Cop Shoots Cuffed Teen In The Face With A Taser, Claims He 'Feared For His Safety' [UPDATED]
from the the-first-rule-of-policing-rears-its-abusive-head dept
[UPDATE: Several commenters have pointed out that the "his" in the quote "feared for his safety" may refer to the safety of the suspect (who may have been running into traffic), rather than the safety of the officer. I will try to find another quote that clarifies this matter and will add it to the top of this post when I do. Tasing someone while they're cuffed seems like a strange way to make someone "safer," but it's a better rationale than arguing a cuffed suspect represents a "threat" to an officer's safety. This incident does seem to have a bit more vagueness than other "feared for his safety" cases. In most others, the suspect has ended up beaten or shot, which pretty much eliminates the suspect's "safety" from the equation.
Why an officer couldn't simply run down a cuffed suspect on foot is beyond me, considering they have to pass certain physical tests before exiting the police academy. But if the physical shape of police officers tracks with the general physical condition of much of the population, it's easy to see why firing a Taser would be preferable (and quicker) than attempting a rundown. (I'm reminded of Christian Slater's character's quote in the seminal 90s comedy "Kuffs," delivered while undergoing physical training at the police academy: "Why are we doing all this running? Aren't we going to be driving around in cars?")
The "pulling his legs out from under him" quote is probably just an example DA Heckler used to illustrate how this teen's face ended up in the condition it did.]
Let's get everything else out of the way. Everything that might indicate this teen/perp got what he "deserved."
1. He was caught shoplifting at a Wal-Mart along with his 19-year-old cousin. He was positively identified by Wal-Mart Asset Protection.
2. He was arrested and cuffed.
3. He ran from the cops before they could place him in the squad car.
This kid isn't exactly a sympathetic character. He was caught red-handed breaking the law. He was on his way to being processed. But then he ran. And for that, he was shot in the face with a Taser.
This isn't according to the kid or his mother. This is according to the County District Attorney himself.
Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler tells NBC10 that police officers yelled warnings at the teen and fearing for his safety, they fired a stun gun to subdue him. The D.A. says the Taser struck the boy in the face and with his hands cuffed, the boy had no way to brace himself against falling face-first.None of this adds up.
How does a cop "fear for his safety" when a handcuffed suspect is fleeing police custody? It's highly unlikely he was running towards police officers in order to escape them, but the DA himself claims the teen was "struck in the face" by the Taser.
Marissa Sargeant, the teen's mother, claims he was beaten.
“The picture speaks 1,000 words. They brutally beat him,” Sargeant said in her Levittown apartment. “If he did fall on his face, why does he have scrapes and bruises all over his whole face, everywhere. Why is his nose broken? Why is his nostril lifted off his face? Why is both of his eyes black and swollen?”Maybe the cops just roughed him up a bit and somehow thought the ridiculous Taser story would cover it all up? Even the DA can't seem to get his narrative right.
“You take off running at a full clip and someone pulls your legs out from under you, and you’re cuffed from behind, you’re going to break your fall with your face,” Heckler said last night. “I could well believe that you’d have fairly substantial bruising, cuts and scrapes.”So, which is it? Was he struck in the face by a Taser or were his "legs pulled out" from under him? Either way, it's conceivable he'd take a faceful of pavement. But neither response sounds appropriate.
It's tough to make a complete assessment about this teen's physical size from a headshot, but to me, he looks pretty slight -- not like some overgrown boy/man who's jumped the development curve on his way to 6'6" by age 16 and who purchased his first razor at age 11. Even if he was running directly at the cop, his hands were cuffed behind his back. Anyone in law enforcement who "fears for their safety" when a cuffed perp starts running either towards or (especially) away from them should probably hand in all assigned weapons, whether lethal or not.
His mother is certainly being overly dramatic when she compares it to the Rodney King beating. This isn't an extreme case of excessive force. Nope, this is just the run-of-the-mill deployment of excessive force to subdue a perp who made the responding cops' job slightly harder. For the DA to not only swallow, but parrot, the "fear for my safety" line is sadly unsurprising as well.
This isn't a poster child for police abuse. This is just another in a long line of incidents showing just how frequently law enforcement members will claim to "fear for their lives" in order to justify handing a perp a little extra "attention"... or a full-on beating... or an instant death sentence.
