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The blogger Digby, who has been following the growing epidemic of Taser misuse in the U.S., has linked to news about (CN) - The 11th Circuit rebuked Orlando officers for Tasering an unarmed man eight to 12 times in two minutes, causing his death. Judge Stanley Marcus said the repeated shocks were "grossly disproportionate to any threat posed and unreasonable under the circumstances."
According to an eye witness, Anthony Carl Oliver Sr. flagged down officer Lori Fiorino from a grassy median. She allegedly pulled out her Taser gun and asked him what was wrong. "They're shooting at me," he told her, and pointed across the street.
Fiorino tried to calm him down, and later said he had been "very fidgety."
The witness said Oliver wasn't belligerent and threatened or cursed at the officer.
Fiorino called for backup, and she and responding officer David Burk considered taking Oliver in for a psychiatric evaluation, because they thought he might be mentally unstable.
When Burk tried to get Oliver to cross the street, Oliver "struggled and pulled away from him," according to the ruling.
Without warning, Fiorino Tasered him in the stomach, bringing him to the ground. Once the five-second pulse wore off, she Tasered him again. The witness said Oliver never got up after the first Tasering, and never hit, punched, kicked or threatened the officers. Oliver, who was lying on the hot asphalt, allegedly screamed that it was "too hot." Fioriono said she may have Tasered Oliver 11 or 12 times, explaining that she kept pulling the trigger until he stayed on the ground. Her Taser log showed eight times in two minutes, with each shock lasting five seconds.
After officers handcuffed Oliver, he began foaming at the mouth, according to Fiorino. She said she was unable to remove all the Taser prongs from his body.
Paramedics put him on a stretcher and loaded him into an ambulance, where he began to have a seizure. He was pronounced dead at Florida Hospital, a result of "being struck by a Taser," according to a forensic pathologist.
Here's some of Digby's always astute commentary:
Actually this court decision is a step in the right direction. They at least held that there should be some probable cause before you kill someone with a taser. It isn't much but it's better than the idea that these deaths are "accidental" or caused by the police custody disease called "excited delirium." At least they acknowledged that police can't electrocute and kill citizens for no reason whatsoever.
Maybe someday we'll even reach a point where courts will acknowledge that cops aren't allowed to kill anyone for any reason but self-defense and that electro-torturing people into compliance is excessive force. It's hard to believe it isn't obvious that allowing police to commonly and reflexively use this level of pain, no matter how transient, is an authoritarian method worthy of the worst dystopian nightmare, but since huge numbers of people in this country seem to think the screams and terror they cause are really, really funny I guess you can't really blame the cops for assuming it's perfectly acceptable. The killings though, that might just be a step too far even for the jokesters. Maybe.
Right now too many cops, too many politicians, and too many citizens are allowing themselves to be misled by Taser International's propaganda, but the veil is lifting as more coroners and judges concede that there is ample evidence that Tasers kill, and that these dangerous weapons are being used to torture citizens into submission.
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