A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (24 page)

In some cases, the use of tasers can be lethal. In virtually all cases, they cause a significant degree of pain. Cops who have been shocked in the course of their training have described being tased as "the most profound pain," and "like getting punched 100 times in a row."
⁴²⁹

Taser manufacturers and law enforcement agencies argue that tasers are a safer alternative to many conventional weapons typically used to restrain dangerous individuals. However, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests otherwise. A study recently published by the American Heart Association has determined that taser shocks applied to the chest can lead to cardiac arrest. According to cardiologist Byron Lee, "This is no longer arguable. This is a scientific fact."
⁴³⁰
In fact, since 2001, over 500 people have died after being stunned with tasers.
⁴³¹
Also, in a 2008 report, Amnesty International reviewed hundreds of deaths following taser use and found that 90 percent of those who died after being struck with a taser were unarmed.
⁴³²

Moreover, the potential for government abuse of this so-called "non-lethal" weapon is great, especially in the hands of domestic law enforcement who routinely use tasers as a substitute for low-level force weapons such as pepper spray or chemical spray. They have become a prevalent force tool, most often employed against individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves, the officers, or others, but who fail to immediately comply with officers' commands. In fact, a 2005 study compiled by Amnesty International reports that in instances where tasers are used, 80 percent of the time they are fired at unarmed suspects. In 36 percent of the cases, they are employed for verbal noncompliance, but only three percent of the time for cases involving "deadly assault."
⁴³³

Tasering Women and Children

Sadly, the courts have essentially given police
carte blanche
authority when it comes to using tasers against American citizens. This is especially concerning in light of a growing trend in which police officers use tasers to force individuals into compliance in relatively non-threatening situations. In fact, rowdy schoolchildren, the elderly, and mentally ill individuals are increasingly finding themselves on the receiving end of these sometimes lethal electroshock devices.

Indeed, police looking for absolute deference to their authority are quick to utilize tasers. For example, there have been a number of incidents where suspects of minor crimes and even completely innocent people were electroshocked into compliance by cops. In Florida a 15-year-old girl was tasered and pepper sprayed after being taken off of a bus following a disturbance.
⁴³⁴
In Arizona, a run-away 9-year-old girl was tasered as she sat in the back seat of a police car with her hands cuffed behind her back.
⁴³⁵
In Oregon police tasered a blind and partially deaf 71-year-old multiple times in her own front yard.
⁴³⁶
In another instance a Florida woman, 12-weeks pregnant, was tasered after refusing to submit to a strip search at a jail. She spontaneously miscarried seven days later.
⁴³⁷
In Texas a 72-year-old great-grandmother was tasered after refusing to sign a speeding ticket.
⁴³⁸

In Florida a 14-year-old schoolgirl was tasered for arguing with police officers after she and other students were put off a bus during a disturbance. She was stunned directly to the chest and then stunned twice from a distance before she was handcuffed. In Oregon a newspaper reported that officers used tasers on noncompliant people "after stopping them for nonviolent offenses, such as littering and jaywalking."
⁴³⁹
In Arizona a 13-year-old girl was tasered in a public library after she threw a book.
⁴⁴⁰
In Missouri an unarmed 66-year-old woman was tasered twice as she resisted being issued a ticket for honking her horn at a police car.
⁴⁴¹
In another instance, an officer used a taser on a 9-year-old girl who had run away from a residential home for severely emotionally disturbed children. The child, who was already handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police car, was tasered for allegedly struggling as the officer attempted to put leg restraints on her.
⁴⁴²

Margaret Kimbrell, a 75-year-old woman who suffers from arthritis and had six broken ribs, was given a 50,000-volt shock from a police taser and was forced to spend three hours behind bars. Her crime? Margaret had refused to leave a nursing home before she had the opportunity to visit a friend whose well-being she was concerned about. According to the police, Margaret posed a threat because she was waving her arms and threatening the staff. This was news to Margaret. "As weak as I am, how could I do that?" she asked.
⁴⁴³
Describing the pain of being tasered, this resident of Rock Hill, South Carolina, responded, "It was the worst pain. It felt like something going through my body. I thought I was dying. I said, 'Lord, let it be over."'

Common sense and good judgment certainly seemed to be in short supply when a police run-in with 71-year-old Eunice Crowder resulted in the blind woman being pepper sprayed and tasered. City employees had shown up at Crowder's home to remove unsightly shrubs and trash from the handicapped woman's yard. However, shortly after city workers began taking her belongings from her yard, Crowder became concerned that a 90-year-old wagon had been placed in the truck to be hauled away with her other belongings. After voicing her concern about the wagon, which was a family heirloom, Crowder asked to be allowed to enter the truck to search for it. Despite the workers' refusal, the elderly woman insisted on searching the truck. The situation worsened when the police showed up to find Crowder with one foot on the curb and the other on the bumper of the trailer. When one of the officers stepped on her foot, Crowder, being blind, asked who it was. Moments later, one of the officers struck her on the head–which dislodged her prosthetic eye–kicked her in the back, and pepper-sprayed her in the face.
⁴⁴⁴

While law enforcement advocates may suggest otherwise, these incongruous and excessive uses of force by the police are quickly becoming the rule, not the exception. A 2011 New York Civil Liberties Union report showed that of the eight police departments surveyed across the state, over 85 percent of taser uses occurred in cases where suspects were not armed. Incredibly, 40 percent of taser uses were aimed at the elderly, children, the mentally ill, or the severely intoxicated.
⁴⁴⁵
And despite claims thattasers de-escalate tense situations, a Michigan State University study shows that suspects are more likely to be injured in incidences where police use stun guns (41% of the time), rather than when no stun gun is used (29% of the time).
⁴⁴⁶

"I am pregnant!"

