|
Amnesty
Canada report | Tasers 2005:
Randy Fryingpan | Tasering
Mary Lutz | Vernon
Crowe
Tasers (2000-2003)
School official asks
police to stop Tasers
Miami, FL, Nov. 20, 2004 (UPI)
-- The superintendent of Miami-Dade Schools, where police Taser-gunned
a 6-year-old first-grader, has asked police to stop using stun
guns against children.
Superintendent Rudy Crew made
the request in a letter to the police chief, the Miami Herald
reported Saturday. His letter followed an incident in October
when a Miami-Dade officer zapped a 6-year-old first-grader at
Kelsey Pharr Elementary School, who was wielding a piece of glass
in a school office.
"The Pharr student was
agitated and injured," Crew wrote in his letter. "However,
police officers have dealt with other children in this condition
without resorting to a Taser."
In a second incident, an unarmed
12-year-old who was playing hooky was felled by an officer using
a Taser Nov. 5.
Crew asked that the department
"refrain from deploying or discharging Tasers against elementary
school students in Miami-Dade Public County Schools."
Stunning
offers . . .
Nov. 20, 2004
You think you get unsolicited
sales calls. Imagine having your name and newfound millions plastered
all over business bibles like the Wall Street Journal.
Phil Smith, chairman of Scottsdale stun-gun maker
Taser International Inc., got a taste of the telemarketing fallout
this week when word spread of his $27 million windfall from Taser
stock sales.
The day the news appeared in
the Journal, Smith received about 100 calls. More followed
the next day when national wire services picked up the story.
The pitches took two forms: help us manage your money or, from
charities, please share the wealth.
"You get the whole gamut,"
Smith said. "That's one of the disadvantages of being a
public company.
- Lawyer Targets Taser
Policies With 10 Lawsuits
- Lawyer: Police Agencies'
Policies Allow For Overuse Of Tasers
November 19, 2004, WESH.com
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A local attorney is filing a series
of lawsuits against law enforcement agencies over Tasers.
Lawyer Wants Police To Reexamine
Taser Policies
It's the biggest legal challenge
to date against the controversial police weapon, WESH NewsChannel
2 reported.
An Orlando attorney is going
to file 10 lawsuits on behalf of people who've been hit with
Tasers. The lawsuits will target five local law enforcement agencies,
including the Orlando Police Department, the Orange County Sheriff's
Department, the Osceola County Sheriff's Department, the Melbourne
Police Department and the Apopka Police Department.
The lawyer said local police
agencies' policies allowed for the overuse of Tasers by officers.
He argues that his clients have suffered permanent physical and
psychological injuries because of the excessive force.
On Oct. 2, while Apopka police
say John Henderson was resisting arrest with violence, he was
hit repeatedly with a police Taser. As a result, Henderson says
he walks with a limp, has numbness in his fingers and memory
loss. He denies resisting arrest.
Henderson is one of 10 plaintiffs,
ranging in age from 14 to 60, who are planning to sue five Central
Florida departments for misuse of the police Taser.
Thank you for participating
in our survey!Should Police Limit Use Of Tasers?Do police departments
overuse Tasers? YesNo
In the coming weeks, attorney
Tom Luka will be filing those 10 suits because he says local
agencies have failed to set clear guidelines on what qualifies
as excessive Taser force.
The Taser's manufacturer denies
that their weapon causes permanent injury or death.
"What we do know ... is
that Tasers save lives every day. We have not lost or settled
a civil suit in the company's 11-year history," a spokesman
said.
Luka said these suits are not
against the manufacturer.
The Orlando Police Department
has already restricted the use of the Taser to when a person
is actively resisting arrest. For the last six months, a committee
organized by the Orange County Sheriff's department has been
studying its Taser policy. But local agencies still say the Taser
is safe.
When a Taser is fired, a compressed
gas canister fires two probes connected by wires that can be
20 feet long. When the probes hit a person, a high voltage current
jolts through the nervous system, overwhelming the signals that
control muscle movement. That leaves the person temporarily immobilized.
