The Merced Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division is investigating a complaint alleging that an officer twice used a Taser against an unarmed, wheelchair-bound man with no legs.The incident occurred Sept. 11.The man who was Tasered, 40-year-old Gregory Williams, a double-leg amputee, spent six days in jail on suspicion of domestic violence and resisting arrest, although the Merced County District Attorney’s Office hasn’t filed charges in the case.Williams, who was released from jail Friday, said he was violently manhandled and Tasered by police, even though he claims he was never physically aggressive toward the officers or resisted arrest.Even worse for him, Williams says he was publicly humiliated after his pants fell down during the incident. The officers allegedly left him outdoors in broad daylight, handcuffed on the pavement, nude below the waist. Williams said the arrest also left him with an injured shoulder, limiting his mobility in his wheelchair.And although the two lead arresting officers are white, and Williams is black, it remains unknown whether race was a factor in the incident. Those two officers remain on duty.
via Cynical-C Blog – » Police Taze Legless Man.
Favorite This!
What the hell? What do people think when they see a man in a wheelchair with no legs with a child on his lap? “hey this guy’s up to no good”?
I seriously can’t begin to express how angry this makes me.
This is beyond ridiculous. This is just plain wrong, ethically, humanely, and stupid. It’s an ongoing argument between myself and hubby (ex LEO). He thinks tasers and mace are fine to use when a situation gets out of control but not deadly. I have no objection, in theory to that, but it’s cases like this that shines a light on the problem. LEOs, security guards, even teachers are using them too often. Less than lethal is still violent and should not be used casually. Too often, it’s used as a time saver. They don’t want to take 15-30 minutes to calm someone down, instead they just tase or mace them and drag them to booking, interrogation, whatever.
I live w/in 20 minutes of 4 states (WV, MD, PA and VA), so we get news from a large area. Several times a month there will be a story on the news about police using taser and/or mace on people (w/ more than a few deaths). We even had a situation where school administration officials tasered a kindergartner because she wouldn’t (Couldn’t? She was 5, FFS!) calm down and had tried to bite them. In another incident, a man died because he had been maced in VA (alcohol based), then tasered in MD…whoosh, up in flames. A diabetic woman was hospitalized after beig tasered because she was ‘uncooperative’. She was diabetic and going into insulin shock. It landed her in ICU and she nearly died. Also, a 14 year old died because he had been tasered multiple times (4 I think).
There needs to be more training into how, when and if less tan lethal force can and should be used. If you can’t figure out a way to deal w/ a man, in a wheelchair, w/ no legs and unarmed, then you need to find another profession.
The thing is, I wouldn’t be AS upset if the cops in question were fired, arrested, maced, tazed, then put in jail, but for some reason someone somewhere thinks that what was done was okay and the cops are still on duty.
I think you are right. “non-lethal” weaponry is really new, and people are just using it as a toy. We need better education and training.