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17-year old youth dead after being stunned by Police Taser
July 22, 2008 - 8:26pm
Man dead after Police Taser him.
ETA: I've changed the thread title from "man dead" to "youth dead" after discovering the victim's age.
[ 25 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Gah. That was clumsily expressed. What I mean is let's see if the police give some alternate explanation as a cause of death, how long they take to come up with said explanation, and whether they shift into lockdown mode while getting their stories straight.
[ 22 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Taser-related death
"Man dead after being stunned" and I wondered when the Liberals were going to hold their convention and if I should express condolences to Dion's family. Then of course I saw that this was about tasers.
I suggest that recruits in Canadian police departments be tasered to teach them a similar respect.
Many never said their name or made it out
And many police departments have that 'testing' as part of their training, I know that Toronto and Peel does now
Quite the contrary, in my opinion.
"Hey, I took a taser in basic training. We all did. It's no big deal." Or "It's so safe, we even taser each other at cop school."
And, thanks to those same police, this is also required "testing" for Canadian activists [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
Pretty much the attitude of any toronto cop Ive talked to about it. (oddly enough i get to alk to a lot of cops )
Don't know where your information comes from.
The Winnipeg "man" was a 17-year-old Metis kid.
The WPS had a press conference today where these details were released. There is, however, nothing in the Globe report about HOW many times the youngster was zapped with the taser, which puts out 50,000 volts per usage.
Cops: knife - - - > taser - - - > death.
There's a huge parking area behind and to the west of the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, that goes all the way to the Health Canada Microbiology Lab. That's what's relevant about the location, I think, if the police claims of car robbery/theft are to be believed.
The problem isn't the tasers, the problem is the officers using them. It boils down to the officer's training, judgment, and mechanisms to hold them accountable. Without them, it doesn't matter what the police have, there will be abuses, taser or not.
The other important thing is that the police report that the suspect had a knife. If that is true and they had no tasers, they would have shot him. They're trained not to directly confront someone with a knife, and in that situation, disabling the person by any means necessary is a priority.
Thanks. I figured you'd know [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
Sorry. I hadn't read that. I'm not in the least surprised this wasn't mentioned (at least in the news reports I saw).
ETA: Looking back, I think my post could be misinterpreted. I wasn't suggesting he deserved it. Even if he was over 18. Or trying to break into some kind of government lab. (Beltov has disabused me of that one but I would have been sympathetic had it been true.)
[ 23 July 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]
The police are bleating about how they have to make a "split-second decision" on whether to use the taser. That's bullshit, designed to excuse poor judgment. All they did was tell him to drop the knife a couple of times and then they shot him.
If as you say they are trained not to directly confront the suspect, their training failed. Nothing could be more directly confrontational than shooting with a stun gun.
I predict the investigation will reveal that there was in fact no urgent necessity to disarm the youth immediately. Other less drastic tactics were available, but the cops are lazy. They'd rather shoot first.
Cops are trained to always take control of a situation and to resort quickly to violence to effect that control. If you don't believe me, just question a cop's order or demand, no matter how frivolous (such as sit over there), to see what I mean.
Cops lack the training, judgment, and good sense to sometime not immediately take control or to allow their authority to be harmlessly challenged in order to ensure everyone gets to go home when its all over.
Did you not catch my qualification?
Anyways, if you have an issue with that, you have to take it up with the people who train the police.
I meant direct hand-to-hand confrontation. Directly approaching someone with a knife is dangerous, and not something I'd want to do, training or not.
Bullshit. Cops do not lack the good sense to ensure that they themselves get to go home when its all over. They are trained not to get hurt - regardless of who else does.
If you doubt this, pull a knife and wave it around,refusing to drop it when ordered by cops.
So you say they are entirely selfish. That sorta diminishes their whole hero fetish thing, but okay. It doesn't at all contradict my point, however.
Doing so while un-white will probably cost you your life. I mean, between going home unhurt and wanting that coffee and doughnut, who has time for someone waving a knife or even a tired, lost Polish fella?
Most of the victims of police killings suffer from mental illness,not criminal sociopathy.
In Vancouver, a man waves a crowbar from a measurable distance at police and is shot dead. It is discovered that he is mentally ill but not on his medication. The cops walk.
In that same scenario,try telling the judge that you shot this man dead because he was in your yard and you felt threatened. You'll get life.
Well to be fair, he didnt kill the guy, just shot him in the ass.
But he shouldnt have been able to get a concealed carry permit, no way no how.
We don't need cops to spy on political activists, detain, injure or kill innocent persons for any reason, nor anything else wrong or "politically motivated" or racist, or sexist, that we know cops are capable of doing, especially at the behest of some civilian politician who represents the interests of the ruling class.
I am guessing that tasers have not killed as many persons as guns have, and that if tasers were not available to cops they would use their guns more, and kill more often.
I was tazed once in a bar parking lot. The cop who did it was aiming at a big fellow next to me who was drunk, out of control and violent; he moved just as the cop fired the probes and---ZAP!!---I was on the ground. When I looked up the big dude was punching another cop. Haha! It was a wild night, I'm telling you.
Anyway, that tasing hurt like hell. But, I always wondered what could have happened if that cop only had a gun: would I have been shot dead that night?
I am reluctant to take a blanket position against tasers. Worker control of the police force is not a question for me, however. I'm just not sure that taking way their tasers will help that cause, and I'm inclined to think that more persons could be shot with guns if tasers were not available to cops.
We heard about "more tools in the police toolkit"; we heard about "a non-lethal alternative"; and we've heard and seen a carnival barker's show, with tales of a fictitious medical condition called "excited delirium", about how no deaths following Taser use have anything to do with this lethal product.
Time to knock another leg off the stool. Pardon the pun. Nova Scotia has seen the light and established a moratorium on the use of Tasers. It's time for other jurisdictions to do the same.
[ 23 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]
Yeah, that was my point exactly. I will also point out that in this case we don't have the facts yet. It could very well turn out that this individual was carrying a knife and that the cops had no other alternatives. It could very well be that the WPS is lying through its teeth on this instance.
We can speculate about how to handle a person with a knife, but cops know very well that a knife-wielding suspect who has just been shot or zapped won't try to stab them. Sounds cruel, but that's the reality. I certainly don't plan on brandishing knives around police officers any time soon.