The probes can go through 2 inches of clothing.
The weapons are effective.
According to Taser International, the company that makes the
most common Taser, 86 percent of the time it only takes one shot
to subdue a suspect. The overall success rate for stopping a
person with a Taser is 94 percent, according to the company.
Also, drugs or alcohol do not
affect a Taser's impact.
On a related note, police in
Miami-Dade County say they're reviewing their Taser policy after
the stun gun was used on two minors. In one case, police say
a 6-year-old boy was threatening to harm himself with broken
glass. In the other, an officer is facing disciplinary action
for using a Taser on a 12-year-old girl who had allegedly been
drinking and was skipping class.
To comment on this story,
send an e-mail to Bob
Kealing.
Copyright 2004 by WESH.COM. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Officer
zaps jail inmate
By Amy Hatten, The Craig
Daily Press, November 12, 2004
A detention officer at the
Moffat County Jail used a Taser gun on an inmate early Thursday
morning for disorderly conduct, Moffat County Sheriff officials
said.
The incident occurred at about
9 a.m. after the inmate allegedly threatened to assault a detention
officer and three times refused to enter a lockdown chamber,
Sgt. Ken Uecker said.
"This could have turned
into a worse situation," he said. "In order to stop
a violent situation, we had to tase him. We had troubles with
the inmate the night before."
The male inmate, whom officials
wouldn't identify, is a prisoner being held at the county jail
and on a waiting list to be transferred to the Colorado Department
of Corrections, Uecker said.
The jail was filled Thursday
with 75 inmates, Uecker said, about half of whom are prisoners
who later will be transferred to DOC as beds there become available.
Moffat County Jail has 88 beds.
Thursday's incident marks the
third time detention officers have used a Taser on an inmate.
The department purchased four
of the stun guns last year that send a 50,000-volt burst of electricity
through a victim for five seconds.
The result of being zapped
--or merely the threat of it -- usually can bring the most combative
person into compliance, jail officials have said.
Staffing was short one officer
at the jail Thursday, Uecker said. Two detention officers worked
the jail's pods as an administrative official staffed the master
control room, Uecker said.
It would have taken two or
three officers to subdue the inmate without the use of the Taser,
he said.
"Any one of our officers
could have been hurt," Uecker said. "(Without a Taser),
you're looking at physically trying to take control of the situation."
Copyright ©
2002 The Craig Daily Press, all rights reserved, Visit us at
http://www.craigdailypress.com
Lawyer
pushing stun-gun scrutiny
- Information lacking
on extent of use and by whom, rights advocate says
By ERIN POOLEY, Globe
and Mail, July 20, 2004
The use of controversial Taser
stun guns by police forces across the country should be monitored
more closely by the federal government, a civil rights lawyer
said yesterday.
"What is disturbing is,
it's not clear there are any kind of provincial or national regulations
that regulate their usage and frequency of usage," Julian
Falconer said. "Right now there is an utter lack of information
concerning the frequency of usage of Tasers and who is using
them. There has to be far greater transparency in their usage."
The debate over the use of
Taser guns resurfaced after 29-year-old boxer Jerry Knight died
on the weekend when police used one of the stun guns during a
violent confrontation at a Mississauga motel.
Law-enforcement officials say
the guns -- which deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity to
their targets, causing temporary loss of muscle control -- offer
a safer and more effective alternative to the use of deadly force
or pepper spray and batons.
But human-rights and civil-liberties
groups argue that the weapons are being overused and that their
safety is questionable.
The M26 Taser gun has been
approved for use by several municipal police forces across Canada
-- including those in Windsor, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto and
London.
Mr. Falconer, who co-chaired
a 2001 conference on alternatives to the use of lethal force
by municipal police departments, said it is extremely difficult
to determine how many Tasers are out there, who is using them
and the requirements officers must meet to use the "less-than-lethal"
stun guns.
