Eideard

Oy, we saw you picking yer nose!

Metropolitan police officers fired a Taser nine times at a man sitting on a train in the belief he was carrying a weapon in his briefcase.

The use of Tasers on a train comes as the commissioner of the Met police, Bernard Hogan-Howe…said this week he wanted to see more Tasers in response cars and Scotland Yard has confirmed work is going on to review the availability of Tasers for its officers…

BTP said Tasers were used by Met officers to restrain Justice Livingstone when he failed to comply with officers’ requests to remain seated. Scotland Yard said a Taser was fired several times after the suspect moved towards officers while shouting and refusing to move his hands from his pockets.

The Met police and British Transport Police said the suspect was in possession of an “imitation” firearm.

Livingstone, who said he had no history of mental health problems, had bought the toy gun earlier for his son’s birthday. “It was 99p,” he said…

“…they jumped at me and used the Taser four times at my chest. That did not have any effect, I felt no current. They then held me down, grabbed on to my head and pinned me down and shot me in the back of the head with the Taser three times and I felt the current…

Livingstone said he was taken to a police station in Victoria where…he was stripped naked, he said, and refused access to a lawyer.

He was eventually sent to Bethlem Royal hospital in Beckenham where he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. But on Wednesday, after he made an appeal to the mental health tribunal, he was released and is now at his home in south London…

BTP said its officers were called along with the Met to reports that a man was on the platform waving a gun.

Livingstone said he would be making a formal complaint about his treatment.

At this point the story is pretty confused. I know a fair bit about the fog or war and comparable foggy minds in the heat of civil conflict. Police are as likely as civilians to jump to conclusions based on what they expect to confront – regardless of the facts.

If this ever gets to court and the coppers place in evidence a 99p toy gun made of orange plastic – I don’t think they stand a prayer of getting away without paying a considerable amount in compensation to Mr. Livingstone. Especially if they allow photos of his injuries.

Metal Storm and TASER are developing less-than-lethal ammunition for the aptly-named MAUL rapid-fire 12-gauge launcher. The tiny 800 gram MAUL fits on an assault rifle, and shoots five bullets which incapacitate those it hits with the same Neuro Muscular effect of a handheld TASER.

Until very recently, the basic concept of the gun had changed little since the advent of gunpowder, and nearly all guns still run on the same principles. A decade ago, Metal Storm developed a new type of digital gun that is more closely related to the inkjet printer than traditional ordnance.

Its ammunition is stacked, fired electronically and ammunition types can be mixed, enabling the same gun to perform multiple roles.

Meanwhile, the dumb lumps of metal which guns initially fired evolved into intelligent projectiles capable of delivering a range of payloads for everything from door-breaching, grenade launching, and now non-lethal…it says here…

A five round reload takes two seconds and each bullet incapacitates those it hits with the same Neuro Muscular effect of a handheld TASER.

Buck Rogers military geeks are wetting their pants over this one. But, probably not as much as a very few cops who would rather be storm troopers, judge, jury – all rolled into one.

I like the part about the “tiny 800 gram MAUL”. Ever been hit by anything weighing “just” 800 grams fired from a shotgun? It’s gonna make a hole THIS BIG!!

Ooh! That has to leave a mark

Zak Anthony King, 18, refused to stop when ordered to do so by police who spotted him on his liberal morning run.

When he began to outpace the sweating officers in West Melbourne, Florida, one threatened him with the Taser, which delivers an electric shock powerful enough to temporarily paralyse.

Within a fraction of a second of the barbs hitting his bottom, Mr King collapsed and was arrested, while cameras in a police car and on the immobiliser captured the moment.

The cameras also recorded sound and one officer can be heard reliving the incident only moments before, saying: “I’m like, ‘Don’t run, I’m gonna Tase you!’ So what does he do? He just keeps running.”

Mr King is suspected to have been drunk. He told the officers he had “super powers”.

Maybe his “super powers” don’t work when he isn’t wearing his cape? Or much else?

A senior Australian police chief has a described an incident in which a man was Tasered 14 times while in police custody as “unacceptable and extremely disappointing.”

What a good-hearted guy!

CCTV footage of the incident, which happened in Perth, Western Australia in 2008, showed an unarmed aboriginal man lying on the ground surrounded by police officers after reportedly refusing a strip search. The man survived the incident and was later shown the footage but declined to press charges.

