Loss of Privacy

A police officer’s dashboard video camera caught the officer on tape punching an 18-year old in the face thirteen times and then tasering him.

The deputy, Brian Tollison, has been fired and had been charged in the incident.

In the video, a back-up deputy appears to hold onto the teen while Tollison hits him. When other deputies arrive, the teen is taken out of the truck.

The video show other deputies Taser and kick 18-year-old Jeremy Rucker several times.

Even though the other officers don’t appear threatened by Rucker, they just felt it necessary to taser him after being beaten and then kick him three times in the gut for good measure.

Tollison was charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. He was released from jail on bond.

Rucker was charged with drug possession and resisting arrest. Deputies said when he was taken into custody, they found drugs on him. He was also released on bond.

Isn’t it nice how they didn’t find any drugs on him until after he was arrested.  I just can’t wait until all those post-traumatic stress soldiers come home from Iraq, don’t get treatment, and become police officers.

At what point, do you think, does punching a kid in the face become overkill and unnecessary?  After the first few punches?  Four or five?  Nine or ten?  And what’s wrong with the other officers that, not only did they not think what occurred was wrong, they added insult to injury by jumping in on the melee.

Mr. Rucker is not the most upstanding citizen on the planet, however, this sort of treatment of any suspect is never justified.  While we haven’t seen the entire video, the police have and it was enough to warrant firing the deputy involved.  Unfortunately, the others involved weren’t even disciplined for their participation in the incident.

Remember folks, if you do drugs, that gives the police justification to beat the living tar out of you.  Fortunately, for Mr. Rucker, this was caught on tape, forcing the police department to actually take some action.

A 16-year old boy was tasered by the police, up to 19 times, after he had fallen and was on the ground with a broken back and a broken heel.

His aunt says he is undergoing major surgery for a broken back and broken heel. While he was lying on the ground, she wonders why Ozark police used an electric stun gun on him up to 19 times.

“I’m not an officer, but i don’t see the reason for ‘Tasering’ somebody laying there with a broken back. I don’t consider that a threat,”

His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.

“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”

Tasering someone with a broken back is also not a good idea.  He already a spinal injury.  Now the police want to do more harm by making him thrash about while being tasered.

“He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he’s also making statements such as, ‘Shoot cops, kill cops,’ things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers,” said Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset.

According to this statement, he was only making incoherent statements.  Why is it necessary to taser him because he’s talking crap?  Or was he tasered because he had a broken back and refused to comply with an order to stand up?  We just don’t know.  We do know, that having a broken back means that he was no threat to the police.  So, tell me again why it was necessary to taser him 19 times?

Tasers are being used so often today, that they have become a replacement for billy clubs.  If an officer hit someone with a billy club 19 times, there would probably a bigger outrage.  Instead, the public assumes that its use is justified and more humane than a billy club.

Tasers were originally used as a tool to incapacitate violent suspects.  It was to be used only in a case where deadly force was justified.  Unfortunately, the police now use them every day for anyone who doesn’t comply with the police, for whatever reason.

Scott Conover was arrested after taking a photo of a police officer at a traffic stop.  This was on a public highway where there is no expectation of privacy.

the cop said in an affidavit that he thought the guy had pointed a laser at him, but the guy had an IPhone, which doesn’t even flash when it takes a picture, much less give off a red light. And if that’s really what he thought the guy did, why did he arrest him, as it says in the cop’s affidavit, for “unlawful photography”? And once he found out it was a cell phone camera, why did he still charge him with pointing a laser at a police officer? Sounds like a pack of obvious lies to me.

They also told him that he needed to delete the pictures or else he’d be arrested, which reminds me of another, similar story.  It seems the police don’t even like it if you might, in the future, take a picture.

Worse yet, they actually chased this guy down to arrest him. He had pulled away and the cops followed him to arrest him. You gotta read the cop’s affidavit. It’s hilarious. Isn’t it about time the police figured out that they can be photographed and videotaped in the performance of their duties? And isn’t it about time a few of them were fired for violating someone’s rights in this way?

One person noted that the charges were also considered sexual in nature:

The law they charged him under is 39-13-605, which requires that “the photograph . . . was taken for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification of the defendant”.

With the major stretch of the arrest statute, the terribly written police report, and the fact that Scott Conover did nothing wrong, I would suspect the charges would get dropped relatively soon.