In Ontario, for example, where
the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services approved
Taser guns for specially trained emergency response officers
and hostage-rescue teams, ministry officials said they do not
keep track of the number of Taser guns across the province or
the frequency of use.
"They buy them. They look
after them. We don't have anything to do with them. All we do
is approve them," ministry spokesman Bruce O'Neill said
yesterday. "We give them the guidelines, and as long as
they fall under the guidelines, it's up to them."
In February, Monte Kwinter,
Minister of Community Safety, expanded the use of Tasers to include
"front-line supervisors" -- the officers who secure
an area before emergency tactical units arrive on scene.
Mr. Kwinter also approved a
six-month pilot of a smaller and more expensive version of the
Taser for use by Toronto Police.
The battery-operated X26 model
is 60 per cent smaller than the M26 and costs twice as much,
at about $1,000.
The study is expected to be
completed in September.
Taser International, the Arizona-based
company that manufactures the guns, said the X26 delivers a more
focused pulse that results in increased muscle contractions.
However, it is less powerful than the M26.
A company spokesman also said
a microchip contained in the X26 model will track when the gun
is fired and for what duration.
Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for
Taser International, said yesterday the company "stands
by the safety of its products 100 per cent."
He likened being shot with
a Taser gun to "a funny bone that's working 18 times per
second from head-to-toe" but added that the effects are
only temporary.
© 2004 Bell Globemedia
Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2 men dead after run-ins
with B.C. police
July 12, 2004
VANCOUVER - Two men died in
separate altercations with police in British Columbia on Sunday.
The first man died in Saanich,
north of Victoria, on Sunday morning. A police officer shot the
33-year-old man to death near an elementary school playground
as children and churchgoers watched.
The man's wife had called for help earlier, saying her husband
was trying to set their house on fire and needed medical attention.
He then became involved in
"altercations" with police and paramedics that ended
in an officer firing at him, said a Saanich police spokesperson.
Police at the scene had called
for a Taser gun in an effort to subdue the man, but it hadn't
arrived yet.
In a separate incident in Vancouver
the same day, a man fell more than eight metres to his death
as a police officer tried to restrain him on a busy bridge.
Police had signalled him to
pull over after they spotted him driving a car with no licence
plates. Instead, he sped up and drove the wrong way onto a major
bridge, colliding with several cars before coming to a stop.
The driver then jumped from
the vehicle and ran away, leaving a female passenger behind in
the car.
When an officer caught up with
him and grabbed him, he lunged toward the side of the bridge
and fell over it. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Written by CBC News Online
staff
Man Suffers Heart Attack
After Being Subdued By Minneapolis Police
Feb 8, 2004 2:50 pm US/Central
A 39-year-old man is hospitalized
in critical condition after suffering a heart attack shortly
after Minneapolis police used an electronic stun gun to subdue
him.
The Hennepin County Sheriff's
Office is investigating and the officers who used the stun gun
have been placed on administrative leave. Their names have not
been released.
Police say a team from the
Minneapolis Police Department's Critical Incident Team went to
the Andrews Residence group home late Friday afternoon after
staffers reported that the man was behaving violently and threatening
the safety of other residents.
When officers couldn't restrain
the man, they jolted him with an electric stun gun to bring him
under control.
Police said the man went into
cardiac arrest as officers prepared to take him out of the home.
© 2004 The Associated
Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Saskatoon
City police add Tasers to weapons arsenal
Rod Nickel, The StarPhoenix,
December 05, 2003
Saskatoon police officers are
preparing to add stun guns to their arsenal, as well as semi-automatic
firearms aimed at better equipping them for situations like the
Columbine High School shooting.
Both the non-lethal Taser stun
guns and single-shot carbines are scheduled to become standard
equipment in patrol cars by 2006.
Police will continue to carry
Glock .40-calibre pistols in their holsters.
