Gay porn star Dustin Michaels dies after cops Taser him as video cameras roll

Gay porn star Dustin Michaels dies after cops Taser him as video cameras roll

www.nydai lynews.com

Police attempted to handcuff Grande, who had reportedly swallowed a bag of marijuana. When he resisted, police Tasered him.

A camera crew from Zoo Productions was at the scene and captured the moments before the incident, as well as after.

Once he was struck by the powerful electrical jolt, Grande yanked the wires from his chest but showed signs of choking. Police tried to help, with one performing the Heimlich maneuver.

Every effort by police to remove the object from Grande’s throat failed.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Several things...

First, I did not watch the video because I feel like there are too many videos of people's actual deaths floating around, and I don't want to see another one.

I usually side with police on matters like this, but this time I don't think I will. It seems that he was flailing and resisting arrest because he was choking. In that case, he couldn't help himself. Does it really take three men and a taser to subdue a skinny guy who is choking?

I'm not sure if this is a case of the police getting lazy and relying on weapons to do jobs that shouldn't require them, or if the deeper issue is that the charges that stem from marijuana possession are so unduly harsh that this guy would rather attempt to swallow a bag of it than get caught with it.

I am absolutely not excusing him for breaking the law, flawed as it may or may not be.

Also, please try your best to ignore the fact that this tragedy involves a porn star. I've never seen any of his films so to me he is just another person. If it weren't against ATS rules I would have edited the 'gay porn star' part out of the title so it wasn't so sensational.

www.nydai lynews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

These cops are lame.

“If he’d ... allowed them to handcuff him, it would have been over,” the sheriff said. “This would not have happened.”

It would not have 'Been all over' this young man would have gone to prison for years, and these boneheads are surprised this guy swallowed the bag?

The stupid idiot shouldnt have tried to swallow the bag in the first place.

This guy is almost a darwin award candidate. I can see that the cop haters though will use this as another excuse to cry outv "police brutality", so I dont think there's going to be anymore reason to visit this thread.

Originally posted by OzWeatherman
The stupid idiot shouldnt have tried to swallow the bag in the first place.

Maybe it's the stupid laws in place that can JAIL a man for posessing a naturally grown substance that forced him to do something as silly as swallowing a bag.

Why are your police so weak these days anyway? Why do you all use weapons?

"The stupid idiot"? He panicked and made a mistake which any one of us could make in an unfamiliar situation holding something which is, imo unnecessarily, illegal. The fear of going to jail is strong enough for most people to hide evidence of what they should not have had on them - swallowing must have seemed a viable option at the time, as it would probably even to you Oz.

So, while you're wearing that ribbon on your avatar how about extending some courtesy to others who have passed recently, lest the same be extended in return upon your own passing.

A friend showed this video to me a couple of weeks ago and it's probably one of the most harrowing scenes to witness and try as you might you can't help but envisage the sheer terror of knowing what's coming, as this this poor guy did... I'll never forget that and just like the second poster said I've seen too many of these kinds of things, this just happened to be one of the worst. Not the police's fault, they tried to perform the Heimlich, even though he was doing it wrong, and they attempted to clear the airways. Lot's of 'what if's' and 'but's' to throw around however at the end of the day this was just a tragic accident, and in that there is no blame either way.

reply to post by OzWeatherman


i did not see anything in the video that was off, the cops did what had to do he resisted and struggled so they tazzed them when the officers saw that he was chocking they tried to help him, but i will say this the fact that the camera was there did change the way officers reacted

We currently live in a society with people so scared of the consequences of possessing a plant, they are willing to risk choking to death on a plastic bag rather than face those consequences.

Something's not right here.

they had him down and let him up to taze him...why let him up? these tazers have to go...i never seen the so called bag of pot but as soon as he road the lightning he started gasping for air like he swallowed his tonge.Maybe the bag came back up as soon as he was hit with the jolt.. dont know, but what i do know is these cops today throw that taser at anybody anytime..WHAT I WANT IS FOR ALL COPS TONIGHT IS TO TAKE A FORK AND STICK IT IN THE CLOSEST ELECTRIC SOCKET !!!! Hows it feel???

OK, I am not going to watch the video pretty much for the same reason as the OP. So I am no position to defend or condemn the police. What about the tazer though? Since the tazer is supposed to be an alternative to firing a gun, is the tazer use justified here? Had these three cops not had tazers, would shooting this man have been justified?

I don't think the police were expecting this result, It appears that the tasing was done before choking started, not quite in tune with the OP's opening thread. If there is a danger of using the taser when someone has something in his mouth, solid or otherwise, but which could block the airways as a direct result of using the taser, then the taser use should be withdrawn immediately.

reply to post by sc2099


At first I supported tazers because they were an alternative to firearms. But clearly they are being used as a run-of-the-mill compliance tool. Maybe the officer who tazed him may belong in prison. Tazers are only an acceptable alternative to firearms, not an alternative to wrestling someone to the ground who is wanted for a petty offense.

Cops would rather a man die than allow him to get away with a bit of pot....dear God..I know the cops have to enforce the law but we all have seen videos of cops grabbing peoples throats and choking them so they cannot swallow some petty contraband and avoid a charge. If they break the windpipe or cut off oxygen, well, better kill the guy and get the dope, huh? Sick,

The fault is in PROHIBITION. If not for stupid, useless, terrible, disastrous, historically proven to be a failure in all regards, damnnable policy that cannot exist in a sane world.

The definition of insanity, or at least one...is: " Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Everyone KNOWS that it is failed and stupid, but keep doing it because of POLITICS...the enemy of justice. The Bastiile needs storming and the elite sent to the guillotine.

thats the only way to get real change. Mussolini, Ceaucescu...they found out that the will of the people could not be stifled forever.

