Man falls to death after police stun gun shock

Man falls to death after police stun gun shock

news.yahoo.com

NEW YORK - A naked, distraught man fell to his death after a police officer shocked him with a Taser stun gun as he stood on a building ledge, authorities said.

The man, Inman Morales, 35, was pronounced dead at a hospital after his nearly 10-foot fall Wednesday. Police said he suffered serious head trauma when he hit the sidewalk.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is ridiculous. WHEN ARE WE GOING TO STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT!??! I mean, Holy Hell, our soldiers are off in a foreign land, supposedly fighting and dying for Freedom and Democracy, yet here at home, Freedom and Democracy are quickly becoming a memory of what once was. When will this madness stop? When will you all get mad enough to stand up and do something about the way things are? What will it take?

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The lieutenant who directed the use of the stun gun was stripped of his gun and badge, and the officer who shocked Morales was placed on desk duty as the investigation continues. Their names were not released.

Witnesses and neighbors said Morales had become distraught and threatened to kill himself earlier in the day. When police arrived in response to a 911 call, he fled naked out the window of his third-floor apartment, clambered down to a ledge and began jabbing at officers with an 8-foot-long fluorescent light.

Seems to be more of an accident if you ask me. Both parties acted stupidly.

[edit on 25-9-2008 by 44soulslayer]

I can judge because he was swinging a light. A LIGHT! Not a gun, Not a Sword, nothing that could have possibly ended the officer's life or put his life in danger. No one will ever know why the man was naked, or why he was distressed. But what we do know is that he was NOT an immediate threat to the officers. The situation should have been handled differently.

As always, more to the story....

Reporting it partially helps one's agenda.

Originally posted by elevatedone

Witnesses and neighbors said Morales had become distraught and threatened to kill himself earlier in the day. When police arrived in response to a 911 call, he fled naked out the window of his third-floor apartment, clambered down to a ledge and began jabbing at officers with an 8-foot-long fluorescent light.

As always, more to the story....

Reporting it partially helps one's agenda.

But surely, if the man is perched on a ledge - 10ft off the floor - even an 8ft long fluorescent light isn't that much of a serious threat. The police would have only have had to stand about 12 to 15ft away from the base of the building and they'd have been out of the man's "jabbing" range. That's plenty of distance to communicate with the man until the situation had de-escalated.

Even the potential threat of him throwing the light is diminished when you consider that the man is on a ledge and must have limited footing and his back against a wall. It would have been certainly difficult for him to launch it like a javelin.

[edit on 25-9-2008 by Merriman Weir]

reply to post by Merriman Weir



You're speaking from the perspective of reasonableness and compassion.
And perhaps you're one who is able to remember a time (not all that long ago) when most police had a similar mindset and would have handled the situation differently .. and with a little intelligence.

But these days, as we see so often, police seem to have forgotten their role. They have tasers now. They like to use them, apparently. And the authorities seem to be encouraging them to do so at the slightest opportunity.

Wondering now if those feel-good coverages of police gently removing kittens from trees will be replaced by police zapping kittens dead with their handy tasers.

The message appears to be: ' life's cheap'

We're getting the message, aren't we ?

Originally posted by 44soulslayer


Seems to be more of an accident if you ask me. Both parties acted stupidly.

I hope you're joking because if not, this is pretty dumb comment.

An accident? Why would a cop even think about tasering an unarmed citizen perched and a ledge of a building. This shows intent to do harm not to protect the officers. Also keep in mind that no attempt was made to catch the man after he fell. Anybody with an IQ of let's say 80 would know you are going to fall down after getting hit by a taser, and you'd have to assume he's going to fall forward without the use to soften to fall due to being tased bro.

This is clear intent to do bodily harm on a person that was no threat to anyone else other than himself. And of course the cops took care of that threat by killing him.


[edit on 25-9-2008 by JimBeam]

When I was younger, my friends and I used to hit each other with long fluorescent tubes like the one being described in this article, and yes they'd shatter. Guess what, it doesn't hurt, nor is it anywhere near life threatening.

These acts of police irresponsibility no longer surprise me. But I agree, people need to start standing up.

Originally posted by Dock6
reply to post by Merriman Weir

 

You're speaking from the perspective of reasonableness and compassion.
And perhaps you're one who is able to remember a time (not all that long ago) when most police had a similar mindset and would have handled the situation differently .. and with a little intelligence.

Yeah, sorry. That was a bit silly of me.

But these days, as we see so often, police seem to have forgotten their role. They have tasers now. They like to use them, apparently. And the authorities seem to be encouraging them to do so at the slightest opportunity.

I've not seen a picture of the ledge that the poor bloke was stood on. I'm assuming - perhaps wrongly - that this similar to the kind of ledge you see in films that periodically skirt the outside of 'brownstone' buildings where adulterous lovers or spies hide until the coast is clear. Were they using the deployed wires of the taser like a shepherd's crook to just simply pull him off the ledge? They surely must have known that if you taser someone on a ledge, they're going to come off that ledge, and even a 10ft drop, if you're incapacitated, it's going to end badly.

