Posted on 09/19/2007 8:44:43 AM PDT by Cagey
CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -- A Clay County woman's family said it's seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police.
The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court, according to a WJXT-TV report.
In April 2006, officers with the police department said they were called to a disturbance at a home in the 400 block of Harrison Street just before 5 p.m.
In a 911 call made to the Green Cove Springs, Delafield can be heard telling a dispatcher that she believed she was in danger:
Dispatcher: And what's the problem?
Delafield: My sister is waiting on my property.
Dispatcher: Your what?
Delafield: My sister (inaudible) is on my property trying to harm me.
Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.
Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.
Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield's death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.
"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes," Alexander said.
According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.
A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.
The family said it plans to sue the Green Coves Springs Police Department now that it has all the reports regarding their loved one's death.
"We're going to try to compensate the estate and the family and try to get justice," Alexander said.
He said he believes the evidence weighs heavily in favor of Delafield's family and that justice will be served.
"I think that this evidence is going to show, along with some of the evidence we've collected outside of here, that there is no reason Emily Delafield should have died that day," Alexander said.
He said he plans to file a notice to sue sometime before the end of the year.
In the old days, you used a night stick. Imagine that on Youtube. A bunch of cops whacking grandma with night sticks.
Black jacks. One swat and they are out. It’s hard to see a blackjack on a video.
There’s a Mad TV/SNL skit in there somewhere!
“Whatever happened to community policing?”
There are some “communities” where it’s not safe even for a heavily-armed cop to walk around.
Nah. I taken knives and dangerous weapons from more than a few Alzheimer's, and other patients. Being in a wheelchair makes it easy.
Is it just me or does the phrase “It’s funny until someone gets hurt...then it becomes hilarious” come to mind?
I’m wondering how she was able to continue resisting arrest after being tased 10 times.
Usually you have to be on PCP or something similar.
“Seems to me that a baton is still a very useful thing to carry for such situations.”
Me too. Stick it in the spokes of the wheelchair so she can’t go after folks and wait till she gets tuckered out.
That’s my point.
The kid was crazy and the officer knew that.
The officer knew that nobody else was currently in jeopardy.
Officer goes in, when he could have waited for a variety of options (shielded police, SWAT, etc.) that wouldn’t have required shooting, but he went in anyway.
That’s not to say that police shouldn’t shoot armed people attacking them, but unncessarily placing yourself into that position (where lethal force is required) is just stupid.
They should never have called the police, because that’s how it’s gonna end.
Grab a garden hose. Water has proved to be a great tool.
Yes.
The less physically capable woman resorted to the taser 9x more.
That’s the result of EO hiring practices and quotas.
Alzheimers patients are slow. Schizos off their meds move in odd directions. I remember we found one out on the floor. We went to move him onto a backboard and he grabbed a Paramedic by the throat. The Paramedic uncoiffed his hairdo with a walkie talkie.
That contussion happened when he fell. Yeah, that’s it. He hit a coffee table.
The cops didn't have to disarm her immediately, all they had to do was stay out of her way and wait her out. What was the big rush anyway? She almost certainly would have eventually become tired and put down the knife or at least have been easy to disarm, and they could have taken her into custody without risk of either party being injured. But no, they had to show their precious authority by using what turned out to be deadly force on a mentally ill woman who could have been managed safely with some patience and understanding of the situation.
I hope the city is sued to the max and loses the case, and that the cops involved in that tragically bungled incident are at least fired and banned from ever again working in LE. We don't need to have nazi stormtrooper tactics used on mental patients in order to enforce the law effectively.
No, they're fast. They don't even know the person they've been attacking is their spouse of 30+ years. THey think their home is being invaded, they're being attacked, ect... and they're dangerous. Dangerous to a point, because they are not skilled fighters. They are far from it. The same applies to older mental patients. When they're in a wheelchair, there's no danger at all, since they're confined already.
"The Paramedic uncoiffed his hairdo with a walkie talkie. That contussion happened when he fell.
No skill.
It was one of the worse experiences of my life. I called the police for help with my sick husband and instead got plunged into the legal system.
I discussed it with a cop I knew afterward. He told me that as it was the end of shift, if they had brought him to the hospital they would have gotten stuck in the ER and ended up with hours of paperwork, as opposed to just bringing him to jail. He said he did the exact same thing to a mentally ill woman once, when he knew she should have gone to the hospital. And he was totally unapologetic about it.
He told me, “I wasn’t going to spend hours overtime for that nut.”
Oh yeah. Let's tie up a few squad units watching an old woman for 8 hours. In the meantime, a crowd gathers. Then people start making noise. If the police try to do anything, people start throwing stuff. In some neighborhoods, you can stand around all day.
We got called to a housing project for a heart attack. Midway into the procedure, the police tell us we have to leave. A crowd was forming and they were having trouble keeping out of the ambulance. They wanted to steal drugs. This was at 3PM, not during the night. We strapped the lady in and took her off. She died.
They had sent me out to get the defibrillator and I remember thinking "Who are all these people? Don't they have jobs?" I was in high school. What did I know?
Take it easy on the female cop. She had an argument with her wife that day. (SAC)
To Serve and Protect.....unless you are in a hurry or when you have this neat new taser you are dying to try out.
I’ve never met a fast Alzhiemers patient. They usually act like they are drugged out of their minds and shuffle everywhere. They will hit you but usually you can kick their ass pretty easily. They won’t protect their midsection.
One of the EMS guys was a boxer. He swore that dementia patients will always swing high and slow so he would hammer their ribs. Two punches and they were in a pile. This was in the 70’s when you could do that kind of stuff. We pull in and grandma would be all beat up. She’d had enough and called to transport him to the bughouse. Grandpa would be raving like a lunatic until Dickie got to him. Then Grandpa got quiet.
Yeah, they were REAAAAAAL close, can’t you tell? Spare me.
Drugged implies they're in a med facility. Before that, there's a point where they demonstrate the med facility and care is needed. As was the case with your grandpa story. Punches however...
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