Instead of grabbing the suspects arm's these cops bailed, grabbed their tasers and fired. Don't the cops know if you have (3) officers and each one holds on to an arm the guy can't do anything? These cops need a lesson in how to restrain people.



[edit on 9-3-2010 by ExPostFacto]

what happened to the old days of tj hooker you just chuck your billy club at his legs if hes running away down he goes this gives the pig time to get to the trough to eat
why are so many of these tasers used when it looks like they allready have the person is there some time limit to how fast a cop has to get the handcuffs on a person and into the jail cell

how do you police take your jobs so seriously to take a life over speeding or possession of plant is it really worth a life to you police

when does law just become some stupid words on a page someone should have erased decades ago

Originally posted by star in a jar
These cops are lame.

“If he’d ... allowed them to handcuff him, it would have been over,” the sheriff said. “This would not have happened.”

It would not have 'Been all over' this young man would have gone to prison for years, and these boneheads are surprised this guy swallowed the bag?

If the bag was small enough to swallow . . . . chances are it wasn't enough to go to prison for. I don't know about elsewhere but in Missouri where marijuana law is heavily enforced anything less than 35 grams is considered a misdemeanor.

This is not however justification for tasering the guy. I agree that alot of cops are quick to draw their stun guns these days, but not all cops are bad most of them are just doing there jobs.

I'd have to say chalk this on up to timing. Bad choices coupled with fear caused him to act irrationaly at thw wrong time and it cost him his life. I don't think the taser caused him to choke nor did it kill him.

Like I said the cops may have jumped the gun on the use of less than lethal force, but if anything it was just a case of **it happens. He shouldn't have swallowed the bag, the cops should have been more observant during the arrest.

Sorry for the shameless self promotion, but I just posted a thread today on the lucrative business of private prisons, the astonishing increase in the amount of prisoners and the fact that 30-40% are victimless crimes such as dealing in Marihuana.

If someone wants to get their wife a small bag of mary jane once a month to help with menstrual cramps - or whatever medical reason at that - what is so horribly wrong with that?

Oh right, it's like stealing from Big Pharma...

C'mon people, not all marihuana dealers are the scum of the earth that need to be put behind bars.

It's time for us to get our priorities straight.

This man would be alive and well, and many others, including many DEA and law enforcement officers, if we got with the program and joined the many progressive countries already in the 21st century.

Originally posted by truthquest
reply to post by sc2099

 

At first I supported tazers because they were an alternative to firearms. But clearly they are being used as a run-of-the-mill compliance tool. Maybe the officer who tazed him may belong in prison. Tazers are only an acceptable alternative to firearms, not an alternative to wrestling someone to the ground who is wanted for a petty offense.

Oh come on. The article states there were only three trained cops there. How do you expect 3 cops to subdue one skinny pot smoker without electrocuting him?

reply to post by Pr0t0

Originally posted by Pr0t0
Not the police's fault, they tried to perform the Heimlich, even though he was doing it wrong, and they attempted to clear the airways. Lot's of 'what if's' and 'but's' to throw around however at the end of the day this was just a tragic accident, and in that there is no blame either way.

The police officers certainly were doing their jobs, following the book to the letter (as far as I can tell). As soon as they noticed something was wrong, they tried to do what they could.


Still, I would like to throw a 'but' in here. While I like tasers better than guns, to me this event is just another in which the use of the taser only worsened the situation. Again, the LEO's were most likely doing exactly what they're supposed to do in a situation; the violent movements of the choking man almost flung two officers to the ground, and they were losing control of his body, as it were.

To me it's this protocol that could use some improvement. I know taser policies differ from state to state (bureau to bureau even?) - but using them to control a person physically resisting arrest seems to be one of the common rules (am I in the ballpark?). Once again, I'd rather have tasers than guns, but what I'd like to see most of all is some restraint. I'm no officer nor is my job as stressful or dangerous, so I'm obviously in no position to criticize; still, it strikes me as unnecessary to taser one person without weapons when that person is not exceptionally strong and outnumbered by officers. There are many, many ways to get someone down on his feet (and if I'm not mistaken, officers are trained to use these kind of techniques). I'm not saying the taser shouldn't be used; I'm sure many times it's an absolute life-saver. I'm just saying the officers could be a bit creative, using their intuition to try to see why the person is resisting, and subsequently deciding whether they should taser, tackle, or help the person.

But I realise that there are multiple reasons not to do it like I proposed; most importantly, it's probably impossible to write rules dealing with 'intuition' and 'individual decisions'. Apart from that, officers get to deal with the scum of the earth, and subsequently see more evil than the average person - when I watch the video, it's obvious to me from the very first moment that he resists, that something is wrong (because he was cooperating before, because he wasn't directing his movements at the officers, because he doesn't get up to run or fight but to bend over), but the officers probably focused mainly on the aspects of someone swallowing the evidence for a felony (misdemeanor? not sure) and subsequently throwing off two officers. Once again I can't judge about what perspectives are best or practical, but it all just seems 'askew' to me. Maybe an officer can shed light on the vast difference between those two perspectives? And why the rules / policies always favor the more cynical (and apparently not always safer!) perspective?

I'm not implying he wouldn't have choked if he wasn't tasered - rather how those few seconds in which he was tasered could have been used for helping. Could they?

If tasering causes an involuntary, albeit temporary gasping for air, you can almost see what could have happened in this case, grounds for banning it's use, immediately. I have seen a report also of an aerosol sniffer being tased, and being set on fire.