Posted on 04/03/2008 3:32:59 PM PDT by Ray54
Shawnee Co. sheriff criticized over man who died after shocks
* Shawnee County Sheriff's Department
TOPEKA, Kan. - The local sheriff's department says it might not know for weeks whether a deputy's Taser shocks killed a man in a brief confrontation, but it continues to face criticism over the incident.
Walter E. Haake Jr., a 59-year-old Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. worker, died early Sunday after an ambulance and two deputies responded to a report that he was having a medical emergency.
Haake was in his car at Goodyear's north Topeka plant, and the deputies asked him to get out. After he refused repeatedly, a deputy used her Taser. Haake was handcuffed but didn't respond when deputies asked him to rise, according to various accounts.
"They had his keys, where was he going to go?" Marc Luetje, a co-worker who said he witnessed the incident, told The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Shawnee County Sheriff Dick Barta said he won't know whether the Taser killed Haake until an autopsy report is released. His spokesman said such a report could take weeks.
Barta said the two deputies involved had unblemished records and remained on duty. The incident is under investigation.
"Their intent was to get this person help," he said. "My sympathy goes out to the family, but my empathy goes out to the officers and their families."
Luetje said Haake had fallen down some steps at home earlier Saturday and sustained a head injury but went to work anyway. At Goodyear, he was helped to his vehicle Saturday night.
Barta said the ambulance crew, hoping to remove Haake from his vehicle, asked the deputies to intervene.
Outside the sheriff's office Wednesday, two people waved signs in protest. One read, "Tasers don't kill, bad cops do," and another said, "To protect and serve, not kill."
"I still can't believe it," said John McNown, one of the protesters, who worked closely with Haake. "You no longer have the right to refuse medical attention."
Tasers are a proven problem.
Used the taser because he wouldn’t get out of his car. Tasers are great. Punishment can be administered on the spot without having to go by a judge, even. When these things are truly ubiquitous the cop will pull you over for 5mph speeding and will taser you as a matter of course, just in case you might be thinking about telling him you don’t think you were speeding. Pre-emptive tasing IS coming, maybe already is practiced and the officer never has to say he is sorry if the tasee dies.
“After he refused repeatedly...”
So, the guy was lucid enough to refuse to get out of his car after cops asked him to numerous times?
I’ll withold judgment until I have a few more facts. Ping me if there’s some follow up to this situation, please.
Do believe you nailed it!!! Absolutely outrageous!
They could have asked him till they were hoarse. If they had no suspicion that he had committed a crime, it's no different than you or me asking him to get out. He had every right to refuse.
If he was drunk, high, trespassing, or whatever, that's a different story.
Zapping him because he wasn’t causing a problem and endangering others??? The guy was in his car without keys for goodness sakes. It’s not like he was a harm to others. And if the officers knew he’d had a mishap and was there to render aid, then tasering him makes no sense. Leave him alone and call an ambulance and his family to come talk to him, end of story.
Just because the guy could speak doesn't mean he was "lucid", unless you believe lucid is just being awake.
He could have been confused, disoriented, frightened, or having some kind of psychotic episode.
Personally, I don't think that a couple of cops need to tase him unless he was acting violently...perhaps he was.
But then the officer wouldn’t get to use his taser. That thing is part of the perks of his job.
If they were informed that he had fallen down stairs earlier then they are going to get the clocks cleaned.
He broke no law and was not trespassing. Under exactly what authority did they do what they did?
I believe that would have been her taser.
Cops are all too often the bullies of our society that have found remunerative employement that makes use of their God-given talent. I’ve known a good few socially over my 60+ years, although not very socially, because their general behaviour is pretty frankly anti-social.
This was true in Jesus’ day, and it still is. To keep these tough guys in line requires constant supervision, including severe punishment for incidents like this. Given tasers, and told that the device is “non-lethal”, is an open invitation to them to go out and get their rocks off by applying their aggression to the general public on the slightest excuse.
I’ll listen respectfully to a detailed explanation of this incident, but tasering a guy just because he refuses to get out of his car really CANNOT be justified, unless he had a gun and was threatening the officers with it.
Tasering people who are simply ill or harmlessly deranged should be made a criminal offense. The family should sue the socks off the officers, the PD, and the municipal government that allowed this to happen.
What we have here is a failure of evidence.
“His” in the generic use. I will not succumb to the politically correct restructuring of the language. I refuse to use “they” and “their” as singular pronominals.
This attitude is part of the problem. The woman cop should be fired and never allowed to work in the law enforcement business again (and it has become a business, with all the speed traps and gotcha cameras out on the highways today).
But, but ,but females are equal to males and they can use their feminine ability’s where a male would just use brute force.
I’ll admit the article is short on details. But it sounds like he was tazed for not getting out of his vehicle. That seems to be a little on the extreme side.
As for pinging you if there is more to this story, I’d love to, I’m just not sure if I know how to do that.
Sounds fair enough to me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.