Posted on 07/20/2008 1:16:07 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Officer Suspended For 5 Days
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A teenager died after being hit with a police Taser gun for 37 seconds, and the whole thing was caught on tape by surveillance cameras.
Authorities said that Darryl Turner had been in a confrontation with a supervisor at work at a North Carolina grocery store.
When Officer Jerry Dawson arrived, he fired his Taser gun at the 17-year-old and struck him in the sternum.
"The initial use of the (Taser gun) is not in question," said Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Chief Ken Miller.
However, for 37 seconds, Dawson continued to use the Taser gun against the teen.
An autopsy revealed that Darryl Turner died of a heart attack, authorities said.
NBC Charlotte affiliate WCNC reported that Dawson was given a five-day suspension for firing the Taser gun too long.
"I wouldn't want to be (hit with a Taser gun) for 37 seconds, I can assure you of that," said Joe Kuhns, a professor of criminal justice at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "It's a lengthy period of time."
Kuhns said he does support the use of the guns, however. "For the most part, their use has been effective. It has reduced officer injuries. It has reduced suspect injuries."
But a recently released National Institute of Justice study indicated that since 1987, there have been 300 deaths from the devices, also called conducted energy devices.
"There may be circumstances in which repeated or continuous exposure is required, but law enforcement should be aware that the associated risks are unknown," the study said. "Therefore, caution is urged in using multiple activations of (Taser guns) as a means to accomplish subdual."
Turner's family said they believe he didn't have to die.
"The officer was not confronted with circumstances that required the use of that type of force," said family attorney Ken Harris.
Dawson won't face criminal charges in the case, but Turner's family is considering a lawsuit, WCNC reported.
Although I agree with your sentiment about police abuse, I have to again reiterate that in this case, the suspect did indeed warrant a tasering due to the behaviour that he exhibited that was edited out of the video.
This suspect definitely needed to be subdued, no doubt about it.
The officer was clearly in the wrong for using the taser as long as he did, but his statements and the video seem to back up his story that he didn’t think the taser was working.
I can not fully express my views on this. Suffice it to say it begins with what you wrote but does not end there.
Okay. But it makes the officer and his fellow officers look bad.
Seems like we really need to go back to guns, billy clubs, and truncheons. None of this “sorta-non-lethal” crap. Especially if leads folks like me to second-guessin’ the cops...
I'll take care of my own security, and help out my neighbors, if needed.
Just stand out of the citizen's way.
/johnny
That kid’s family just won the lottery.
This is manslaughter plain and simple. Cop needs to do time.
There are also too many people here on Free Republic who think that having a badge automatically makes an individual guilty of being a sadistic, jackbooted fascist on a power trip. There are individuals on every law enforcement agency in the county who bring either pride or shame the agencies they represent.
Yeah Yeah, Simmer down francis I never said I wanted to take the guns away from police. I said that they overuse these tazer things.
30 years ago they would cracked his head with a truncheon and tossed him in the poaky overnight and he'd still be alive.
I think you just screwed yourself with your own words. If the suspect was WALKING AWAY from the cop, why did he insist on continuing the tasering?
Why don't they? Perhaps it isn't such a crappy job. Maybe the pay isn't so bad.
They need to change those things to only put out current for some max period of time, like 10 seconds or so, with a mandatory cooldown/off period (maybe 5 seconds?), after which you’d have to pull the trigger again to get another 10 second charge to repeat the cycle.
I do not like taser, have seen too many taser stories of stuff that makes no justifiable sense, etc., but in this case, second-guessing an instantaneous decision, given the apparent lack of effect of the taser, seems somewhat more difficult.
As some locals are pointing out on this thread, this article appears to be a piece of disinformation and selective propaganda.
There are MANY JBT apologists here who will claim that the cop did nothing wrong and the taser is “harmless”.
He ACCIDENTALLY held the trigger down for 37 seconds? Bullsh#t! He wanted to punish that boy for not conducting the proper police officer grovel. He murdered that boy as surely as if he had deliberately choked him.
They used to have mace and these night sticks. There is also pepper spray. But you used to have to have more than a fourth grade education to be a police officer. There has been a lowering of standards across the board throughout the country.
Tasers can be lethal. It should not be routine when there are other options and it is not a real life-threatening situation.
Were there other adult men in the store? Anyone with defensive line football training? Or, say, linebacker? Mike Curtis demonstrated how to deck a punk once. They might add that to the training films.
Basic survival skill: when the law arrives slacker punks should not resist because, even if it is not a WWF fourth grade dropout who likes to show his girlfriend his gun, they might get tasered for half a minute and die. There are abnormal people who experience a sexual thrill from administering taser shocks so that is something to look out for as well. Usually these are the same ones who are too eager to pull over female speeders in traffic and carry an extra set of handcuffs. It takes people different ways.
17 year old kid. dead forever.
Child killer cop. 5 day suspension.
Oh,it’s the media not telling the whole story.
If I were the kids parents I would sue this a$$hole cop for all he was worth. I would sell everything I own to bring him down.
Its possible Dopers in Uniform: Cops on Steroids
BINGO
A well trained police officer could have taken this kid down without useing a taser,instead now the kids dead. Bad thing to kill somebody just for being a stupid twit,even worse to justify it.
When the justice system is committing the injustice, it’s time for vigilantism IMO. I have always been an “eye for and eye” sort of guy. Perhaps it would make an impression on them if one of their kids were elecooctuted (by accident, of course). If they didn’t have any kids, then maybe a wife or two nieces or nephews...
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