City administration has budgeted
$62,000 to buy 34 Tasers for police in 2005 and $92,000 to buy
an equal number of single-shot weapons to be mounted in cars
in 2006.
"The (Taser) technology
that's out there is very effective as long as it's deployed properly,"
said Saskatoon Police Service spokesperson Insp. Lorne Constantinoff.
City police are currently equipped
with a baton, pepper spray and firearm. Spray doesn't work on
everyone and requires proximity of no further than two metres.
The Taser has a range of six
metres.
An officer aims it like a firearm,
firing two hooks with a single shot. The hooks, connected to
the Taser by a thin wire, dig into the skin of the human target
and discharge a 50,000-volt current, causing the person to lose
muscle control.
The shock leaves the person
feeling dazed for a few minutes, but police say there are no
long-term effects.
The decision of when to use
a Taser is a judgment call, Constantinoff said, but generally
it's appropriate when lethal force isn't warranted and other
measures are ineffective or unsafe.
For example, an officer might
fire a Taser at a subject threatening him or her with a knife,
he said.
The Taser should not be used
on a subject who's armed with a gun, because the shock causes
muscles to jerk.
"Any tool when it comes
to the use of force, to give the officer another option other
than lethal force is a good tool," said city police association
vice-president Dave Haye.
The police service already
owns two Tasers, stored by emergency response team members, who
haven't put them to use other than for training.
Saskatoon police stepped up
their study of Tasers at the prompting of a coroner's jury looking
into the 2001 death of Keldon McMillan. Police shot McMillan
in a field south of Wakaw after a high-speed chase and the man's
threats to shoot officers.
City police have since become
involved in no shootings.
There has been only one firearm
shooting by Saskatchewan RCMP officers in the three years since
they began carrying Tasers, but shootings are rare anyway, said
RCMP spokesperson Heather Russell.
Almost one-third of Saskatchewan
RCMP officers are trained to use Tasers, although there are only
60 in use. The RCMP emergency response team and riot squad use
half of them, with the remainder spread around busy detachments
like Saskatoon, Regina, Battlefords and Yorkton.
RCMP use Tasers to subdue suspects
or prisoners in cell blocks or aircraft, Russell said.
City police are also anticipating
new car-mounted firearms. Currently, marked city police cars
are equipped with pump-action shotguns that fire a spray of pellets.
The guns are 20 years old and not ideal for reacting to situations
like the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, where two high
school students killed 12 classmates and a teacher in a shooting
rampage.
In that type of incident, police
want to target just the threat, not innocent people nearby who
could be hit by the pellet spray.
The new firearm will still
look like and function like a rifle, but it will be semi-automatic,
eliminating the step of pumping the weapon slide between shots,
and fire single shots.
"It would be more surgical,"
Constantinoff said.
© Copyright 2003 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
Gun happy
police have to be trained in restraint
Police get away with
murder in the Central Valley
(by Mike Rhodes Saturday
May 03, 2003 at 07:51 PM MikeRhodes@attbi.com)
Here is a story from the Central
Valley about how the police here get away with murder. The police
in Madera had this man arrested and under control. He was handcuffed
and in the back seat of a patrol car. An officer comes over and
shoots him, point blank, as he is in the back seat of the car.
The officer is cleared of any charges. Welcome to the Central
Valley.
Here is a story from the Central
Valley about how the police here get away with murder. The police
in Madera had this man arrested and under control. He was handcuffed
and in the back seat of a patrol car. An officer comes over and
shoots him, point blank, as he is in the back seat of the car.
The officer is cleared of any charges. Welcome to the Central
Valley.
This follows the case in Fresno
where officers shot an unarmed man who was accused of taking
two cases of beer from a liquor store. The youth allegedly took
the beer and drove a few miles away. The police found them and
surrounded the van. Several people in the van got out when the
police demanded that they surrender. The driver tried to drive
away. He was shot dozens of times by a police department that
is out of control.
