More Taser insanity. The mounting incidents of violence being perpetrated by the inappropriate use of Tasers is unnerving. The stories from readers keep flooding into my inbox.
Here’s one from my state that will turn your stomach (h/t n8nyc and Virginia F.). Darryl Wayne Turner was a cashier and bagged groceries at a local Food Lion. He lifted a couple of Hot Pocket lunches and his mother told him to do the right thing — go back to the store and fess up. Then something went horribly wrong.
A 17-year-old died at Carolinas Medical Center Thursday after a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer shocked him with a Taser during a confrontation at a grocery store in northeast Charlotte.Turner had no criminal record and no health problems.…Around lunchtime, Turner had come home to eat and told his mom that he had stolen a couple of Hot Pockets from the store. A supervisor planned to get a district manager involved and he feared disciplinary action, she said.
She said she told him to go back to the store and face up to what happened.
It wasn’t long after lunch she got a call from one of her son’s co-workers, who told her about the incident, she said.
After Turner was hit, police called the Charlotte Fire Department and paramedics, department policy anytime an officer uses a Taser gun, the release said.
Homicide detectives are investigating Turner’s death and will present their findings to the district attorney, the news release said.
Not to be topped, read what happened in the case of a Matteson, IL man, who was on the wrong end of a Taser — he has been acquitted of assaulting an officer.
Read that, and see a video about the use of Tasers in Eugene, Oregon, after the jump.
(Southtown Star):
A Matteson man cleared by a jury Wednesday of assaulting a police officer plans to sue Posen police for what he alleges was a case of racially-motivated police brutality, his attorney said.Take a look at this short doc, Tazing Eugene, about the adoption of Tasers by police officers in Eugene, Oregon. Nezua of The Unapologetic Mexican has the reaction on the street.Julius Little, 44, was pepper-sprayed, bitten repeatedly by a police dog and shot with a Taser by police outside his mother’s home near the intersection of 145th Street and Richmond Ave. on June 22, 2006.
A Markham courthouse jury took little more than an hour to clear him of aggressively approaching Cpl. Bill Alexander, clenching his fists and threatening to punch him.
“The police were just trying to cover up for what they did to him,” juror Maud Powell told the SouthtownStar after the verdict was announced, “It was obvious from what the officers said in court that they were lying.”
During the two-day trial, Little testified that he was taking out the trash at his mother’s home when he saw police questioning his son.
When he asked the officers what was going on, he was told, “get your black ass out of here,” and then attacked by three white cops and a K-9 officer, he alleged.
…Several eyewitnesses corroborated Little’s account, contradicting the officers’ claims that Little was the aggressor, and the officers’ claims not to have used racially-charged language.
***
As I was writing this, n8nyc sent over another item about a fatality, this time in the Sunshine State:
A Deerfield Beach man, whom Broward sheriff’s deputies said was naked and belligerent, was Tasered when he resisted arrest, and died in BSO custody early Friday. When they arrived, they found Garland strolling naked past the Ocean Boulevard Condominium at 191 SE 20 Ave.Now perhaps there may have been a good reason to tase this man, if he was that out of control (and given paramedics confirmed Garland’s behavior). With some of the prior incidents, witnesses have come forward and contradicted police reports about the violent behavior of the individual.…Deputies tried to detain him, but he became angry, and refused to comply. Deputies hit him with a stun gun, and were able to take Garland, who became violent, into custody.
The problem is that the Taser when employed is effective in subduing people, but the number of incidents where 1) the situation isn’t violent, the person has no weapon, and tasing is used as the measure of first resort; and 2) someone dies are mounting in published reports from around the globe, and there are no mandatory training standards in place in response to the disturbing incidents.
43 Responses to “17-year-old killed by Taser over shoplifted Hot Pockets”
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Jeebus.
I really hope this kid-steals-Hot-Pocket-and-dies story will be the tipping point that causes enough outrage and media coverage that will gradually turn public opinion against the practice, which will then lead lawmakers to consider banning the practice, fuel a backlash from the right wing and the tazer-makers that will nontheless only slow and not defeat said legislation, and that at some point IN MY LIFETIME stupid shit like this will stop happening.
(Sorry, I have my cynical hat on today.)
According to WCNC the family of the 17 year old may sue. I hope they do, and I hope this story gets a lot of attention, but I’m feeling as cynical as outlier about that.
Why were the police even there over stolen Hot Pocket??