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Filed Under: police, police brutality, taser, violence
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And yet...
I seriously hope at least one reporter in the area has the guts to call the DA out on his lying, the fact that he's given two very different 'explanations' strongly suggests he's lying through his teeth, and certainly gives weight to the mother's claims that they beat him and are just trying to cover it up.
Also, and someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but assuming they train these morons at all before handing them the pepper-spray and taser, doesn't part of that training include specific instructions never to aim for the head, both due to the small size, and how insanely dangerous it is?
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Re: And yet...
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I specifically asked the person if it was a civil trial and they said it was a criminal trial.
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Re: Re: Re: And yet...
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Because cops are considered above the law, with a lot more rights than us normal peasants.
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Re: And yet...
Maybe you forgot to look at the picture? Traditionally, if a cop walked into a house after a noise complaint and found a kid in that shape, he'd assume child abuse and call the local Protective Services. The adults in charge would face some difficult questions and, probably, criminal charges.
This is a clear case of child abuse, however it happened (including criminal police malfeasance), and the DA is just as clearly complicit in an illegal action.
1950s: The policeman is your friend.
2013: You're safer facing a mugger than a cop.
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Re: Re: And yet...
I think you're remember a '50s that never existed. Police abusing their power (particularly against black youth who have been caught breaking the law) was pretty common then, too.
What was a lot different is that in the '50s, the police hadn't been thoroughly militarized yet.
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Re: Re: And yet...
2013: You're safer facing a mugger than a cop.
You might want to rethink that. The kid is black. I think it would have been the same in 1950.
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Re:
When surrounded from all sides, to run away you need to run past one of them.
The black eyes could have been caused by the nasal injury when he fell. Likewise the forward momentum increases the chance of scraps over the entire face rather than just one side. The more bloodied parts of the face are either due to the taser hooks or the initial points of impact when muscle control was lost.
Additionally, "legs pulled out" may be a colloquialism used in place of the previously stated cause.
Of course, these possibilities do nothing to explain why the officer said he "feared for his life" in regards to a handcuffed kid trying to run away/past him.
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Response to: Arsik Vek on Nov 20th, 2013 @ 5:15am
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Re: Response to: Arsik Vek on Nov 20th, 2013 @ 5:15am
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Uhhh really????
"So, which is it? Was he struck in the face by a Taser or were his "legs pulled out" from under him? Either way, it's conceivable he'd take a faceful of pavement. But neither response sounds appropriate."
I really hope you're joking. You think the DA was really suggesting that happened? I would say it makes more sense to say the DA was using the leg pulling as an example. Cmmmonnn mannnnn.
Although..I think it makes more sense that they roughed him up. What does the cruiser cam show?
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Re: Uhhh really????
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Don't get me wrong...
However I think there is one misconception here - I think the quote about 'fearing for his safety' meant the cop feared for the KID'S safety, not his (cop's) safety.
As in, "He's running through a parking lot handcuffed, he's gonna get hurt, so let's Taze him and drop him on his face to the macadam to 'protect' him."
IE, it' equally stupid logic, but I do think that was the meaning...and Tim might've misinterpreted that. (Not hard to do as cops always 'fear for their safety' and shoot people...)
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Re: Don't get me wrong...
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http://www.kdrv.com/father-of-tased-child-challenges-osp/
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Your argument is stupid, because this is EXACTLY how a vaccine works.
You exchange some small pain now for the GUARANTEE of no or reduced pain in the future. The alternative is the GUARANTEE of A LOT of pain in the future, once you contract the disease (which you will, because you aren't super man) and - worst case scenario - you die.
Not saying that the cop did good. Just pointing out that there are situations where receiving small pain "now" is preferable to receiving a lot of pain "later".
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Did you see the picture? That's not a "small amount of pain".
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This generally means the upper half, which is why so many taser hits result in face/upper torso.
Also have you ever tried to run with your hands cuffed behind your back?
You're ALOT more uncoordinated, and can result in just as bad injury or even worse depending on WHERE you fall (ahem, traffic).
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It's shit like this ... damn it people!
It is never appropriate to taser a handcuffed person, are you out of your mind?
