Man dies in police custody

Man dies in police custody

www.registercitizen.com

MIDDLETOWN -- A 35-year-old man died Monday night after a struggle with police who responded to his home along with emergency medical technicians for a medical call.

Middletown police officers arrived at 7223 Town Ridge around 8 p.m. Monday on a report of a despondant male in need of medical assistance and placed Efrain Carrion in handcuffs to allow EMS personnel to examine him, according to state police.

Carrion allegedly became agitated and began to struggle with police, and he was tasered multiple times by officers trying to control him, state police said. Held in double handcuffs, wh

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[edit on 5/26/2010 by semperfortis]

It seems that more and more deaths are occurring as a result of taser deployments by police officers. The sad thing is that because the taser is seen as a "less than lethal" measure, cops deploy it without hesitation and in some cases, wholly unwarranted.


I think we all know what this means, they most likely took him to the "wooded area" to tan his hide and then the poor sap died.

I'm not condemning these particular cops because I simply don't know all of the facts but I can say that tasers are being deployed far to frequently. I think that cops should have to go through the same requirements and paperwork for firing their taser, as they do for firing their weapon. Of course this won't solve the problem but it just may reduce it and at least that's a start.

--airspoon

Note: This post is not meant to bash cops and more importantly, this post is not meant to bash the cops in question. Rather, this post and the news article is to point out an obvious problem, the problem of police officers using tasers when they aren't needed.


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[edit on 5/26/2010 by semperfortis]

Originally posted by airspoon

I'm not condemning these particular cops because I simply don't know all of the facts but I can say that tasers are being deployed far to frequently.

Tasers are implements of torture.

If the cop is so threatened, he should kill the man with a gun - not engage in electrotorture.

*If they didn't need to blow him away with a gun, they didn't need to torture him with electricity.





[edit on 26-5-2010 by Exuberant1]

They guy was double cuffed !! how hard could it be to control him, really ???

He was probably tazing him because he was not following orders to get up, ..... which he could not do because he was already incapacitated or dead by that time.

Well at least this piece of trash with a badge didn't lie in his report and say the medic's paddles werent working so he used his tazer to try and restart the guys heart.

reply to post by Exuberant1


I can go with that, however, many cops aren't black-hearted and trigger happy. Hypothetically speaking, if I was all cracked out and decided to go beat a police officer, I sure would rather him tase me than shoot me. I'm certainly not justifying the act, however it is more humane that killing or seriously wounding.

I'm not justifying or condemning these cops because I don't know what happened as I wasn't there. For all we know, this guy could have been trying to kill these officers and they *tried to spare his life by tasing him instead of shooting him. Regardless of whether I think it is right or not that the cops even bothered him, they were just doing their job to put food in their kids mouth.

With that being said, I don't really agree with police mandate and believe that 99% of police interaction is wrong and oppressive. Also, I suspect that they were just beating the crap out of him and tasing him for their own sick amusement, ultimately resulting in his death. But because I don't have any proof, save for some circumstantial evidence at the moment, I can't really condemn.

--airspoon

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by Exuberant1

 

For all we know, this guy could have been trying to kill these officers and they *tried to spare his life by tasing him instead of shooting him.

That is how most people will rationalize this man being tortured to death (they tortured him, then he died; tortured to death).

reply to post by IntastellaBurst


When you say double cuffed, do you mean he was handcuffed and then had another pair of handcuffs placed next to the other handcuffs? Ever think that because the article said he was a large man the cops use of double handcuffs was in linking one pair to the other so to actually be able to handcuff him? Doing that would explain why he was able to get his hands in front of him so he could attack the police dog.

It all comes down to the size of this guy and the medical problem he was facing. If this guy was large enough to need two cuffs to cuff him, then multiple charges from a tazer are going to be needed. It does take more charges to bring a bigger guy down like any other force used, except maybe from a firearm. As the article shows, the guy was able enough to flee the cops even after being tazed so the tazer was not the sole reason he died.

Plus, a despondent and agitated individual in need of medical assistance is truly a dangerous and unpredictable person to all involved. Given the totality of the circumstances, an individual of his size and mental condition rules tasing to be the minimum level of force needed so to protect the individual and emergency personnel.

What I'm not sure about is why they had a K-9 unit there to control him. I think the cops wanted to use the dog to scare the guy into submission, which goes to show that even after being tazed he was combative, but I think that in that person's altered mental state of mind it only had an agitated effect.

After reading the story, I mean, geez... they used a "police dog" to "help calm him" after he was already double handcuffed. Then it says that he choked a police dog as he tried to "flee".

Now wait a second.. how do you flee when you're hog tied?? Not only that, but he was able to choke the police dog, so the dog was close enough to bite his head off while he was double handcuffed.

Not only that, but then they took him into the back woods while he's double handcuffed and tasered him to death.

I'll let the ATS cops "wait for the truth to come out", but I'm gonna have to use common sense on this one. I just don't buy it.

reply to post by airspoon


We are in Hell man. This earth is a hell full of nasty little demons who think they are people.

I don't know what I did to have to be born on this earth but it must have been bad.