Is there some weight capacity issue regarding the equipping of taser-armed police? "Yeah, see, that taser has tipped you over now; you're too heavy. We'll take your brain as you're not going to be needing it much now anyway and it will drop a little bit of the weight. ssnnuukk!!! Got it! You're under the weight now and good to go. Oh, here's a napkin, you've got drool all over your shirt".

Here's the ledge.

[image]

www.nypost.com...
[/image]

reply to post by Merriman Weir


Wow. Just found this one. I guess this is where he really feel from.

www.nypost.com...

Un-freakin-believeable!

www.nypost.com...

www.nypost.com...



[edit on 25-9-2008 by JimBeam]

I think, the only explanation of this situation is police-on-drugs

as, really, shooting with taser to somebody who plays in a "star wars" with a lamp... no, I really do not see any other explanation which could be rational

as usual, nobody will be blame and everything was done with procedures
short investigation
and
nothing will happen

all I can say - dont care, here in east europe with "democrasy" we have the same problem

police came to be much more brutal and they feel as "untouchable" - and of course, over the law

I don't understand the reasoning behind using a tazer on someone who is suicidal and at that particular moment in time was a danger to no one other than himself. He wasn't threatening the police, or anyone else with a deadly weapon. Had he took it upon himself to jump from that hieght he may have suffered some broken bones, but i doubt he would've been dead.


I also don't understand why only the lieutenant that ordered the use of the tazer was stripped of his badge and gun. The officer that actually fired it was only put on desk duty, he should have also been stripped of his badge and gun. Following the orders of a superior is no excuse for going against policy and endangering someone's life.


They both should be fired, their actions caused the loss of a human life. I hope the victim of that police brutality has family members that will sue the crap out of the city as well as pressure the DA to press charges against them for murder. They murdered that man plain and simple. They were well aware of what could happen if they used a tazer on someone on an elevated surface and they proceeded to do it anyway, which shows that they had no concern for his life what so ever.

They need to ban the use of tazers all together, the police force is obviously incapable of using them correctly and seem to have become over zealous in their use of them.

I long for the day when time and money can stop being wasted on suicidal cases. Just let them jump, or stab themselves or whatever them throw the corpse in the back of a bus and we can get on with out lives.

I get so sick of reading stories of cops spending hours talking down some idiot who will just go back to being an idiot when released from the hospital (which costs us all even more money).

It's a free country, right? People should be free to kill themselves. Even nut-jobs shouting on ledges.

reply to post by paradigm619


Thats a pretty stupid thing to do, they contain mercury, all flourescant lights do.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere




Then you'll doubtless be thrilled with this thread and source, right ?

Because the police now have an answer to your being 'sick and tired' of suicidal beings ... they just taser them, drop them on their heads and presto --- YOUR life can continue with nil loss of time or energy !

Originally posted by JimBeam
reply to post by Merriman Weir

 

Wow. Just found this one. I guess this is where he really feel from.

www.nypost.com...

Un-freakin-believeable!

www.nypost.com...

www.nypost.com...



[edit on 25-9-2008 by JimBeam]

Thanks for that. That merely confirms what I believed in the first place. Absolutely no threat to the police at all. The guy had pretty much backed himself into a corner and by simply backing off a few feet, the light wouldn't have even been able to reach them. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, these lights are pretty fragile and are hardly a substantial weapon.

I know the blokes genitals have been blurred out in these photographs, but it's really the police in these pictures that could do with growing a set of bollocks if they were intimidated by this poor swine.

reply to post by elevatedone


Yes, reporting in partially does INDEED help ones angenda....

"None of the ... officers on the scene were positioned to break his fall, nor did they devise a plan in advance to do so," said chief department spokesman Paul Browne.

And the rest

Browne said guidelines specifically prohibit the use of stun guns when the subject may fall from an elevated surface.

I think your point was that they were just doing their job. Whereas the REST of the article clearly shows that they were doing it BADLY. Which of course is the WHOLE issue with the police having Tasers.

Tasers...IF USE CORRECTLY..are a good idea. But unfortunately they are now used by tweeky little bastards with a taser-happy-trigger-finger..as a SUBSTITUTE for for DOING THIER JOB. Can't be arsed to "talk them down"?? Just TASE 'em, that'll do it.

So i appreciate what you're saying, but i for one don't agree...for the most part anyway.

Cheers.

AoN

[edit on 25-9-2008 by Anomic of Nihilism]

reply to post by 44soulslayer


How do you accidently tazer someone, especially someone that is eight feet above you ? Did they "accidently" violate police procedure and policy also?


It was no accident, the lieutenant gave the order to use the tazer on the man.

No one acted stupidly. The police acted maliciously, and the victim acted like a person with mental and emotional problems that was not in his correct state of mind.