The police in Dayton, Ohio used a taser on a blind woman during their search for a suspect in the area. The situation, however quickly got out of hand, resulting in the police feeling it necessary to taser a blind woman. The stories, too, are also confusing and appear conflicting.

The officers actions will be investigated, but Sgt. Anderson said Harris should have told them she was scared.

“She does not have to open her door. It was a voluntary thing for her to open her door,” he said.

What the fuck do you do when someone knocks on the door? You go see who it is (no pun intended). If this woman didn’t open the door, the cops would have busted in on her and then would have said later, “she should have just opened up the door.”
I also suspect she didn’t take a swing at the officer. She was probably trying to feel for him as most blind people get a sense of who you are by feeling for you.
A lot of the statements don’t make sense either, like

“She was able to force herself down on to the floor and not be cooperative, grabbing on to the detective. A taser was dry stunned onto her arm to control her hand movement, then she was cuffed,” said Sgt. Charles Anderson.

and her sister’s comment

“She’s blind and they pulled her off her Futon, handcuffed her and tased her because he said she swung at him. She can’t see,”

She was either on the futon or on the floor not being cooperative. She can’t be both.
I also wonder if the “grabbing on to the detective” was simply not a blind lady trying to feel around for what the hell was happening to her and the cops automatically assume she’s assaulting them.

I seriously wonder how, after seeing this woman for more than 2 seconds, they couldn’t figure out she was blind and try being a little more helpful towards her, regardless of why they were there to begin with.

For nearly two years, the Metro police department in Nashville, Tennessee has had the ability to call for a needle with sedatives to use against uncooperative suspects.

One of the doctors who came up with the protocol said it’s the safest option out there and that it is used all over the country.

But many people said that the injection was news to them, and a top medical ethicist said it’s a troubling precedent.

The drug is called Midazolam, which is better known as Versed. People who have had a colonoscopy have probably had a shot of the drug for the procedure.

“The drug has an amnesia effect, and we use that therapeutically because one of the nice ways to take care of the discomfort is to make people forget that they’ve had it,” said biomedical ethics and law enforcement expert Dr. Steven Miles.

The biggest side effect that is seen in more than 80 percent of those who are injected with Versed is amnesia.

So, the police can inject you, you have no knowledge of what happens afterwards, and you’re now supposed to defend yourself in court for your actions. What happens when the police abuse this? They know you won’t remember if they punch you in the mouth or kick or hit you, so what’s to stop the overzealous boys in blue from violating the law?

Kalodimos reported that while doing research for this report, she found a post on a paramedics Internet chat site that said, “One good thing about Versed is that the patient won’t remember how he got that footprint on his chest.”

This is exactly what I’m talking about. Injecting people without their permission violates a person’s privacy. And, here on a semi-anonymous chat site, someone is bragging about violating people’s civil rights as well as breaking the law.

“I’ve talked to my colleagues around the country, and none of the people from the south to the north to the east to the west have ever heard about this kind of program, this kind of use where they basically force an injection upon an individual knowing nothing about his or her medical condition,” said ACLU Director Hedy Weinberg.

“There is no research guideline. There is no validated protocol for this. There’s not even a clear set of indications for when this is to be used except when people are agitated. By saying that it’s done by the emergency medical personnel, they basically are trying to have it both ways. That is, they’re trying to use a medical protocol that is not validated, not for a police function, arrest and detention,” Miles said.

Three women of child bearing age have apparently gotten shots without consent, even though the package insert for Versed suggests that, “the patient should be apprised of the potential hazard to the fetus.”

There are still many questions that need to be answered.

If you need 4-6 people to hold the person down and administer the injection, shouldn’t you also be able to handcuff or hogtie them and subdue them without an injection?

What happens when someone has an allergic reaction and goes into anaphylactic shock and/or dies?

How do you regulate and calculate the dose? If you take too much, you can stop breathing. You can also vomit, which could lead to death if you are unconscious and no one is watching you.

The young man in the article doesn’t even remember what happened to him, how he got there, how long he had been there, and what happened to him while he was there. Now, we’re supposed to trust the police and medical personnel in this situation to always be forthright? Chemical restraints should only be administered at a hospital where a person can be monitored all the time. Anything less is irresponsible.

Regardless of the fact that EMTs are injecting the people, the police are the ones who call the EMTs and the police are the ones that tell the EMTs that the suspects have to be injected. The EMT is not there at the start of the incident and, therefore, must rely on the word of the police to determine what happened and who gets injected. In this very real sense, the police are determining who gets injected. Do you still trust them to do the right thing?