Officer won't face charges
: Shooting of Madera man in police car is called an accident.
By Lisa Aleman-Padilla,
The Fresno Bee, May 3, 2003
The Madera County District
Attorney's Office announced Friday it will not seek criminal
charges against Madera police officer Marcy Noriega for her role
in the shooting death of Everardo Torres last October.
Eric Wyatt, assistant district
attorney, said an investigation determined Noriega did not intend
to kill Torres.
"Though this was a terribly
tragic event, after reviewing all of the evidence, it is clear
officer Noriega's shooting of Everardo Torres was an accident,"
Wyatt said. "In such a situation, California penal law is
equally as clear. Mere general negligence is insufficient to
sustain a criminal charge."
Wyatt said criminal negligence
is necessary to sustain a criminal charge and must go beyond
"inattention, a mistake in judgment or a misadventure."
It must be "an aggravated, reckless or grossly negligent
act."
Wyatt said results from a six-month
investigation did not support criminal negligence. "Given
the disastrous consequences of the events that occurred on Oct.
27, 2002, this decision was not reached quickly or without a
tremendous amount of reflection."
Torres, 24, was shot as he
sat handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser after his arrest
on charges of resisting and delaying police as they tried to
quell a loud party at Madera Villa Apartments on North Schnoor
Avenue. Noriega told investigators she intended to shoot Torres
with her nonlethal Taser because he was kicking at the car's
window, but that she accidentally used her service weapon.
Torres died from a gunshot
wound to the heart and liver that also pierced his right kidney,
an autopsy revealed.
A Taser shoots an electric
charge that overrides the central nervous system and contracts
muscles, momentarily incapacitating a person without causing
permanent injury.
On the night of the shooting,
Wyatt said, a man sitting next to Torres in the squad car told
investigators it was "accidental."
Wyatt said the DA's office
is aware the decision may create resentment and anger within
the community. "While we understand these feelings, we cannot
allow them to drive our decision," Wyatt said. "Obviously,
if there was any issue of intent, this whole issue would have
stopped with a murder case."
It still is not clear whether
Noriega, who has been on paid administrative leave since the
incident, will return to work. Madera police will conduct an
internal investigation now that the DA's office has ruled.
"How long that will take
or what the results will be, I don't know," Wyatt said.
The Torres family, which has
retained attorney Cameron Stewart of the Cochran Firm in Los
Angeles, said they had no comment about the ruling. The reporter
can be reached at lapadilla@fresnobee.com or 675-6805.
www.fresnoalliance.com
© 2000-2003 San Francisco
Bay Area Independent Media Center. Unless otherwise stated by
the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint,
and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those
of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by the SF
IMC.
Cochran
takes on Madera shooting: Family of man killed by officer rejected
city's settlement offer.
By Matt Leedy . The Fresno
Bee (Published Sunday, February 16, 2003, 6:02 AM)
MADERA -- The family of Everardo
Torres, who was shot and killed by a Madera police officer, has
switched attorneys, dropping San Francisco lawyer Arturo Gonzalez
in favor of Johnnie Cochran. Everardo Torres' brother, Melchor
Jr., said of Gonzalez, "His moral goal was not enough."
City officials offered a settlement
payment through Gonzalez, Melchor Torres Jr. said. However, "what
they offered us through that guy is not enough," he said.
"We want to settle this case right. We have lost more than
what they were offering us."
Melchor Torres Jr. would not
say how much the settlement offer was for, but Madera City Council
members in December rejected the family's $10 million wrongful-death
claim.
Torres' family filed a federal
lawsuit in November.
Cochran was hired last month,
family members said, but the Los Angeles lawyer who was the lead
attorney for O.J. Simpson has not visited Madera yet.
Torres, 24, was shot Oct. 27
while he sat with hands cuffed behind him in a police cruiser.
Police officer Marcy Noriega
has said she believed she was holding a nonlethal Taser when
she fired her service weapon.
