A mentally ill man diagnosed with a bipolar disorder was tasered by two Minneapolis Police officers at a YMCA on Friday. The man was not armed but was struggling with police who had been called to the scene. The taser caused his heart to go into cardiac arrest. He is now in a Minneapolis hospital in critical condition after his heart stopped and he had to resuscitated at least twice:
A Minneapolis man shot by police with a Taser last week during an altercation at the downtown Minneapolis YMCA is on life support and is not expected to survive, a family member said Saturday.
David Cornelius Smith, 28, suffered from mental illness, said his uncle, Larry Smith, an attorney from Oak Park, Ill. He remained hospitalized Saturday at Hennepin County Medical Center. Family members believe that police mishandled Thursday’s Tasering incident, Larry Smith said. […]
“I’m sure the police are trained to handle individuals with mental health issues,” he said. “There are a lot of people with mental health issues in this country, and they don’t get Tased by the police.”
Police were called to the YMCA at 30 S. 9th St. at 3:45 p.m. Thursday on a report of a man who was disturbing patrons and were directed to the sixth-floor gym. When officers Timothy Gorman and Timothy Callahan tried to physically remove Smith from the Y, he fought with them for several minutes, injuring one of them slightly before he was shot with a Taser. […]
Larry Smith said the initial jolt from the Taser caused David Smith to go into cardiac arrest. “It didn’t stop his heart; it killed him,” he said. “Paramedics restarted his heart on scene.”
Since he arrived at the hospital Thursday, Smith’s heart has stopped again and once again he was revived, his uncle said. […]
David Smith, a native of Peoria, moved to Minneapolis about eight years ago for a Job Corps position and decided to stay in the city, his uncle said. He lived on his own and was taking college courses, though Larry Smith wasn’t sure where. When the two last spoke in June, Larry Smith said his nephew talked about getting into a finance job and taking classes to become an investment banker.
David Smith was a “charismatic young man” who was an accomplished cello player in high school, Larry Smith said.
Two things: this man apparently had no weapon or the police would have mentioned it in their report. So, though he may have been trying to fight off the officers who came to remove him from the YMCA, a taser was not an absolute necessity. Other options were available such as calling for more police officers or mental health professionals with experience dealing with agitated people.
Second, can there be any doubt that tasers are lethal weapons that can kill even apparently healthy individuals? David Smith was supposedly in good physical condition according to his family. Yet the taser stopped his heart immediately.
Clearly in this situation the officers would not have been justified to use a gun since the disturbed man had at most “slightly injured” one of the officers after several minutes of resisting arrest. Wouldn’t the better course have been to call for more back up and try to calm Mr. Smith down rather than using a taser?
I’m sure the police felt justified in their actions because supposedly tasers are non-lethal, but that’s the problem: they aren’t, and you cannot predict when they will kill someone.
A 2008 report (PDF) from Amnesty International found 351 Taser-related deaths in the US between June, 2001 and August, 2008, a rate of just slightly above four deaths per month.
A database of Taser-related deaths maintained at the African-American issues blog Electronic Village counts 96 deaths related to the use of Tasers since January, 2009.
Assuming the statistics are correct, that indicates the death rate has increased to an average of five per month.
Electronic Village counts the 96th Taser-linked death as being that of Adam Colliers, a 25-year-old resident of Snohomish County, Washington, who was reportedly “running up and down” a street and causing a disturbance when he was Tased by two officers. He stopped breathing shortly afterwards, and was pronounced dead in hospital a short while later.
Unfortunately police departments often use tasers as a means to take people into custody when other, less lethal means are still available.
Two other men died last week in a strikingly similar situations after being tasered by police in western Washington:
Everett Police Sgt. Robert Goetz says officers were called to the scene of an early morning disturbance. The 25-year-old man reportedly charged a deputy, who used the Taser on him.
After the man was hit, the deputies found he wasn’t breathing. They began CPR and called for medical aid. The man was taken to a hospital but could not be revived.
This is the second time in a week that a man has died in Western Washington after being shocked by a Taser. A 27-year-old stopped breathing in Spanaway on Tuesday during an encounter with Pierce County authorities.