“Why were the police even there over stolen Hot Pocket??”
…’cause if you don’t attack the small crimes, then All of Society Will Collapse! Besides, there’s no crime too small to merit capital punishment (in the eyes of some).
It’s kind of reminiscent of this…
It’s not going to matter to the general public till it’s a twelve-year-old white virgin somehow. It’s the cops doing it and they’re doing it with impunity.
Oh, man, that just makes me sad. Kid trying to do the right thing by fessing up and getting tased for it. I really hope the family sues.
MikeEss, as long as the “criminal” is black, or poor, or otherwise disadvantaged, of course. I’ve worked in retail and in grocery stores in mostly white communities and the most that would happen was an escort out of the store by security.
And now it’s your fault I’m digging out my Les Mis CD’s.
May sue? Only “may” sue? Somebody’s ass needs to be nailed to the wall for this!
i am sick to my stomach. need to find aay to stop this fucking cancer. that poor poor boy.
ban them!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/ban-tasers-now-as-torture-devices
it’s a start.
that petition was closed but there are other ones to ban tasers on that site. like this :
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/johns-hopkins-hospital-stop-supporting-taser-use
Why were the police even there over stolen Hot Pocket??
Because in a small and pretty much law-abiding town, if the cops don’t investigate petty crime, chances are they simply won’t have anything to do.
Which is part of the problem; you’ve got bored-to-death cops whose most dangerous professional tasks are generally domestic beefs (which can be dangerous) and dealing with the same dozen-or-so small-time miscreants week in and week out–but they’re armed and organized like the whole population is going to start rioting any minute now.
That is it. I am going in next week and pitching to my advisors that I should do my Ph.D on Tasers and their actual dangers. Most of the research out there is from Taser International, and of course it all claims Tasers are safe. IEEE Spectrum magazine actually did a cover story on this and I found it very unsatisfying. Even the non-Taser International researcher, despite making the point that very little is known about the effects of Tasers on people who are sick, stressed, or even on certain kinds of drugs (and I don’t just mean illegal drugs), concludes “Oh, I guess it’s okay to keep using them anyway.”
My current research is about assessing people’s vulnerability to drug-related arrhythmias, and that means drugs like antibiotics and antidepressants, not crack. Incredible amounts of research and testing have to be done on each drug just to see whether it might cause a few people to go into arrhythmia. And yet Tasers are freely available and police are allowed to shock anyone, despite the fact that a certain percentage of the population has otherwise silent genetic conditions that might make them more vulnerable, or may be taking a medication that makes their heart more vulnerable to arrhythmia even if it doesn’t cause it without the shock. It makes me mad.
OT:
Wal-Mart Employees Accidentally Discharge Pepper Spray; 16 Ill
Sunday, March 23, 2008
VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. — Attention Wal-Mart customers: Don’t inhale the pepper spray.
Police say more than a dozen customers at the Valley Stream store on Long Island fell ill after two employees accidentally discharged pepper spray into the air.
Police say the gas was in an unmarked canister and that the employees were trying to determine what was in it. Fans in the store helped to circulate the irritant. Sixteen people were sickened, eight seriously enough to require a trip to the hospital. They were treated and released.
Police say the store was evacuated about 8:45 p.m. Saturday. It was deemed safe about an hour-and-a-half later.
A telephone message left seeking comment from Wal-Mart was not immediately returned early Sunday.
MikeEss, as long as the “criminal” is black, or poor, or otherwise disadvantaged, of course. I’ve worked in retail and in grocery stores in mostly white communities and the most that would happen was an escort out of the store by security.
were these chains or independent stores?
walmart, in particular, does the public perp-walk in handcuffs for anyone caught stealing - shoppers or employees. i’m almost certain other chains have the same policy as there’s always insane pressure to keep shrinkage down (walmart loses over a million dollars a year to theft). if i remember right, walmart also prosecutes all theft over $5? $10? some absurdly small, court-clogging number anyway, except for minors and people over 70.
it’s totally about intimidation and shame.
I’m stuck on the Deerfield Beach guy. Why do you need to Taser a naked, unarmed man for? Yes, it’s going to suck to have to talk to him until he calms down and you can take him into custody, but there’s only so much harm he can do unless you think he’s hiding a knife up his ass.
That’s a huge problem with our policing — most medium to small departments have no clue how to handle mentally ill people and use techniques that not only don’t work, but agitate the person even more and escalate the situation unnecessarily. Big cities do somewhat better, after some high-profile cases, but not much.
