is that if such rules as I am musing upon were put into practice, lawyers would get richer, rules would be badly applied, and unpredictable bad stuff would happen on the highways, and gross errors of judgement would lead to conversations like this one.
It's funny, I'm sitting here thinking about "our addiction to oil" and contemplating the highways with a quarter of those over 50 not being allowed to drive, and I'm liking it!
Of course, that's a good question. "Qui ipsos custodes custodet?" will never stop being important.
But I don't think we'll get closer to an answer by being over-hasty to convict cops or by steadfast and inflexible denial of considering what the cop's job actually is.
A I look around my community, I'd guess that here (where there are no police unions and no collective bargaining of gov't employees) one of the tings that helps is we have extremely good community involvement with Law Enforcement. LEO's reach out to the community in a number of ways not specifically related to law enforcement. (We have an excellent search and rescue team which every deputy is a part of, and they don't get paid for SAR work.) And the community reaches out to us in a number of ways. I think it makes some little difference. That kind of thing certainly helps get beyond the us versus them attitude I see on this Forum.
Oh, so that makes it okay? Other people did it, other people say that using a taser is electrocuting, so it's okay for you to do it?
Yeah, the story as presented by the "victim's" lawyer (who said "electrocuting") sure looks bad for the cop. I can't get the video, but I hear it's also bad for the cop.
I guess if the purpose of the discussion is to choose up sides and then throw rock at each other, then saying he electrocuted her is as good as anything.
If we're trying to figure out how to make a society more compatible with our Divinely endowed liberties and rights, I'm not sure exaggerating is going to do it.
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So anyone with Diabetes should be barred from driving, according to you?
"I produced my X-26 Taser and told her that if she did not comply with my order to unlock her door that I was going to use my Taser on her," Gorman wrote in his report. "She looked away from me without responding and stared straight ahead. I shouted the Taser warning and deployed my Taser from a distance of five feet. The female reacted by screaming and stiffening her body."
http://cbs4boston.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_127184907.html
He was completely out of line. Sending 50,000 volts through someone in order to punish them for non-compliance in a minor traffic accident should not be standard procedure. He should be fired and the city should quietly settle with her.
If a person refuses to treat their problem and wants to drive impaired, then they should be not be issued a license.
Her door was locked. Her window was up. What do you think they were doing for 10 minutes? She was non-responsive.
"I can't believe that you think shooting someone for not responding to a verbal command is acceptable."
Shooting "someone" or shooting her? Say what you mean.
Golly gosh, I can't argue with that brilliant and insightful statement.
Has anyone on this thread argued in favor of this? Who are you trying to convince?
Yet another idiotic conclusion arrived at by your brilliant deductive logic.
Well, I think he should try. I'd give it, oh, ten minutes. Then, if the person is, say, dazed, catatonic, and non-responsive after ten minutes, the officer has the option of using the taser, his call.
After all, we know nothing about this person, their mental history, their motives, their reaction, if they're drunk, on PCP, talking to Allah, carrying a gun, on their way from a murder scene, etc.
Oh wait, I forgot. YOU know all these things, don't you, and you're criticizing the officer because YOU believe HE should also have known these things at the time. Gosh, you're so smart and everyone else is so stupid. Must be great to be you.
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