The bullet pierced Torres'
heart, liver and right kidney.
The case is under investigation,
and it's unknown whether Noriega will face criminal charges.
Torres, also known as Jesus
Barrientos, was arrested after he and two others allegedly resisted
officers attempting to break up a party at Madera Villa Apartments.
Madera police said Torres was
unruly and difficult to restrain, struggling against the handcuffs
and necessitating the use of a Taser during his arrest, just
moments before he was placed in the back of a police car.
A Taser shoots an electric
charge that overrides the central nervous system and contracts
muscles, momentarily incapacitating a person without causing
permanent injury.
Autopsy reports show Torres
had several abrasions and cuts on his wrists and his right forearm.
Gonzalez has said Torres was
trying unsuccessfully for nearly an hour to get the attention
of Madera police because his handcuffs were too tight.
The reporter can be reached
at mleedy@fresnobee.com or 441-6208. For more info visit www.Fresnobee.com
Claim targets
Madera police : Family alleges excessive force in man's fatal
shooting.
By Lisa Aleman-Padilla ,
The Fresno Bee (Published Wednesday, November 6, 2002, 5:09 AM)
MADERA -- Family members of
a handcuffed man shot and killed by a police officer filed a
$10 million claim against the city Monday and will seek at least
that amount in a federal lawsuit later this week, their attorney
said.
The Madera Police Department,
officer Marcy Noriega and other officers present when 24-year-old
Everardo Torres was killed are named as defendants in the letter
sent to City Administrator David Tooley by attorney Arturo Gonzalez.
Noriega shot Torres, a professional
boxer, in the chest Oct. 27 after he was arrested and allegedly
began kicking at the rear windows of a police cruiser.
Noriega, who was trying to
break up a party at a Madera apartment complex, told investigators
she intended to fire her Taser and subdue Torres but mistakenly
grabbed her handgun.
"We feel that what happened
in this case is incredibly egregious," Gonzalez said Monday.
"We are confident that any reasonable juror who looks at
this case will agree."
The city of Madera has 45 days
to accept or reject the claim. If the claim is rejected, Torres'
family can sue in state court.
But Gonzalez said he plans
to file a federal lawsuit this week.
"I don't want to wait
45 days; I want to get our investigation started," he said.
Bruce Praet, the attorney handling
the case for the city, said he hopes to work directly with Gonzalez
to reach "an equitable resolution of this claim for everyone
involved."
He said Acting Police Chief
Steve Frazier has invited the FBI to review the incident.
Monday's claim letter, filed
on behalf of Torres' parents, Maria and Melchor Torres of Madera,
says Torres' arrest, and entry by police into the apartment where
the party was occurring was illegal. It says the officers used
"excessive and unreasonable force in negligently/intentionally/maliciously
dealing with Torres" and violated his civil rights.
Gonzalez said the use of a
Taser on Torres inside the apartment, officers' refusal to loosen
Torres' handcuffs and the fatal shooting outside the Madera Villa
Apartments qualify as "unreasonable force."
A Taser shoots an electric
charge that overrides the central nervous system and contracts
muscles, momentarily incapacitating a person without causing
permanent injury.
Gonzalez also said the city
was "aware of its officers' inadequate training and supervision
as well as their tendency to use excessive force but failed to
take steps to correct these problems."
The city "may have also
been negligent or reckless in the hiring of said officers and
in their failure to discipline them or their peers for prior
acts of misconduct," the letter says.
Last week, Madera District
Attorney Ernie LiCalsi, whose office is independently investigating
the shooting, said he also was looking into an earlier and unrelated
possible incident of excessive force by a Madera police officer
on a handcuffed suspect. He said results of that investigation
would be available soon.
Gonzalez, a partner with the
law firm Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, has represented
a number of Central Valley families in high-profile cases, winning
substantial sums for many of them. In 1993, he won a $1.45 million
verdict on behalf of four Dinuba women who were unlawfully strip-searched
after their arrests at a school board meeting. In 1999, he won
a $12.5 million verdict for the family of a farmworker who was
shot and killed by Dinuba police officers during a SWAT raid.