Then there is Malaika Brooks. Brooks, 33 years old and seven months pregnant, was driving her 11-year-old son to school on a November morning in 2004, when she was pulled over for driving 32 mph in a 20 mph school zone. Instructing her son to walk the rest of the way to school, Malaika handed over her driver's license to Officer Juan Órnelas for processing.
⁴⁴⁷
However, when instructed to sign the speeding ticket– which the government inexplicably requires, Malaika declared that she wished to contest the charge, insisting that she had not done anything wrong and fearing that signing the ticket would signify an admission of guilt.
⁴⁴⁸

What happened next is a cautionary tale for anyone who still thinks that they can defy a police officer, even if it's simply to disagree about a speeding ticket. Rather than issuing a verbal warning to the clearly pregnant (and understandably emotional) woman, Officer Órnelas called for backup. Officer Donald Jones subsequently arrived and told Brooks to sign the ticket. Again she refused. The conversation became heated. The cops called in more backup. The next to arrive was Sergeant Steven Daman, who directed Brooks to sign the ticket, pointing out that if she failed to do so, she would be arrested and taken to jail. Again, she refused.

On orders from Sgt. Daman, Órnelas ordered the distraught Brooks to get out of the car, telling her she was "going to jail." She again refused, and the second cop, Jones, responded by pulling out his taser electro-shock weapon, asking her if she knew what it was and warning her it would be used on her if she continued to resist.
⁴⁴⁹
Brooks told him "No," and then said, "I have to go to the bathroom, I am pregnant, I'm less than sixty days from having my baby."

Jones and Órnelas then proceeded to discuss how best to taser the pregnant woman and forcibly remove her from the car. One officer said, "Well, don't do it in her stomach; do it in her thigh." Opening the car door, Órnelas twisted Malaika Brook's arm behind her back. Desperate, Brooks held on tightly to the steering wheel, while Jones cycled the taser as a demonstration of its capacity to cause pain.

Taser Shotgun (Taser International)

With the taser in a "drive-stun" mode, Officer Jones then pressed the taser against Brooks' thigh while Órnelas held her hand behind her back. Brooks, in obvious pain, began to cry and honk her car horn–hoping someone would help. Thirty-six seconds later, Órnelas pressed it into her left arm. Six seconds later, he again stunned her, this time on the neck. After being tasered numerous times, Brooks' pregnant body eventually gave way. As Malaika fell over and out of the car, the officers dragged her onto the street, placing the pregnant woman face down on the pavement, handcuffing her and transporting her to jail.

While Malaika Brooks' ordeal with the police did not seem to negatively impact her unborn child–she gave birth to a healthy baby girl two months after the altercation–Malaika bears permanent burn scars on her body where she was tasered by police.
⁴⁵⁰

As I noted earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an appeals court ruling that granted the police officers in Malaika Brooks' case immunity from prosecution. In other words, there appears to be very little protection from excessive police force.

Torture

Amnesty International has expressed concern that despite the far-reaching use of tasers, there has been no independent and impartial study of their use and effects. The growing employment of these weapons, as well as the number of associated deaths, presents serious questions.

Furthermore, the use of tasers in law enforcement raises a number of concerns for the protection of human rights. Portable, easy to use, and with the capacity to inflict severe pain at the push of a button without leaving substantial marks, tasers are open to even more abuse. Their use often violates standards set out under the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, which requires that force be utilized as a last resort and that only the minimum amount necessary be used. In fact, in late 2007, the United Nations Committee Against Torture declared that the use of tasers constituted a form of torture.
⁴⁵¹

Yet despite all of the evidence that tasers are dangerous, taser technology continues to rapidly advance. One of the most recent advances in taser technology is the X12 Taser shotgun, which fires taser rounds at a distance of up to 100 feet, nearly 80 feet farther than a regular handheld taser.
⁴⁵²
It would not bea stretch to envision police using the X12 against protesters simply exercising their right to free speech and assembly under the First Amendment.

CHAPTER 20

The Goodbye Effect

With but slight expenditures of force, an all-pervasive sense of fright may be produced in the 'invisible spheres' of life. An ounce of actual violence can yield a pound of terror."
⁴⁵³

– Former presidential advisor BERTRAM GROSS

T
he corporate powers who work closely with the police and other government agents to develop the host of weapons used against the populace are steadily introducing new products–all, of course, purchased at taxpayer expense. The catalogue of "nonlethal" and lethal weapons that follow are now available to your local police to use in quieting the disquieted with the "Goodbye Effect." In other words, when you see the police, it's time to tremble and run for cover. But should that be our response to the police in a so-called "free country"?