Texas: Naked man dies after four taser shots

[Leftest]

Houston Chronicle:

Naked man fights Harris deputies; dies after Taser shocks

A naked man who was banging on doors and windows at a northside apartment complex died Wednesday after being shocked by Tasers at least three times during a confrontation with Harris County sheriff's deputies, authorities said.

About 4 a.m., deputies received calls from residents at the apartments in the 200 block of Dominion Park near Kuykendahl.

Investigators said the 46-year-old man was randomly knocking on doors and windows and yelling while walking around the complex. At one point, he kicked open a front door and briefly went inside an occupied apartment, officials said.

The resident "did not know who he was," said Lt. John Legg of the Sheriff's Office.

The first deputy arrived within minutes.

"He was immediately confronted by the suspect, who ran toward his patrol car, opened the front passenger door and climbed in," Legg said.

The deputy ordered the man out, but the man ignored his commands, yelling and flailing his arms, Legg said.

"He was incoherent," the lieutenant said. "The deputy said his eyes appeared glassed over."

The deputy's Taser had little, if any, effect, officials said. After the man got out of the patrol car and pulled out the stun gun's prongs, the deputy fired it again while struggling with the man, officials said.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6180696.html

[n2doc]

1. Non-lethal my A$$ n/t

[HeraldSquare212]

2. If all he's doing is acting crazy, why not let him act crazy?

Let him run around in circles for an hour or so till he wears out. Why this big need to control people? He wasn't a danger to others, didn't have a weapon. Same thing happened here in NYC, where a guy was up on top of an awning, naked and being crazy. They tasered him and he fell to the sidewalk and died. But he wasnt' doing anything, just being crazy.

[Cetacea]

7. Because the media like to equate "crazy' with "violent"

which is why you'll never see a successful or popular person referred to as a "former mental patient". The police can do this because we have so dehumanized the mentally ill.

[ColesCountyDem]

16. Kicking in someone's door IS violent. n/t

[HeraldSquare212]

20. It's property,not people. We've eliminated the death penalty for property crimes.

[ColesCountyDem]

22. It's an act of violence. n/t

[ColesCountyDem]

24. No one gave this man the death penalty.

No one yet knows why the man died. If, for example, a suspect is epileptic and has a gran mal seizure and dies during the arrest, does that mean that the officer killed him/her? Should people automatically be exempt from arrest due to health or mental-health problems? Our society will rapidly deteriorate, if that becomes a criteria for determining whether or not individuals should be subject to arrest.

[Eric J in MN]

3. It should be illegal to taser an unarmed man. NT

NT

[oldnslo]

4. Beware of Portland Oregon cops then......

A few years ago, they shot a man dead for being a little bit crazy-acting. He was naked, standing on top of a car, and had no weapon of any kind, but their way to fix the situation was to murder the guy with their 9mm pistols. Nice going, murderers.
A little while after that, they beat and kicked to death, in the street, a 90 pound mental patient, also unarmed. Again, nice going, murderers.

[deaniac21]

5. If he had only put on rubber soled shoes.

[IDemo]

9. Wouldn't have any effect

The current flow is between Taser darts through the victim, not to ground.

[theoldman]

6. But it was obvious he was hiding a knife or gun in his anus.

I have seen too many videos of several crazy cops surrounding one unarmed guy. It's almost as if that is what they were trained to do. BTW, police in Europe don't do this. They are trained how to disarm a person.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

8. OUCH

Can you imagine the pain if you got tasered with a sharp metal object up there?

[ColesCountyDem]

10. I used to be a deputy sheriff...

These situations aren't black-and-white, folks. When you have a less-than-coherent/rational person who's obviously acting in a violent/aggressive manner, your options for dealing with that individual are already limited by their actions. I know this won't be a popular stand here at DU, but it's a fact, nevertheless...

I'll be the first to admit that tasers are overused, but that is a result of poor training in their use and poor policing; it doesn't invalidate the usefulness of the weapon itself. For many, many years, officers have looked for a non-lethal alternative to firearms, and despite the highly-publicized but extremely rare instances of injury or death as a result of being tasered, the taser IS fundamentally a non-lethal weapon. Officer injuries are down as are injuries to suspects as a result of its increased availability.

I'll go don my flame-resistant suit now, so give me 2 minutes before you flame me, OK?

:P :hide:

[RetroLounge]

11. No flame from me

But he was NAKED. What was he going to do? Piss on them?

:shrug:

RL

[ColesCountyDem]

12. Sorta speaks to his mental state, as much as anything.

Naked or clothed, a fight with a suspect is a fight with a suspect.

:shrug:

[RetroLounge]

14. Maybe

But I fail to see why taser the guy if he wasn't a threat.

Call backup, subdue him. He's alive. He gets help.

:shrug:

RL

[ColesCountyDem]

15. Let me clear up something:

I'm not actually defending or attacking how the Houston officers dealt with this guy; I don't have enough information to make an informed decision.

I was just defending the use of the taser, in general.

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

17. Got it.

No prob. Thanks for the discussion.

:hi:

RL

[ColesCountyDem]

18. You're wlcome, and thank you, too. n/t

[HeraldSquare212]

21. So you're suggesting without the taser, lethal force would have been used?

I suspect it would have been the opposite - without the taser, very little force would have been used.

[ColesCountyDem]

25. I didn't suggest anything of the kind.

The most likely scenario would have been that far more physical force would have been used and, as a result, the suspect would most likely have been injured, perhaps severely. Bear in mind that *no one* knew that this man was going to die after he was tased; further, he might well have died during a prolonged physical fight, too.

[acmavm]

23. It's not the mentally ill person's actions that need to be limited. It's the

thugs with the tasers who need to be put in a strangle hold.

Did someone think this guy was gonna pull a gun out of his anus? Was a cop gonna get peed on?

This type of situation could be dealt with in other ways. Tranquilizers are used on animals to calm them down in order to restrain them. People in situations like this couldn't be brought down the same way?

[ColesCountyDem]

26. What if he has a bad reaction to the tranquilizer?

What if he dies as a result of an overdose or something. Doesn't that place the respective parties just exactly where they are now, following the use of the taser?

[acmavm]

27. I'd be willing to wager it would be a hell of a lot safer than giving these

cowboys a weapon that have proven to be as lethal as these fucking things are.

[ColesCountyDem]

28. Tasers are seldom lethal.

To say otherwise is simply a misrepresentation of the facts.

[L0oniX]

13. I'm sure he deserved to die! Thanks again ..pigs!

[Historic NY]

19. PCP is just wonderful, in some cases people strip off their clothes

because they feel like they are burning up they also feel they have inhuman strenght. Google PCP & naked for dozens of crazy stories.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=PCP