Posted on 12/03/2007 11:46:15 PM PST by LibWhacker
Donnell Williams had just gotten out of the bath tub, wearing only a towel around his waist, when he turned the corner to see guns pointing right at him.
"I ain't never been so scared," says Williams.
Police forced entry into Williams home while responding to a shooting, but it turned out to be a false call. They had no idea at the time the call wasn't real and that Williams is hearing impaired. Without his hearing aid he is basically deaf.
"I kept going to my ear yelling that I was scared. I can't hear! I can't hear!"
Officers were worried about their own safety because at the time it appeared Williams was refusing to obey their commands to show his hands. That's when they shot him with a Taser.
Deputy Chief Robert Lee says, "This one occurred on the worst of calls, that being a shooting. The first few minutes getting control of the scene are very, very important."
Once the facts were all sorted out, officers repeatedly apologized to Williams. Police wish it never happened, but with the information they had at the time, their choices were limited.
"Do I wish there would have been some way they were notified in advance this gentleman was hearing impaired? I certainly do. No one is happy with the way it worked out," says Lee.
Williams was not hurt in the incident. Police say the shooting call came from a cell phone but they still don't know who made it or why.
The case is being reviewed by the department.
There has been a rash of these bogus calls. Here is one example.
http://heraldnet.com/article/20071016/NEWS01/71016015
Whoever does something like this should get life in prison.
This deaf man could have been killed.
A guy refuses to cooperate with a cop on the side of a highway, puts his hand in his pocket while walking away from him, and you say he should not have been tasered.
BUT, you have no problem with this deaf guy who is standing there all wet in nothing but a bath towel getting tasered because he’s pointing at his freaking ear.
Gee, that makes sense doesn’t it? /sarc
Thought you’d be interested in sending this to your ping list.
I agree. Where did they expect him to be hiding a gun? Up his butt?
Thank you
Probably large caliber with a 15 round magazine too. I'd like to see this hero cop walk out of a store somewhere, sometime and get a nice tazering when he least expects it. Put it on max duration and walk away.
i dont get why every one wants to take all of the tools away from the police, then gets outraged when they use the few tools they have left. Now if you bruise a suspect they get to sue for police brutality. If you take all the tools away but the hammer all you problems will look like nails.
I don't know about bobbies. Looks like the cops were more boobies. ;-)
Every cop involved should be fired, and bared from ever working as a cop again....”bared?”..Was that Freudian?
ping
Except it wasn't a shooting. It wasn't anything.
The cops get a call ... a cell phone call .. all they know is there has been a shooting ..
"Police forced entry into Williams home while responding to a shooting, but it turned out to be a false call. They had no idea at the time the call wasn't real and that Williams is hearing impaired. Without his hearing aid he is basically deaf."
A guy coming out of a shower can be a diversion to let a perp slip out the back window or something ...
I don't know ... but there sure seems to be a lot of anti-TASER activity these days.
We here in FreeRepublic .. if not aware of, are at least suspicious of ... the attempts to take our nation from us ... we should never forget the tactic of the enemy ... incrementalism.
No matter how small or seemingly insignificant the attempt or worse, damage .. they keep chipping away.
Wasn't it in Wichita where the Clutter family was so brutally attacked and murdered?
Presto Dispatcho! A LEO hit squad is rocketing to the scene. Break door down....locate unwitting hubby who responds with WTF? Bang-Bang.........Insurance settlement and a condo in Cancun for the widow.
At least the tazer avoids the above outcome.
“I would think several million dollars from the PD department will make him hear better in the future.”
hmmmm....how do you figure this?
Sounds an awful lot like, "do I wish there would have been some way for us to know every single detail about every single person living in our jurisdiction? I certainly do." And they wonder why people dislike cops.
As a deaf wearer of a hearing aid I can fully sympathize with this man. I have often wondered if some day I might be in a situation where the cops might do something to me when they thought I wasn’t complying simply because I couldn’t hear them.........
Could be, but more like the result of not having my first cup of coffee at the time. :)
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