Because in a small and pretty much law-abiding town, if the cops don’t investigate petty crime, chances are they simply won’t have anything to do.
i realize you’re from NYC, but charlotte, NC is actually a reasonably-sized city.
And yet Costco, which gives people good wages and benefits, has almost no shrinkage — the stories I’ve seen give it as 0.2 percent, while places like Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart have shrinkage rates of 1.5 percent on average.
Huh. Treat your employees like human beings and pay them decent wages and they’re less likely to steal from you. Who’da thunk it?
isn’t costco a warehouse? they’re harder to get things out of.
also, apparently walmart’s changed their shoplifting policy since i worked there: they now won’t prosecute for anything under $25. previously, they would prosecute for everything over $3.
walmart also prosecutes all theft over $5? $10? some absurdly small, court-clogging number anyway, except for minors and people over 70.
I worked at Wal-Mart for about six months, and we were told time and again that we were not to stop a shoplifter unless the item being stolen was worth $20 or more. There were times we stood back and watched people stuff their purses with four or five Hallmark cards and walk out. One guy tried to steal a satellite radio, and the manager on duty just didn’t want to deal with the paperwork and the cops, so he let the guy go.
The facts should speak loudly enough - when we twist them to make our point, we destroy our credibility. And if the facts don’t speak loudly enough, there’s no case.
If you read the linked news story, he didn’t go back to the store to “fess up,” as you say in the second paragraph. He had been caught, came home and told about all the trouble he was already in, and was sent back to the store by his mother.
And missing from your selective quoting is what happened at the store. I suppose we’re supposed to think that he walked back in, confessed his crime, and was tased to death for doing so.
The account is somewhat different:
“Officers responded to a disturbance call at the grocery store about 1:15 p.m. When they arrived, they saw Turner throwing something at a store manager, according to a CMPD news release issued Thursday night. The release does not say what the object was, and a police spokeswoman could not be reached.
According to the release, Turner appeared to be agitated, refused all commands and advanced toward the police officer. The officer then used his Taser to get Turner under control, the release said.”
Now, that’s just a report. Maybe there are witnesses that saw something different - although there’s nothing in the story to suggest that.
A guy was caught stealing. When he returned to talk about it, it escalated to the point where someone called the police. When they showed up, the kid was throwing things at the manager. He ignored the police and headed for them.
And that becomes “17-year-old killed by Taser over shoplifted Hot Pockets”? That’s one of those calls where I say a Taser is just fine - if you don’t listen to the cops when they tell you to do something, they’re going to take you down. If you don’t want to be Tased, listen to them.
Obviously they cross the line on occasion. But hyping up this seemingly justified case only makes people suspicious of other cases you cite.
isn’t costco a warehouse? they’re harder to get things out of.
Sam’s Club, which is also a warehouse, has a higher shrinkage rate than Costco, though Wal-Mart tries to disguise it by folding it into the Wal-Mart shrinkage rates in their financial reports. So even comparing warehouse store to warehouse store, Costco does better.
But, then, those of us in Southern California can’t help loving Costco after the Glendale train wreck a few years ago. When the crash happened practically at their back door, Costco employees ran out of the store and started helping even before the police and fire departments got there.
Obviously they cross the line on occasion. But hyping up this seemingly justified case only makes people suspicious of other cases you cite.
Killing someone over a $3 box of Hot Pockets is justified? There was no possible other way that several grown men could restrain a 17-year-old boy, so the only choice was the Taser?
Here’s the thing: police departments have been sold a bill of goods by Taser Inc. that their product is completely safe, so the police use it pretty indiscriminately. When people die, both police and Taser say it must be some kind of strange fluke, because the product is perfectly safe!
But when you have a story pretty much every week about someone dying after being Tased, don’t you think it’s time for police departments to look at it and decide if it really is perfectly safe, or if they need to put more restrictions on its use so they don’t end up killing people over a $3 box of Hot Pockets?
Imagine how that poor cop who used the Taser feels. He used this weapon that he’s been told is safe, and he just killed a 17-year-old kid who had his whole life ahead of him. And he died because he stole a box of Hot Pockets. That poor guy (or gal) is going to need some pretty serious therapy, assuming s/he doesn’t have to leave the force entirely.
