Outlaw tasers
UPDATE - with regret, knowing as we do that "became unresponsive" and "deployed his taser twice to subdue him" are synonymous.
January 9, 2008
The Associated Press
MOBERLY, Mo. | A Howard County prosecutor says no criminal charges will be filed in the death of a suspected drunken driver killed after a police officer fired a Taser at him. Prosecutor Mason Gebhardt says Moberly police officer J.J. Baird was justified in using a Taser to try to arrest 23-year-old Stanley Harlan of Moberly during a traffic stop in August. Gebhardt says he reviewed reports and a video of the incident to determine Harlan was resisting arrest. Baird made the stop, suspecting Harlan was driving drunk and placed him under arrest. Police say when Harlan resisted, the officer deployed his Taser twice to subdue him. The first Taser shock lasted five seconds and the subsequent shock was only one second. Harlan became unresponsive soon thereafter. Officers started CPR until an ambulance arrived. Harlan was pronounced dead at a hospital.
On November 19th, I posted the message below. Today I received these photos and this message: we would be honored if the families and friends of the victims on the list wanted to send a pic to our email (outlawtasers@yahoo.com) so we could post their pics on theirs, or even contact us at the email address if they wanted to see the memorial themselves and place pics or decorations themselves.
November 19, 2008
I received this message on my guestbook and I am posting it here in case anyone would like to be involved in this:
We are a group of friends & relatives helping a mother (who's son was tased by local police in front her Aug. 28, 2008). We are currently working on making 386+ crosses representing the people whom have died from being tased. (Names found on this site ) We have not set a date as when we will place these in the ground, but wish to do it before the holidays. It would be nice if we had some kind of picture of deceased, family or friend to come & place the cross, news story or anything, We would like to make it known nationally, our goal is to have the taser outlawed everywhere.
As I mentioned, my friends son was tased, he was unarmed, was not on drugs. It was another instance of police brutality here in our small town.
For more information or to send a photo, contact outlawtasers@yahoo.com
1 comment:
Some Great NEWS!!!
THE NSW Ombudsman has recommended a two-year freeze on further roll-outs of Taser guns, saying police standards for their use are inadequate, and the health risks are unknown.
Bruce Barbour told state parliament yesterday that general-duties police, who were issued the stun guns last month, were using Tasers at a higher rate than special operations police, who began using them in 2002.
“It is clear the number of incidents where Tasers will be used in the future will increase significantly,” Mr Barbour said.
“There is already evidence of this. Tasers have been used on people on five occasions in the first two weeks of general-duties use. This compares with only 48 incidents over a five-year period” by special unit officers.
The Ombudsman’s investigation found officers from special units had predominantly used Tasers from a distance, but in the first two weeks of use by general-duties officers, in four out of the five incidents the Tasers were used in drive-stun mode, where the gun is applied directly to skin or clothing.
The use of Tasers, which stun a victim by emitting a 50,000-volt electric shock, have been linked to heart complications and death.
Queensland police last week Tasered a 16-year-old girl who had ignored police instructions to move on, because she was waiting with a sick friend for an ambulance to arrive.
In another case, a 56-year-old NSW man who had threatened police with a frying pan died 12days after receiving three Taser shocks.
According to his death certificate, the man, who had heart disease, hepatitis C and schizophrenia, died of a heart attack.
Mr Barbour was unable to say whether the Taser played a role in the man’s death.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24678451-5013871,00.html
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