He settled a case this year
for $3 million for the family of an 11-year-old Modesto boy shot
and killed in his home by a Modesto Police Department SWAT team
member.
Fresno Bee reporter Charles
McCarthy contributed to this report. The reporter can be reached
at lapadilla@fresnobee.com or 675-6805.
Family of police víctim
plan lawsuit
By Daniel Rodríguez
. Vida en el Valle (Published Wednesday, November, 6,
2002 11:08AM)
MADERA -- Police officer Marcy
Noriega, who stands accused in the shooting death of Everardo
Torres, is described as various residents in the community as
a person who carried out her duties with a less-than-positive
attitude and whose career record might reflect other negative
incidents. Torres received a fatal gunshot to the chest, which
went through his heart and liver when Noriega confused her M26
Taser with her Glock 23 handgun.
"I have heard that she
has had problems before but I have no proof, said attorney Arturo
González. "That is why we are going to file a suit
against her. I do not want to wait until the conclusion of the
internal investigation by the Madera Police Department (which
is said to conclude in 3 months). Once this suit is filed, we
can begin our own investigation and, in fact, interrogate the
accused ourselves."
Torres, 24, was fatally wounded
the night of October 27th when police were called out to the
Madera Villa apartments, located at 2100 N. Schnoor, where, apparently,
a loud party was going on and neighbors had complained. Upon
arriving, the police found Torres sitting on the floor. "They
asked him his name and when he refused to tell them, they handcuffed
and arrested him," said Jesús Rueda, who attended
the party.
Torres struggled and police
"started to shock him with their guns. We told them not
to do that and one of the girls (who was identified as Erica),
intervened but was arrested herself." Rueda said that with
all the shocks Everardo received he was unable "to talk
or scream. He desperately opened his mouth due to the agonizing
pain he felt. If he moved at all, it was due to that." He
pointed out that many of the officers standing around "laughed
at his facial expressions...."
Torres remained in a patrol
car for 30 to 40 minutes while officers gathered the necessary
information for their report. Apparently Torres was attempting
to get out of the patrol car, while handcuffed, by hitting the
windows when Noriega, in an attempt to calm him with her taser,
fired a shot.
"It could have been intentional
or a mistake", says González, "and that is why
we want to file suit as soon as possible so we can get started
on our investigation."
"He was killed 'execution
style'," said Carlos Torres, cousin to the deceased.
According to the interim police
chief in Madera, Steve Frazier, taser guns are similar to a Glock
23, which is the official gun used by the department, even though
the taser gun is longer due to its integrated battery pack and
10 ounces lighter than a conventional gun. The Madera Police
Department has turned over the case to the county's district
attorney's office.
"The district attorney
is quite close to the police department and we want all the evidence
as soon as possible," said González, who pointed
out that 3 private investigators are already gathering the necessary
information. González isn't disclosing the details of
the suit at the moment. "What we want is justice."
With over a dozen similar cases
to his credit, which have netted over 20 million dollars, González
says that what is most important is to "avoid this from
happening somewhere else because, frankly, I feel sad that these
things happen so frequently in the Latino community. I have seen
similar cases in Fresno, Merced, Stockton, Modesto, everywhere."
Through their lawyer, the Torres
Family has asked Bill Lockyer, the state's District Attorney,
to conduct an independent investigation of the incident. "This
will be turned over to the Crimes and Civil Rights division,"
Hallye Jorday, spokesperson for Mr. Lockyer, informed.
