In Jerseyville, Illinois, a disturbed 17-year-old was standing in the street with a Bible, screaming "I want Jesus". When the police showed up, he wouldn't do what they told him, even after he had been handcuffed - so they tasered him, and he died.
The death disturbs me, but what disturbs me more is the policing style that caused it. The victim was clearly mentally disturbed. He was not violent, or a threat to anyone (not even, apparently, himself). When faced with someone screaming for Jesus, but doing no harm, should the response of the police really be to electrocute him into submission?
The problem here is convenience policing. It's easier for the police to taser someone in this situation than to do the real work of, say, getting hold of a counsellor and paramedics and ensuring that the person gets the help they need. And tasers (and other "less-than-lethal" weapons) encourage this. It is so much easier to subdue than talk. It is so much more convenient. After all, what's 50,000 volts between friends? It's not as if it does any lasting harm...
This is why I don't want tasers in common use in New Zealand. The police attitudes they encourage are just to dangerous to us, the people the police are supposed to be protecting. And if you disagree, consider this for a moment: if it was you screaming for Jesus, would you rather be helped? Or would you rather be zapped so the cops could end their shift on time?
14 comments:
I'm disgusted by this. It looks to me as though the taser was used as a quick way of dealing with him and was used without enough thought as to how it was going to effect him.
Posted by muerk : 11/02/2006 02:25:00 AM
The most common cause of accidental deaths in fights is people hitting their heads as they fall. Tasers will kill people because they will hit their heads when they fall.
When the police tested tasers on themselves, they put mats down to prevent this injury. Even so, sombody fell off the mat and got hurt.
Maybe the benefits outweight the costs, but the cops should be honest about the risks.
Posted by kiwi_donkey : 11/02/2006 07:24:00 AM
What a rush to judgement. The reports have it that the police tried to calm him but he became "combatative" - so it's not true that he wasn't violent. So our characterisation of the incident does not match what has been reported, which doen't help your argument. Maybe the police didn't try hard enough to calm the guy but maybe they did.
He appears to have a history of mental illness but that may not be the only thing going on - there may have been medication or drug induced delerium that contribued to his death. It's also possible that the type of physical restraint employed by the police was a contributing factor.
Until the results of an autopsy there really is no way of telling what exactly was goin going. So I'll with hold judgement till more facts are in.
Posted by Neil Morrison : 11/02/2006 09:52:00 AM
That's not all. There appears to have been a Taser death of an Australian teenager too. More details as soon as I can locate them.
Craig
Posted by Anonymous : 11/02/2006 10:13:00 AM
He "became combatative" wearing handcuffs? Was he going to bite their legs off?
Posted by Chris : 11/02/2006 01:21:00 PM
Neil:
Either way, you don't deal with people who have a mental illness by tasering them unless there is immediate danger to life and limb and no other help available.
The taser is a last resort, not the first one.
Posted by muerk : 11/02/2006 01:31:00 PM
None of the reports say he was handcuffed.
Maybe this was an inappropriate use of the taser but I prefer to wait for more evidence. But this guy was violent, despite what idiot says, and it's possible the use was justified.
as for the cause of death, lets wait for the autopsy before condemning the cops.
Posted by Neil Morrison : 11/02/2006 02:26:00 PM
"Combative", eh...that would be an adjective describing the behaviour of a "combatant", or perhaps an "enemy combatant", even..
And of course in the USA just about anyone can be an "enemy combatant" and being violent is no prerequisite for being labelled so...
he probably just looked at the cop funny. Taser him!
Lucky his chosen object of worship was Jesus rather than Muhammed or he would have been shot to little bits, no questions asked
(I'm quite serious... can you imagine someone standing in the street yelling for Muhammed with Koran in hand, and NOT being treated like a suicide bomber?)
Posted by monkey : 11/02/2006 02:43:00 PM
Neil: it's in the police spin here.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 11/02/2006 03:31:00 PM
As someone who works in the mental health sector, this is exactly why we're concerned about the introduction of this law enforcement technology.
I mean, do taser energy discharges interact with medication and produce toxic effects? Some antipsychotics can cause cardiovascular damage unless monitored closely and intake is regulated to optimal levels.
Craig
Posted by Anonymous : 11/03/2006 09:52:00 AM
i saw a documentary awhile back that explored the use of tasers in the US.
apparently it's pretty common for them to whip them out and zap people.
they had one guy zapped for standing too close to a crime scene. apparently the cops were jumpy and viewed him as a threat. let me reiterate he was an innocent bystander.
another was a elderly woman who gave them too much lip.
trigger. happy.
Posted by che tibby : 11/03/2006 10:15:00 AM
Many of the deaths related to the taser turn out to be realted to drug induced heart problems (P use) and other non-taser related circumsatances. People compromied like that are also not going to repsond to well to physical restraint.
There have been quite a few deaths related to physical restraint - some the result of bad technique leading to positional aphyxia. It's possible that's what actually happened in this case - six cops sitting on you makes it hard to breath.
As I say, let's wait for the autopsy.
Posted by Neil Morrison : 11/03/2006 10:16:00 AM
here's a summary of the autopsy reports of people who have died following being tasered - there's 167 of which "7 cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out in someone's death". (This is out of 70,000 uses of the taser)
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special43/articles/1224taserlist24-ON.html
Essentially there is a percentage of people the police are confronted with who are for various reasons likely to die in any confrontation.
With people who are mentally ill there's possibility they are physically compromised by medication toxicity (eg lithium), dehydration and general poor health plus having been in a highly exicted state for sometime. These people will be at risk in any confrontation. But most will live but a very small number will die.
There's a bit more behind this than someone yelling out Jesus and trigger happy cops wanting to end their shift.
Posted by Neil Morrison : 11/03/2006 11:46:00 AM
I sure would hate NZ to go the way of the US on this. You will get plenty of trigger happy cops who would much rather deal with a situation with the press of a button than with reason-- and it won't JUST be for people screaming off the top of their lungs or whatever.
It doesn't matter to me whether tasers are fatal in some cases or not-- once you allow this brutality in, it will only get worse.
Tasers are NOT a solution, just a quick fix.
~ Josh
Posted by Josh : 11/03/2006 12:33:00 PM
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