If you read the summary from the Taser people in that IEEE Spectrum report, they don’t even really claim that tasers are safe — they just claim that tasers can’t be relied on to kill people. If they were any other kind of product with that record of deaths and that flimsy an argument for safety, they’d have been off the market long ago.
Stephen, I worked at Meijer’s (a midwest Wal-Mart like store), but admittedly this was 10 years ago. My other retail experience is in chain department stores.
I doubt you would agree that this scenario would have justified, say, the cops shooting the kid in the kneecap even if the cops announced their intentions and the kid refused to comply. But we might both agree that the cops would be justified in using pepper spray or grappling (the latter is more dangerous than the former).
Not listening to the cops, then, doesn’t justify any use of force, but it does justify some. The argument here is that throwing things does not justify potentially lethal means of submission. The blame is spread to the cops and to Taser for treating the gun as less deadly than it is–and with the media covereage, there’s no reason to believe that Tasers aren’t potentially lethal.
So of course the cops were justified in subduing the kid. But they weren’t justified in escalating the use of force so precipitously and needlessly, nor is Taser exonerated from supplying them with such dangerous tools.
As I think I said in the previous Taser post, the taser is intended to be used in situations where deadly force would be authorized. In other words, it should be treated the same as a handgun, even if using it normally wouldn’t have the same results.
So, while I agree with Jeff L. that Pam shouldn’t be selectively quoting articles and mischaracterizing what actually happened (he wasn’t killed over a box of hot pockets, he was killed because he was throwing things at people and acting aggressively towards to the police), I also agree with Thom in that a Taser shouldn’t be used in a situation like this. I don’t think we should be taking Tasers out of the hands of cops, since they do have the potential to keep some criminals alive who would otherwise be getting shot. I do think that all cops need better briefings on the appropriate use and escalation of force and that they need to get punished if they’re using inappropriate levels of force in order to get a situation under control, even if that force doesn’t end tragically like this one did.
Seriously? Imagine how the “poor cop” feels? Seriously?
Sympathy for the cop isn’t necessarily misplaced. Recognizing that doesn’t take away from the horrible tragedy of Darryl Wayne Turner and what his family must be going through.
If it was poor training and reassurances that the Taser is not leathal and not gross abuse by an angry police officer (the latter of which is all too possible), then this is one MORE reason that Tasers either need to go, or the training needs to be massively improved. We shouldn’t need any more reasons, but unfortunately some people do.
Of course, if this was just a retaliatory, bullying cop then I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Yeah, grappling is more lethal to the cop and the person they’re trying to stop. And a taser is more effective than pepper spray. And a taser is less effective than a gun. And when it’s time to use any of those, the cops have about two seconds to pick.
Bottom line, if the police are walking into a strange situation and they tell you to stop, stop. If you’re not listening to the police, you’re assuming the risk of your behavior.
steven crane @ 16– You’re no doubt right, but the model of over-armed cops with too much time on their hands and something to prove still holds.
17 year olds doffer greatly in size and strength. I work with a 17 yo who might weigh 86 lbs. She NEEDS a Taser. I also know a 17 yo who is 6′3″ and 220, all muscle. Yeah, I’ll more likely be generous with the 86 lb person but at 220, you gonna be Tased if you even begin to move.
Sorry, the word is differ.
Ah, and here comes the fathercock crowd. Best step up to prove us dirty fucking hippies wrong, lest Mighty Father think you’re not doing your duties to keep people in line!
A high school boy was tased at a basketball game in my area, about 2 weeks ago, I think. Because he was fighting.
One teeny point here.
By police. With taser.
I’ve noted that there is an appropriate time and place for the use of a Taser. But as we’ve seen in so many of these situations, it’s a first resort rather than a last resort prior to pulling out the gun. And given TASER Intl. felt the need to produce this video (now pulled from its site), it didn’t see a potential PR problem featuring a big black man as a representative of one of “the most dangerous subjects” a police officer might face.
I am personally aware of a Walmart case in which someone was prosecuted for $2.56 worth of photos; the person in question couldn’t pay for the photos at the photodesk, had her hands full of other things, dropped the photos several times and finally stuck ‘em in a back pocket and then forgot at checkout. It was not me, but I know the person well. Walmart then proceeded to send this person letters to the effect that they’d drop all charges if the person paid them $350.00. Needless to say, neither I, the person involved, or anyone else in our circle, shops at Walmart.
libdevil:
Yes, seriously. Most cops, even the ones on the highest power-trip, are not there to murder people in cold blood. And if they’ve put a “non-lethal” weapon in your hand that you end up killing someone with, there are very, very few people who would be able to live with having done that.