Look - the taser was introduced as a non lethal alternative to use of a handgun. It was deployed in the field with the idea that it would only be used when lethal force was deemed necessary.
Now it has become a twisted accepted practice to torture perps with this device because they were asking for it.
Seriously - wtf?
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This. In fact, I remember cops specifically saying that tasers would not be used except in situations where a handgun would otherwise have been used.
They lied.
Now, tasers are used to "enforce compliance", torture, and all kinds of other situations where a handgun wouldn't have even been drawn, let alone used. The police have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with the used of tasers.
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Was he some fat ass with C.O.P.D like me and couldn't, you know, out run a cuffed kid?
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The police are just attack dogs now, no decency or sense.
The only possible opposition to corporate savagery (or any other kind of authoritarianism) is Populism (or democracy as mis-defined) with the moral force of common law.
You can't fight a police state on your own: It takes a whole nation to answer a policeman. (Rex Stout, author of the Nero Wolfe novels.)
Now, I do have to question why this is here on "Techdirt" -- other than ginning up page views. It's not tech. There's no call to action, less than I wrote above. WIthout pointing to a solution, these pieces only serve to re-inforce the police state by creating fear in the populace. That's true of all sites running these pieces: yeah, gets ya riled, but more makes ya fear knowing the police have no human decency and will likely get away with obvious crimes even against you if chance takes you into their sight...
Well, kids, it's time for you to reject the violent video games and oppose all violence, even the pretend kind, or you're actually helping the police state.
Non-violence is the only workable opposition to a police state, proven since Ghandi.
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Gandhi
2. The Indian independence movement was far from entirely non-violent (though it suits both Britain and India to pretend otherwise): search for "Quit India" and "Indian National Army".
3. Gandhi himself prefered violent resistance to passive acquiescence (while extolling non-violent resistance over both): http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/gandhi-jayanti-non-violent-mahatma-gandhi-preferred-violence-over -cowardice/1/312776.html
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Re: Gandhi
*that* is what they fear, that the sheeple will bare their vestigial fangs, not a bunch of silly peaceniks shouting ineffectual rhymes...
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I like to think....
Again, it's rare you'll find me defending cops and I'm not even doing that, really, but I do find at least a few items in Tim's interpretation that might be a bit hasty and knee-jerk reaction. Yes, cops beat the hell out of innocent people all the time, and this might be exactly that, exactly what it looks like.
But the DA's comment doesn't say that his legs WERE pulled out from under him, that's an analogy. He's saying, getting Tasered while running full speed with your hands cuffed behind your back on a macadam parking lot, is just like if your legs were pulled out, you tripped, etc....you are going to land face-first and skid. Road rash, in other words. His facial injuries look consistent with that to me.
The 'fear for his safety' as I already mentioned, again, was the cops claiming THEY (cops) were worried about HIS (kid) safety. IE, "He was running towards traffic, handcuffed and not paying attention. We tazed him to take him down before he ran into traffic."
Now again, please don't accuse me of making excuses or being a police apologist. I post a story a week at least like this on my Facebook and rail on and on about police overreaction, zero tolerance abuse, and on and on.
But I also do not ever want to look like one of "them" on "the other side" who just rush to judgement and label everything without stopping to at least evaluate the evidence and the statements on their own merits.
I'm not really convinced this is outright abuse, more like stupid overreaction and bad judgement, or just lazy cops.
(IE, was the kid really running directly into danger, or did the cops just not feel like a foot chase at that moment?)
"Would he really be running toward the cops if he was trying to evade?" Again - possibly he was, obviously he was in fight-or-flight mode and if he was being loaded into the car by Cop A that doesn't mean there wasn't a Cop B a few yards away by the door interviewing other people who shot him in the face.
Really, I'm not defending the cops at all. This might be exactly what it looks like and what Tim describes....but, it also might not be quite that extreme. I'd like a few more facts or statements from people there.
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Actually, a broken nose will usually result in two black eyes, as any impact strong enough to break the cartilage will produce shock damage to the small blood vessels in the area.
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This isn't even the worst I've seen when it comes to falling face first onto a solid surface.
When you fall onto tarmac, it's not a cartoon, you roll, you skid, areas AROUND the area of impact can bruise, and a broken nose will cause black eyes, skidding on the Tarmac (as he was in motion when he was tased) also accounts for additional scraping in addition to the bruising.
