Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Wheelchair-bound woman killed by taser

In Green Cove Springs, Florida, a 56-year-old wheelchair-bound woman died after police came to her home and tasered her 10 times. Now her family is taking the police to court. The police report says one of the officers fired the taser 9 times in just a bit more than 2½ minutes.

So this is how they treat someone who's in a wheelchair? What threat could the woman have possibly posed?

Several important points: Aren't tasers supposed to be nonlethal? And aren't tasers supposed to only be used as a substitute for other deadly force? How could a person in a wheelchair possibly pose enough of a threat to use any deadly force themselves (unless they had a gun, which the woman in this story didn't)? In other words, police aren't supposed to use tasers unless they would have otherwise used a gun.

The overuse of tasers is a certain case where the whole world looks a nail because all the system has is a hammer.

(Source: http://www.local6.com/news/14147512/detail.html)

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