Here are the details of the man who was tasered and died in Spanaway, Washington:
Deputies were called about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday to a Spanaway apartment where the 27-year-old man had been staying but refused to leave. He had thrown a propane tank from a barbecue through a window and was hiding behind a couch when deputies arrived.
When he struggled, deputies used the Taser stun gun, put him in handcuffs and bound his feet.
Paramedics were on their way when he lost consciousness. He could not be revived and was pronounced dead at St. Claire Hospital in Lakewood.
Police are “investigating” whether drugs or alcohol” played a role ion his death. Well, one thing I can tell them for certain is that the taser played the greatest role in these individuals dying, yet somehow our meida reports the story as if we should assume that a person on drugs and alcohol, or who suffers from mental illness, is responsible for their own death, rather than the use of a taser by law enforcement.
Isn’t it time to treat tasers as the equivalent of guns? Not every person shot by the police dies from their wounds but we wouldn’t authorize police to use their firearms to take shoot someone in order to take them into custody for resisting arrest, so why is a taser any different at this point? How many more deaths do we need to prove the point?
Here are some other recent examples of what I would consider inappropriate taser use by the police:
The man jumped Monday morning about 100 feet off the Interstate 74 Bridge into the Mississippi River and survived.
KWQC-TV in Davenport reports a call came in around 10 a.m. that a man had crashed his vehicle on the bridge. He was seen walking around, then jumped into the river and managed to swim to a nearby small island.
Capt. Greg Trudell with the Bettendorf Police Department said the man “appeared to be quite disturbed.”
Officers said when they reached the man, he wouldn’t talk or listen to officers, forcing them to use a Taser.
Note the language used by the reporters: “Officers said when they reached the man, he wouldn’t talk or listen to officers, forcing them to use a Taser.” Again we see a case of a taser being employed because the individual “wouldn’t talk or listen” to officers” so they were “forced” to use their taser. When did simple failure to follow police instructions justify being shocked with 50,000 to 75,000 volts of electricity?
Did we simply allow law enforcement officials to shoot these people in the past if they “appeared to be quite disturbed” and “refused to listen or talk to the police?” I don’t think so? But use a taser that might kill them also? That’s not a problem, apparently.
Or how about this case of a woman tasered while lying on a hospital gurney?
Pamela Borton believes a Dothan police officer used an electric stun device on her to punish her for being belligerent toward them during a 2006 incident, even though she says she was suffering from bipolar disorder and was restrained face down on a hospital gurney at the time. […]
The incident in question occurred on the afternoon of Aug. 15, 2006, at Southeast Alabama Medical Center. Earlier, paramedics and Midland City Police had responded to Borton’s residence after Borton’s mother called 911 after Borton went into what she called a “manic state.”
Borton testified that the paramedics and officers were forced to handcuff and tie her face down on the gurney before placing her in an ambulance to take her to SAMC. Borton said she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager and has been confined on numerous occasions. […]
That’s where the stories of the two parties in this lawsuit begin to diverge. Borton claims Schulmerich used a Taser on her almost immediately after she arrived at SAMC, applying it to her right calf before she was wheeled into the hospital’s emergency room. Borton claims the device was used on her at least two more times while she was still restrained. She said two male officers, two male paramedics and a male nurse were present in the room. […]
Borton’s attorney, Gary Hudgins, asked Bissette if using the Taser was the most reasonable response to subdue a 100-pound female with multiple officers and male paramedics present.
“If there are two options, wait or use a Taser and either one will result in the desired outcome, why use the Taser?” Hudgins asked.
“I can’t speak for the officers. I wasn’t there. If the individual was combative, or causing harm to themselves or others, then the use of the Taser is appropriate,” Bissette responded.
Let me be clear. I have no issue with police using a taser when confronted by an armed individual who poses a serious threat to them or when they have committed a violent assault and refuse to submit to arrest. But that does not appear to be the case in the examples I’ve cited.
It’s clear tasers are weapons that employ potential “lethal force” and they should be treated as such by law enforcement agencies. In other words, using a taser should be a matter of last resort by the police, not a means to achieve submission of unruly or disturbed individuals. Until they are, however, we will continue to see people killed and maimed by taser abuse.