Two of the officers involved were fined…but kept their jobs after an internal inquiry. Charges were dismissed against two other officers…

Western Australia Police Acting Commissioner Chris Dawson said in a statement…”The community will obviously be disappointed when they see closed-circuit television vision today of what took place…”

The disturbing footage was released as part of a report by the state’s Corruption and Crime Commission into the use of Taser guns by the force…

It said this incident highlighted a “broader problem with respect to officers misunderstanding the circumstances in which Tasers could be used…”

“There has to be some recognition that excessive use of force with a Taser is of a completely qualitatively different nature to just excessive use of force with your hands, if you like,” Christian Porter was quoted by ABC News as saying.

“I think we’ve reached the stage now where Tasers are such important instruments for the police force that disciplinary proceedings for excessive use of force with a Taser need to be treated in a special category.”

Sounds to me as if they passed that stage a while back. Not just the coppers in Oz; but, in police departments around the world.

What has become acceptable is always capable of being ratcheted up to excessive.

Not the perp – but, just as dumb

A Cheyenne man who doused himself with white latex paint in hopes of avoiding a police Taser was hit with the stun gun anyway.

The Taser chase happened…when Cheyenne police went to Brian Mattert’s house on a domestic violence call. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports that when police arrived, Mattert thought they’d use a Taser on him, so he hastily covered himself in paint and told officers that if they shot him with the stun gun, he’d die.

Officers told him the paint wouldn’t affect the Taser’s capability.

Mattert scuffled with officers and was hit with a Taser twice before officers handcuffed him.

He faces several criminal charges. Police say the officers’ uniforms had to be cleaned.

Har!

What? Did he think he would explode?

Jason Mepham on a happier day

A police officer managed to arrest a suspect despite being squirted with his own pepper spray, punched and kicked in the head and then shot with a Taser by a colleague.

Pc Jason Mepham had been called out to deal with a drunk troublemaker when the series of unfortunate incidents began:

Finding the suspect, Jason King, aggressive and threatening, the officer deployed his pepper spray.

He sprayed once – which temporarily halted King – but a second burst of gas then blew back into his own face, leaving him disorientated with a burning face and watering eyes.

By this time a police colleague had arrived at the scene, but so had a friend of King’s who struck Pc Mepham in the face, dislocating his jaw.

The other officer responded to the attack by releasing the first suspect and firing his Taser gun at the new assailant

However, only one electrode hit its intended target, the other striking Pc Mepham and knocking him off his feet.

With the policeman on the ground, King seized his opportunity to kick him in the head, an action which jarred his jaw back into place.

Only when further police back-up arrived were both offenders finally subdued…

Jason King, of Camborne, Cornwall, pleaded guilty via video link from Exeter Prison, at Truro magistrates Court to assaulting a police officer.

He also pleaded guilty to being drunk, two charges of travelling on the railway without paying a fare, and two of threatening behaviour towards a train manager.

Something rather like shoveling out the Augean stables comes to mind for this lout.

The memorial held for Robert in B.C. right after his death

The mother of Robert Dziekanski admitted she was exhausted after trying for 2 ½ years to hold the RCMP accountable for their role in the taser-related death of her son at the Vancouver airport.

“My health is getting worse and I cannot sleep at night. I am very tired,” Mr. Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, told reporters after announcing that she had accepted an apology from the Mounties and an out-of-court settlement with the RCMP, the Canadian Border Services Agency and the Vancouver Airport Authority.

“I have to close this chapter,” she said. “I think I will sleep better, from today.”

Ms. Cisowski said she was not upset with authorities for prolonging the process and not apologizing earlier. “I am not angry, but now it is over and I feel much better, from today,” Ms. Cisowski said.

In a horrifying incident caught on video by another traveler, Mr. Dziekanski died on Oct. 14, 2007, after police tasered him five times. The Mounties were responding to a 911 call. Mr. Dziekanski was agitated after being in the airport for 11 hours after spending 20 hours in transit from Poland. He did not know his mother was waiting for him outside the airport arrivals area and did not figure out how to leave the area he was in. He was 40 years old. Ms. Cisowski filed a lawsuit last fall against the RCMP, the border services and airport authority…

Deputy Commissioner Bass said he hoped that public confidence in the RCMP would be restored following the settlement of Ms. Cisowski’s civil lawsuit and changes in RCMP policies, practices, training and reporting requirements related to the use of tasers…

I’ll bet he does.