Only people unfamiliar with falling face first onto solid surfaces would immediately discount this kids injuries.
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Voters Support Immediate Justice
This is what the voters want.
When a kid gets caught shoplifting at Walmart, the voters don't want to see the court system take forever before it lets the kid off with a slap on the back of the hand, or some kind of technicality.
When a kid gets caught shoplifting at Walmart, the voters want to see the cops hand out immediate justice.
Look, the kid isn't going to die from these injuries. He's not even going to lose a limb or anything like that. This isn't an organ-failure beating. But maybe the kid will learn a lesson. He might learn a lesson.
This is what the voters want.
If this wasn't what they wanted, then people wouldn't vote for it.
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Re: Voters Support Immediate Justice
Even if that's true, it's irrelevant. That the voters want vigilante "justice" doesn't mean that it's OK for the police to do it. It's wrong, bad for society, and illegal.
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Re: Re: Voters Support Immediate Justice
You can moralize all you want �preach your sermon from the pulpit� but the people of Bucks County are getting the kind of justice they want. From the man they elected.
That's how the system really works.
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Re: Re: Re: Voters Support Immediate Justice
But that's not the way the system works. We are a nation of laws and rights, and we don't get to vote that it's OK to violate those laws and rights.
If the laws and/or rights need to be changed, then voters can do that by voting to change them.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Voters Support Immediate Justice
� The District Attorney is ok with what the cops did to the kid. The cops won't get charged over this. The kid will get a plea deal on the shoplifting charge.
� The voters are happy with the DA. They approve. They like Dave Heckler's brand of justice.
�ELECTION 2013: Republicans sweep Bucks County row offices� �, by Jeff Werner, BucksLocalNews.com, November 05, 2013
You can argue until you're blue in the face that this isn't really happening. You can argue all day long that it cannot really be happening. But it is. It is.
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The kid fleed police, the kid got tased, the kid unfortunately landed face first on the ground and broke his nose. Many do not land in such a painful way.
There was no mistake in firing a single taser shot at a fleeing suspect, there is nothing to charge. That the kid got injured in his attempt to run away is not the fault of the police, it is a consequence of the decisions he made.
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A handcuffed kid got tazed in the face.
Peddle your excuses somewhere else. You think a tazer is some kind of toy? You get your jollies off seeing someone electrified? That makes your dick hard?
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The only person who says the police purposely went out of their way to injure the kid is the mother. His injures do not signify beatings, they are consistent with a hard faceplant on the ground.
Your angry rhetoric means nothing.
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This is a direct quote from the article:
�The Taser struck the boy in the face.� That's what the District Attorney himself says.
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It's not like the cop pointed the taser directly at his face and pulled the trigger. It just landed somewhere in that region due to how people are taught to aim the things. When I said "directly in the face" it's because your accusations seem to be that they literally meant to hit him directly in the front of his face, and weren't just aiming to hit him in general.
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The cops are not claiming the the Taser just accidentally went off by itself. It's not one the incidents were they were cleaning the Taser and didn't realize it was loaded. The Taser discharge was intentional. There is no dispute at all that the Taser was discharged to hit the kid.
At this point the burden should shift to the cops to justify their use of 50,000 volts on a handcuffed person.
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your accusations seem to be that they literally meant to hit him directly in the front of his face, and weren't just aiming to hit him in general.
Yes, they meant to hit the kid. Who was reportedly fleeing the scene. Cops are authorized to use force on a fleeing suspect, enough to subdue them at least. A single taser shot is all that's reportedly happened as of right now.
Despite the bad press, tasers are still seen as a non lethal alternative to subdueing a resisting or fleeing subject.
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� The cops intended to hit the kid with the Taser.
� The cops actually did strike the kid's face with the Taser.
Given those two facts: (1) The undisputed general intent to hit him, plus (2) the actual location of the hit; then I'm entitled to presume that the cops intended the result that actually occurred.
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Taser use needs to be drastically rethought. If a suspect is fleeing a taser should not be a replacement for a fast set of legs.
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While I think the explanation for taking him was bs, this was a situation where someone was fleeing police custody, and a single shot with a teaser is not what I would consider excessive.