The threads on ATS along with a lot of the responses seriously scare the crap out of me. They make me want to drop my whole life and live as a hermit in some remote aria where I won't have to be around you people.

This was a medical call and some how the guy ended up double cuffed and had a police dog calm him before he was tased to death......

These Cops are not human, they are not animals, they are what children fear at night, that is what they are.

I am in Hell...there is no other way to look at this world.

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst
Well at least this piece of trash with a badge didn't lie in his report and say the medic's paddles werent working so he used his tazer to try and restart the guys heart.

You cannot restart someone’s heart with electricity, and if an officer did in fact try that he would probably be liable for it. Paddles, or what we actually call defibrillators, are used to knock the heart out of a dangerous arrhythmia pattern, they stop the heart, but they do not restart it. They are only used that way in the movies and on TV for drama purposes. The only way to restart someone’s heart is by doing CPR, injecting the correct medications, and hoping they have an escape beat so the heart recovers on its own.


[edit on 5/26/2010 by defcon5]

Well all we know right now is that some big guy was "in need of medical assistance" that he didn't want or possibly even need, and for some reason cops thought it would be okay to sic a dog on him and taze him.

Someone that needed medical assistance. And they used a dog and tazer on him.

God, why would people ever bash police

Typical mob activity......
The cops get lynchy too sometimes and when they do somebody usually dies....
Look at what the RCMP did to that polish dude in vancouver....
four officers tasered him to death too....
The truth is the cops are just barely above being bouncer level mentality in the first place....
We need to pick a different psychological profile for police officers....
perhaps we could try people with compassion, intelligence, and a higher moral character sometime?

The article is poorly written and really doesn't provide decent info.

Despite being handcuffed the man still managed to get his hands in front, actually injured five officers and a dog, and got far enough away (into the woods) to suggest he was really wired. Big men can 'deal with' tasing too well sometimes--as is obvious. Unfortunately, tasing someone who has a health condition can kill them as effectively as a gun can depending on that condition.

There is no actual report on why the man's physical and mental health were so severely messed up that an otherwise normal paramedics call ended up with multiple officers struggling with him. IMO if they'd just cuffed and tased him to death there wouldn't have been 5 uniforms treated for 'non-life-threatening injuries' at the hospital. Clearly a whole lot of struggle/fight went on.

That's very sad. One assumes someone else called 911 and if the paramedics could have done their job without serious injury the officers wouldn't have been needed at all. Maybe the next few days will see a follow up article with more information.

RC

What ever the circumstances...

The case should be reviewed by a citizens review board. Not just LEO internal affairs.

The practice of law enforcement being judge, jury and executioner needs to end.

reply to post by RedCairo

The reason why this article is short on information is because there is only little information to go on. All of the local news stations and news papers are basically reporting the same things. The media seems to be taking the side of the police and blaming it on the victim being combative and choking police dog. I believe this is the story that the police are sticking to and with the media willing to take their side, they are going to get away with it. So, this article is stating the same story that the actual police department is stating.

--airspoon

Thank you for clearing that up. Useless incitive article given the lack of info. RC

Originally posted by defcon5
[You cannot restart someone’s heart with electricity, and if an officer did in fact try that he would probably be liable for it. Paddles, or what we actually call defibrillators, are used to knock the heart out of a dangerous arrhythmia pattern, they stop the heart, but they do not restart it. They are only used that way in the movies and on TV for drama purposes. The only way to restart someone’s heart is by doing CPR, injecting the correct medications, and hoping they have an escape beat so the heart recovers on its own.
[edit on 5/26/2010 by defcon5]

Thank you for posting this. This is the first bit of logical information in this thread. We see the medics use defibrillators on tv to start peoples hearts, which it simply wont do, and others will swear that's how the paddles work.

It doesn't take more hits with the taser to subdue a larger person than a smaller person. This isn't how electricity works. An electrical short circut of any kind work in the same way, now if we were talking amperage and not voltage then on..more is more bad..so to speak.

No the cops arrive at a med call to find a person needing medical help, obviously distressed and they need to taser him and set the dog on to him?
Yep, just another day in paradise. We have got to tape, record and archive every freaking interaction with the police every time.

Now true..I wasn't there, and the only non dead people were going to hear any kind of story from is either the police, or the emt's who will side with the cops if they ever expect any other kind of help in the future.

..Ex

edit spelin

[edit on 5/26/2010 by v3_exceed]

This is why I don't buy this.

1. Police officers are trained to apply handcuffs properly. Always behind the back.



2. The police dogs. To all those who have never seen a police dog in action. Remember this video and think of how "calming" it is.



3. Taser would pretty well calm anyone down.



4. They took him to the woods, where no one could see and calmed him down and he just so happened to end up dead? Yeah ok!

I'm sorry but this story doesn't add up... not at all!

[edit on 26-5-2010 by DaMod]

reply to post by DaMod


I live not that far away from this town, trust me it happened. Whether the police are lying or not, I have no idea but it was on every local news channel. A guy did die from a police encounter that day, in that town and that is the story that the police department gave.

Other sources:
www.wtic.com...
nhregister.com...
www.middletownpress.com...
articles.courant.com...

--airspoon

[edit on 26-5-2010 by airspoon]