Everardo Torres, who was an
amateur boxer for several years and dreamt of making it as a
professional, was buried in Madera Cemetery last Thursday. Send
e-mail to: danielr@vidaenelvalle
NEW TASERS FOR POLICE
By Asia Zmuda -MSNBC (Reported
November 27, 2002)
ROCHESTER, MN, Nov. 27 - A
new version of the taser is now in the hands of Rochester police
officers. Those new tasers have been picked up by the department
to prevent any mix-ups between them and actual handguns. As you
might recall several months ago a police officer shot a Rochester
man. Investigators ruled the shooting accidental as the officer
thought he was using a taser gun. NewsCenter's Asia Zmuda filed
this report.
Captain Jim Pittenger says
the new taser guns are yellow and have a slightly different grip
from the old ones and hopefully they will be easier to distinguish
in an emergency situation.
A while back Chief Roger Peterson
explained the old tasers look, and feel much like the handguns.
He said that's how Christofar
Atak ended up getting shot in his back on Labor Day.
Officers were trying to subdue
him outside of Brandywine Apartments in northwest Rochester when
one officer pulled the gun thinking it was the taser.
Atak was in the hospital
for several weeks after the shooting. As far as policy
changes--Captain Pittenger says officers will carry the tasers
on the opposite side of the body from where the handgun is.
- Officer Who Killed Teen
Didn't Hear Call To Use Taser
- Turney Tells Investigator
He Didn't Hear Shouts
August 13, 2003, TheDenverChannel.com
DENVER -- The police officer who shot and killed
a mentally disabled teenager last month reportedly told investigators
he didn't hear anyone telling him to use a Taser stun gun to
disable the boy.
That contradicts the account
given to police by Paul Childs' mother and sister. The relatives
told police that other officers were yelling at Officer James
Turney to, "Tase him, tase him," before he fired four
shots at the 15-year-old.
Childs was shot in the front
doorway of his house on July 5 after his sister called 911 to
report that he was threatening his mother with a knife. Turney
was placed on leave with pay pending the outcome of a police
inquiry.
Transcripts of the police interviews
were expected to be given to Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter,
who will determine whether any laws were broken.
According to the documents
obtained by The Denver Post, Turney said he had his left
foot on the porch and his right foot on the ground, about 5 to
7 feet from Childs, who was in the doorway.
Turney said he told Childs
to drop the knife three to five times but the teen did not respond.
He estimated that he fired his weapon about three to four seconds
after ordering Childs to drop the knife.
"Uh, we told him to drop
the knife. An' at that point he started to advance with the knife
in his hand," Turney told Lt. James Haney of the Crimes
Against Persons Bureau, according to the transcript of the interview.
Turney said that Childs had
taken three to five short, choppy steps toward the door.
Turney said he didn't retreat
because he is not required to do so. He also said he was worried
that, since he had one foot on the porch, he might have fallen
on his back and been vulnerable to attack if he backed up.
Turney's lawyer, Doug Jewell,
who was present during the interview, declined comment.
Helen Childs told police that
her son wasn't acting like himself on the day of the shooting
and that he had torn his room apart the night before.
The week of the shooting he
had been treated at the adolescent psychiatric unit at Children's
Hospital after suffering a seizure on a bus when he failed to
take medication to prevent seizures and treat attention deficit
disorder.
Helen Childs told police that
he had never threatened anyone with a knife before. She said
her son just stood over her with an old, dull knife but wasn't
pointing it at her.
She said police arrived about
two minutes after her daughter's 911 call and ordered everyone
out of the house.
She recalled four officers
with their guns drawn on her porch, one with his foot in the
door and one yelling for a Taser gun to be used. She said she
saw the red laser lights for aiming the weapons.
The interviews also reveal
that Turney and Childs had met before, as 7NEWS Investigates
first reported.
A month and a half before the
shooting, Turney said he and his partner attempted to pat down
Childs while investigating an attempted bicycle theft.
Childs was handcuffed after
he tried to pull away. Turney and his partner drove Childs home
to his mother, who reportedly told police she had trouble raising
her son.
Turney said he recognized Childs
on the day of the shooting as the teen he had returned to his
mother.
It is still not known if Turney
knew that Childs was mentally disabled.
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