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The mothers statement about the condition of his face seems fairly ignorant to me, or she's trying to make it into something bigger than it is. If he went full faceplant rather than fell on his side, he could have sustained injury on both sides of his face, it would account for the broken nose, and when a nose is broken black eyes always follow.
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http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/ComplaintProcedure/Pages/HRCComplaintProcedureIndex.aspx on how to file a complaint.
I like the last bullet point "Domestic remedies have been exhausted, unless it appears that such remedies would be ineffective or unreasonably prolonged." Hrmmm, anyone think the domestic remedies will be effective and fast?
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Nov 20th, 2013 @ 7:32am
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Put your hand over the right side of your face, that's what would hit the concrete - forehead, nose, cheek. The hit to the nose would give you 2 black eyes.
The only thing I question is this: Is it ok to taser a person trying to escape in the back? (I would say they were probably aiming for his back and he looked back, as it makes no sense that he was tased in the face while running away).
Answering my own question: Yes, I think it is permissible to taser someone in the back that is attempting to flee police custody.
I'm often not on the police side in these situations, but this all sounds plausible to me.
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Why would anyone do that?
Don't matter what the kid says. Ain't no one gonna believe him, nohow.
So best bet for the kid is to shut up, and let his lawyer cop a plea for him. Get the best deal he can get.
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Couple days in lockup.
Warning.
Off he goes. Although with his injuries he'll probably just spend the time in hospital with no time served.
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Ugh
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Re: Ugh
The problem is that cops generally leave each other alone when they're BREAKING THE LAW.
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Did he deserve a beating for being a law breaker? Probably.
Are cops supposed to deliver beatings? Of course not you god damn idiot. Courts dispense justice. Not cops.
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Oh and here's a thought, had he not chosen to be a thief, he wouldn't be in this situation.
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Admittedly, tasing him was probably not a great choice. I just wanted to point out that the DA's statement was not clear.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Nov 20th, 2013 @ 9:16am
What exactly do you expect to happen with any fleeing suspect? For cops to stand around them and touch them, saying "We caught You!"
If he wasn't tazed, he was going to be bodily tackled into the pavement anyways. And on a fleeing suspect that is not excessive force, that's what we expect officers to do in the performance of their duties.
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The evidence provided in this article fits with the cop's story. Those injuries, easily caused by face-planting into something solid while running. The face-plant is the likely outcome of a person losing motor control by a high voltage electric shock. The Taser shot is probably the correct response to the suspect resisting arrest, running away from the cop, towards some other danger.
The only thing here that even suggests the cop was in the wrong is the mother. Was she there, did she see it? No. Plus she's the child's mother, that instantly throws her accusation into question.
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LOL - it's sort of like saying,
... I'm not prejudice, I have a (fillin blank) friend.
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The kid deserves punishment, but it's not the job of the police to decide what that should be. Leave it to the courts, now he'll most likely get his charges dropped and tax payers will cover another million dollar lawsuit. That image will do them in no matter what happened.
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I call bullshit
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HIS safety
That should be read "fearing for the perpetrator's safety". The cops are treated as plural in that paragraph, so if it meant the cops, it would have read "fearing for their safety".
I don't see "fear for my safety" in the article.
Someone running around the streets with his hands cuffed behind his back might hurt himself, so obviously you tase him in the face for his safety.
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Re: HIS safety
And just as screwed up as Tim's interpretation... if not more so.
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You can say whatever you want, listen to whatever stories you want.
But the kid was obviously beaten on the face. Anyone who says otherwise have never seen someone take a nasty spill on the face while running. OR never seen how someone looks after a nasty fight.
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mONEY MONEY MONEY
money.
Someone is going to make some money.
And I REALLY get the idea, that someone is TRYING to break cities and towns of ALL their money.
HOW idiotic can you be?
The money someone is going to be paid, is coming OUT of your pockets..the TAX PAYERS..
Until you do 1 thing, its your money.
The 1 thing. MAKE COPS NOT RESPONSIBLE..Make it so you cant SUE the cops.
Police state.
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Tazing
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Running is hard work
Simple. Running is hard work. If you are lazy it's much, much easier to just shoot someone with a tazer than run after him/her. People don't get into policing to run around by foot these days - it's all about driving around in a police cruiser all day between showing donuts in your pie hole.
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