Jeff L.:
Which is why a couple of hundred mentally ill people end up dead every year — because cops assume that if someone isn’t following instructions, they’re doing it deliberately.
Whatever happened to de-escalating a situation? What happened to talking to the guy until he calms down? Are the police in Charlotte so goddamned busy that they don’t have time to talk to an upset 17-year-old?
That’s the problem with “non-lethal” weapons — they make for lazy cops. Unless they thought the kid was going to kill someone with a frozen pizza, what was the point of going straight to a weapon?
A little off topic, but a true story…
I had just finished a long hike in the woods with my dog, had put him in the back seat of the car and gotten in the driver’s seat when I was surrounded by three cop cars. In a matter of seconds they were out of their cars and pointing guns at my head. At my HEAD. As Woody Allen would say, my head contains my brain, which is one of my favorite organs.
They screamed at me to drop my weapon and put my hands up. I was holding a cell phone (which didn’t register with me immediately — I remember thinking ‘what weapon?’). I finally put two and two together and dropped the cell phone, at which point they told me to tell the person in the back seat to put his hands in the air or they would shoot. I was screaming back, “He’s a dog — he doesn’t have hands!” Somehow, it made sense at the time to yell that.
Long story short, when they finally got me out of the car (very difficult — they wanted me to open the door and get out slowly while still keeping my hands in the air. I honestly think my spleen took over at that point and said, “I’ll get the door handle.”) the story was sorted out. And what was the story?
A green Toyota Corolla had been stolen in the vicinity five minutes earlier. Problem is, I drove a green Toyota CAMRY. They didn’t even have the right model of car. Mine was just the first green Toyota in the area that they saw, and they drew their guns.
And I am a fairly small white woman. Can you imagine if I was a black man?
Me, I also know someone who got one of those “send us hundreds of dollars and we’ll let you go” letters from Walmart! This was an eighteen year old college student who had indeed stolen the item in question — I believe it was a five dollar tube of lipstick. She was young and easily bullied into paying the “fine” as it had been determined by Walmart. How is this legal??
My dad accidentally stole some shaving cream from Dominick’s (Chicago Safeway). He was holding it in his hand as he was paying from a couple hundred dollars of groceries. My younger brother, who has Down Syndrome, started to leave and my dad ran after him. He paid for the groceries, and as he started to leave, the security guard stopped him for shoplifting–he still had the shaving cream in his hand.
They were so incredibly rude to him. Took him into the office, called the cops, etc. This is the store where my folks spend a couple hundred dollars a week!
He paid for the shaving cream and left.
Then my folks got a letter from an asshole lawyer at Dominicks offering to settle out of court for $300.
I wrote a letter back informing Asshole that no court in the land would convict my senior citizen father for chasing his retarded son and then paying for the item in question anyway. I told him he should apologize.
Assholes. My folks were afraid they were going to have to pay it. It’s just intimidation, b/c most people are going to think that lawyers have a point when they send you a threatening dunning letter.
Why were the police even there over stolen Hot Pocket??
Because Daryl Turner was black.
Simple as that.
This will just keep going on and on and on until tasers are treated like the lethal weapons they are, and until enforcement of punitive measures for their misuse becomes the norm, rather than the exception. The lack of nationwide reporting on taser abuse is only trumped in severity by 1) the lack of nationwide reporting on the number of police officers with records of abuse and restraining orders against them who are still allowed to carry weapons; and 2) the failure of investigatory panels and executive officials to punish cops for irresponsible or dangerous behavior engaged in with or without a weapon. The assumption that most cops are probably okay people who don’t mean to harm others should be accompanied by the assumption that the cops who are bad apples aren’t being removed from the force. That’s just reality. And that’s what sucks. People don’t know who they’re getting: good cop, or tase-ya-for-non-compliance cop. You’d think public trust in the judgment of police officers would be a significant concern, such that they would transparently and harshly deal with any cops who cross the line, but they don’t. They prefer the public fear police overreaction with weapons, and use totalitarian tactics like corralling protesters at licensed events or tasing unarmed men in their own homes because of their own reactionary fears. The violence begets violence. Tasers should be off the market permanently until every sheriff’s office in every county has an independent investigatory panel that is wholly separate from the law enforcement community, weapons manufacturers, elected officials and officers’ union reps.