Sheriff's officials have begun an investigation into the death of a 43-year-old Oceanside man Wednesday night at Tri-City Medical Center, three days after he was twice stunned with a Taser during a struggle with deputies at a gas station in Vista.
Struggle with deputies? Or do you mean after being beaten to death by deputies?
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Since 2001, seven people in the county have died after Tasers were used by law enforcement.
Maybe you should stop tasering people then? Just a thought.
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Also, this latest incident occurred in Vista, where three Latino men were killed by deputies between July 28 and Aug. 1, 2005
Let me guess, all the killer cops got meritorious duty awards?
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“We are well aware of those issues,” Undersheriff Bill Gore said yesterday. “That's why we started a full investigation by our homicide unit immediately after the incident Sunday.”
Gotta love a cop with a sense of humor. The same police department that did the killing is investigating it. Pass the donuts.
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Members of the Mendoza family, in interviews with media outlets, have voiced concern that Mendoza showed bruising on his arms, legs and cheekbone, swollen arms, a gashed head and burns on his torso from the Taser. They questioned the extent of his injuries and the use of force.
Sounds like he got standard police treatment.
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“When our deputies tried to talk to him, Mendoza appeared to have some kind of mental instability, and was placed in the back of a patrol car,” homicide Lt. Dennis Brugos said.
Definitely a good policy to kill those who are mentally unstable.
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One deputy fired his Taser, but it had no apparent effect, and Mendoza was then stunned a second time. Once he was subdued, deputies saw that he was in medical distress and began performing CPR until paramedics arrived.
Had no effect? You mean he was still alive.
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The Sheriff's Department started issuing Tasers to patrol deputies last spring after a study of the devices, which are considered less than lethal
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I'll have to recheck my dictionary. I kind of have a feeling that something which causes death should be considered "lethal", not "less than lethal".
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In an incident with perhaps some parallels, San Diego police shot a man with a Taser on Feb. 10, 2005, and he died at a hospital two days later. The District Attorney's Office later ruled that the death was caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, brought on by intoxication.
Intoxication or being shocked with 50,000 volts while being intoxicated?
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Some studies have shown that Tasers are among the safest alternative to subdue violent people who could harm officers, innocent bystanders or themselves. However, some medical experts believe the shocks can add to the risk of heart failure, especially if a person has been using drugs.
You think? Huh. Risk of heart failure huh? How many people have to die before tasers are no longer considered safe?
Ever watch cops? Why do they hire people who are adrenaline junkies who love confrontation? What ever happened to the peacekeeper cop?
Police officers that patrol schools, including grade schools, in several US states (including Kansas, Minnesota, and Florida), currently carry tasers. In 2004, the parents of a 6-year old boy in Miami sued the police department for tasering their child. The police said the boy was threatening to injure his own leg with a shard of glass, and claimed that using the taser was the only option to stop the boy from injuring himself.
The kind of sickos that are hired by the US government to 'enforce' laws.
Funny that, the term 'law enFORCEment officer' is non existing in my language. Translated into Dutch this term is way too insulting towards civillians to be used. Police officers are in service of the people down here and have no right to 'enforce' anything upon the people who pay their wages.
The word 'enforce' implicates the use of levels of violence, no wonder that the US police 'force' is tempted to use violence, their job description starts out totally wrong in the first place because the wording encourages the use of violence against everyone.
A teenager carrying a Bible and shouting "I want Jesus" was shot twice with a police stun gun and later died at a St. Louis hospital, authorities said.
Sgt. Richard Groulx, an RCMP training and tactical weapons expert, testified that while there are risks in any situation where police have to use force, he knows of no cases where an energy weapon has been identified as the cause of death.
How ignorant are these people? I'm not a cop and I know of several cases of tasers being responsible for deaths.
here in austria, if there would be just the remote possibility that something like a taser might be responsible for somebody dead, it would be forbidden to use, until it is proven not dangerous at all.
in USA the same case, the police can still use the taser, until it is proven dangerous! (and we all know that e.g. Big Tobacco was able to "prove" for some 40 years that smonikg is not dangerous!)
I think the reason that tasers are considered less than lethal is because with the millions of times they are used, it is highly unlikely that the individual on which they are deployed will die as a result. Think about it, seven deaths is extremely low for the number of times that tasers have been used since 2001!
Here's a little comparison for you to help put it in perspective:
Each year, approximately five thousand people under the age of 21 die as a result of underaged drinking in the US. Ok, think about that; consuming alcohol is already illegal for those under 21 in America. And yet five thousand die every stinking year because of alcohol! That's almost fourteen people a day!
I think that, if anything should be changed, we need some better enforcement on teenaged drinking, forget about tasers! They have only killed 7 people in six years! That's nearly incomparable with the approximately thirty thousand people in the same amount of time!
Also, let's think about something for another moment, tasers, to me, would seem a blessing to those on whom they are deployed. I know that sounds sadistic, but stay with me. Say someone is running on foot from a cop. The cop tries to get him to stop several times but the person refuses to comply. This forces the officer to use their taser in order to subdue the suspect. Ther you go, job done, right?
Well, if there had been no taser, the officer could likely have had to use more long-term damaging techniques to subdue the suspect. For instance his/her sidearm, shich would be many times more likely to end fatally.
Anyhoo, It would be nice if people could take a look at the good law enforcement do for society on the whole. Sure, sometimes (very rarely) things go wrong and people suffer or even die. But think of how many more people would have died because of riots, fights, robberies, etc. if there was no police force to stop them!
Courses currently being offered include the TASER M26 & X26 Instructor Course, the Armorer Course, and the TASER Use of Force, Risk Management and Legal Strategies Seminar for Law Enforcement Executives, Risk Managers, and Legal Counsels.
__________________ It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice – there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.
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Certain police seem to think that as it's seen as a non-lethal weapon, they can use them in situations where its not needed when they should be treated as any other use of force and only used where absolutely necessary (not when they're already on the floor and subdued).
I'm sorry I go to UF and Meyer was being a bit crazy and while maybe Tasing wasn't in order, extra force definitely was.
That was quite obvious. Doesn't matter how White you are, if you don't do as the police command, and act all agitated like that, you gonna get tasered, bro.
That was quite obvious. Doesn't matter how White you are, if you don't do as the police command, and act all agitated like that, you gonna get tasered, bro.
He was already on the floor with five cops on top of him, a student, not some violent criminal, and what about IF he had gotten a heart attack or something and had died? It didn't happen, but what if it did, and what if he was your kid? Would you still think he deserved it under those circumstances?