The RCMP could have done things better, he said, but he refused to acknowledge mistakes were made. He declined to comment on the actions of police officers involved in the incident before the release of the report of retired B.C. judge Thomas Braidwood, who held a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the tasering of Mr. Dziekanski. The report is expected to be completed in June.

Ms. Cisowski said she accepted the apology, which she felt was more personal than the first one issued by the RCMP in May, 2009, in Ottawa. She was not looking for an apology from the officers who used the taser on her son, although she would like them to face consequences at their workplace. “That’s all. I do not want them charged criminally. That’s no help to me at all,” she said…

The report is coming out in June. What? Are they writing in big block letters with a soft pencil? They’ve had 2½ years to roll this out.

The TASER X12 includes Radial™ Ammunition Key technology to prevent the system from deploying lethal 12-gauge rounds in order to remove the possibility of end users accidentally firing a lethal round in a less-lethal system during high stress situations.

No other system on the market today prevents the operator from inadvertently deploying a lethal round. In addition, it incorporates a uniquely designed twist, rifled barrel that optimizes the performance of the XREP, ensuring that an optimum spin rate is imparted upon the projectile as it exits the barrel to ensure the greatest distance, stabilization, and accuracy possible.

More bang for the buck is always an easy sell.

Police officer defending himself from kitty scratch post

In a case that could set the first broad judicial standards for the use of Tasers, a federal appeals court in California has ruled that the police can be held liable for using one of the devices against an unarmed person during a traffic stop.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, said the electrically disabling device constituted excessive force when used against an unarmed man who did not pose a threat, and it refused to allow a police officer immunity for its use.

In a vividly worded opinion issued by the court this week, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw described a “bad morning” for Carl Bryan, a 21-year-old Californian who drove over large stretches of Southern California to retrieve car keys mistakenly taken by a friend and ended up being Tasered by a Coronado, Calif., policeman and breaking four teeth when he fell to the ground.

Mr. Bryan was stopped twice on his driving odyssey, once for speeding and once for not wearing his seat belt. After the second stop, he was “agitated, standing outside his car, yelling gibberish and hitting his thighs, clad only in his boxer shorts and tennis shoes,” the court said.

The judge noted, however, that Mr. Bryan did not threaten the officer, Brian McPherson, and was not trying to flee — all elements of a three-part test that the United States Supreme Court has used to determine when significant force is justified. As for the third factor in the court’s test, the severity of the offense at issue, the Ninth Circuit judges observed that “traffic violations generally will not support the use of a significant level of force.”

The court found that the policeman’s use of force so exceeded the threat posed by Mr. Bryan that it denied his request for immunity for his actions and for a quick dismissal of the case against him. Instead, the judges will allow the case to go forward.

Ah-hah! Wouldn’t it be nice, once in a while, if our government stepped away from the usual Federalist rationales and actually developed standards for law and jurisprudence – instead of wallowing around for several years, state by state, up through regional jurisdictions – just to establish something as simple as reasonable procedures?

Let the dweebs who refuse standards-based law waste their money on appeals.

Taser AXON

On Friday, a handful of San Jose police officers began three months of sporting a sophisticated audio-video recording device that Chief of Police Rob Davis described as “the way of the future” for law enforcement.

Eighteen officers started wearing the AXON devices as part of a pilot program with Taser, the developer. These primarily consisted of a headset that resembled a Bluetooth earpiece with an accompanying control device worn on the chest like a radio. AXON stands for “Autonomous Extended On-Officer Network,” according to Taser.

The small digital camera perches above an officer’s left ear and can record surprisingly high-quality video and sound with the touch of a button. The participating officers are required to activate the recording any time they instigate enforcement measures with a member of the public, Davis said…

The AXON headsets can produce “best evidence,” Davis said. A photo capture of a suspect at large is far more effective than a simple physical description. Footage of a suspect committing a crime can also become valuable evidence for prosecutors.

Davis said the department has developed new policies to align the cameras’ use with existing privacy laws. When asked if witnesses or others might be less inclined to talk to officers if they are recorded, Davis said that early interactions have gone well. “They just think it’s an earpiece,” he said.

Har!

You may have noticed who produces these little devices. Any ideas about future accessories involving electricity?