Do Cops Just Tase People for Fun Now?

If we are focused on militarization of our nation's police
departments, we are missing the bigger picture. The growing violence
and the appearance of an armored division, even in many of our small
towns, is a result of a growing violent nature within our Corporate
Empire. Under the greedy desires of the Ruling Class, we are breeding
a nation of professional killers. From the games our children are
exposed to, and on through the conditioning by the TV cartoons and the
reading materials pushed by the mass media, we are twisting the
innocent minds of new born babes into violent, angry little puppets,
ready to serve their masters.
Perhaps you have not yet felt the boot of the Master's Robots. You
may live in a gated community, where the police stand guard protecting
you from the "rabble".
Or you may be one of those fortunate folk who still cling to a Middle
Class life style, living in a mostly White neighborhood, among "Your
Kind". You teach your young to keep their noses clean and they will
stay out of trouble...maybe. But more and more often our young are
being used for target practice, especially our children of Color.
But before we blame the police, or even our Masters, we need to look
in the mirror. We are allowing our minds to be dragged toward the
Gates of Hell. We do not need to go there. We do hold the final
power...the Power of the Masses.
If we don't like having our police force armed to the teeth, take away
their arms. Turn our police into Peace Keepers. Turn our Corporate
Empire into a democracy. Send our Ruling Masters straight to Hell.

Carl Jarvis


On 8/28/14, S. Kashdan <skashdan@scn.org> wrote:
> Do Cops Just Tase People for Fun Now?
>
>
>
> By Steven Rosenfeld [2]
>
>
>
> AlterNet [1], August 26, 2014 |
>
>
>
> http://www.alternet.org/print/civil-liberties/do-cops-just-tase-people-fun-now
>
>
>
> On the first Sunday in August, Brandon Ruff, an offduty sergeant with the
> Philadelphia Police Department, was given three guns by a friend who wanted
>
> to turn them in to the police under the city's no-questions-asked firearms
> policy. Little did Ruff know when he walked into a station at 6:30pm, that
> by midnight he would be assaulted by a half-dozen police officers using
> Tasers--stun guns delivering up to 50,000 volts--arrested, thrown in a cell,
>
> and put under a police investigation.
>
>
>
> "You are a piece of f**king sh*t, you are scum, and you are supervisor. You
>
> are a disgrace to me, this department and the 35th District. You do not
> belong on this job," a desk sergeant yelled at Ruff, after he produced his
> police ID, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit [3] filed by the
> officer on Monday, seeking damages and a court review of cops who use "their
>
> status as police officers to have persons falsely arrested, assaulted and
> [subject to] malicious prosecution and unlawfully searched... to achieve
> ends not reasonably related to their police duties."
>
>
>
> Excessive use of force by police is hardly new. But it is unusual when a
> police officer points the finger at abuses by fellow cops, as Ruff does in
> his lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania. When Ruff identified himself as a cop,
> one officer shouted back, "I'll fucking tase you," the lawsuit said. A
> half-dozen other officers then ambushed him as he stepped outside to make a
>
> telephone call, grabbing him, roughing him up, shocking him and finally
> arresting him.
>
>
>
> Ruff's suit was one of two filed in federal court Monday citing police
> brutality and Tasers. In his suit, Ruff said that Philadelphia police were
> "deliberately indifferent" to the need for "more or different" training,
> supervision, investigation and discipline in for "false arrest... [and]
> evidence planting." Ruff said the department also turned a blind eye to
> "police officers with emotional or psychological problems."
>
>
>
> The second federal lawsuit [4] filed Monday over Taser abuse, in San
> Bernardino County in southeast California, concerned eight deputy sheriffs
> who routinely tortured prisoners at a jail with Tasers, even sharing videos
>
> of the assaults for entertainment. The victim, Cesar Vazquez, was regularly
>
> attacked while working in the jail's kitchen. The lawsuit has even more
> graphic details than Ruff's cop-on-cop violence:
>
>
>
> Vazquez "was given a job within the [West Valley Detention] Center as a
> 'chow server;' in that job, Plaintiff was to possess greater privileges than
>
> other inmates, including telephone calls, television time, and freedom of
> movement within the Center," the suit said. "Soon after starting this job,
> Plaintiff was told by [San Bernadino County Sheriff Department Captain
> Robert] Escamilla and [Deputy Sherrif Russell] Kopasz that these two
> deputies used a Taser or other electroshock weapon on, or 'tased,' all chow
>
> servers as part of an 'initiation' process."
>
>
>
> "Escamilla and Kopasz then proceeded to place their weapons on the
> Plaintiff's
> upper thighs, and produced a shock to the Plaintiff's body, causing pain so
>
> intense that Plaintiff leapt to his feet; Escamilla and Kopasz each
> laughed," the suit said, noting that they tased Vazquez once a week or more.
>
> "On another occasion, while Plaintiff and other inmates were watching
> television, Escamilla approached them and said that he was going to hold a
> 'taser seminar,'" the suit continued. "Escamilla told Plaintiff to sit down
>
> so that the deputies could try to break the Plaintiff's 'record' of the
> number of electroshock weapons Plaintiff could endure at a time."
>
>
>
> The suit said that Vazquez "cooperated" with another string of taser
> assaults by [Deputy Sheriff Nicholas] Oakley "since Oakley used a threat of
>
> physical harm... which Plaintiff considered more serious than the possible
> tasing." The suit said another deputy sheriff, Andrew Cruz, "tased Plaintiff
>
> between 20 and 30 times... while housed at the facility," between March and
>
> December 2013.
>
>
>
> Both lawsuits say a range of constitutional rights were violated, starting
> with freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and due judicial process.
> The California suit seeks $30 million in damages; the Philadelphia suit
> doesn't specify a figure, but calls on the court to look at the
> "psychological problems" among officers using Tasers.
>
>
>
> AlterNet has long documented [5] abusive policing and misuse of Tasers.
> Civil liberties groups such as the New York Civil Liberties Union have
> issued reports on police misuse of Tasers. In late 2011, the NYCLU found [6]
>
> that in 75 percent of incidents where New York police had used Tasers, the
> cops issued no verbal warning. In only 15 percent of incidents involving
> Taser use, the target was "armed or thought to be armed," NYCLU found.
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, the San Bernardino branch of the NAACP held [7] a press
> conference with the widow of Dante Parker, a 36-year-old African-American
> man who was tasered by county sheriff deputies on August 12 and later died
> at a hospital. The NAACP was calling on the federal government to take over
>
> the investigation into Parker's death, as the Department of Justice is doing
>
> with Michael Brown's killing in Ferguson, MO.
>
>
>
> "We are asking for transparent accountability as to what happened to Mr.
> Parker's encounter with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputies and how
>
> and why did Mr. Parker die in their custody," Samuel Carl Jr., Victor Valley
>
> NAACP president, said [7]. "While this instance regarding Mr. Parker's death
>
> is heartbreaking and all the questions and answers have yet to be known, we
>
> also stand here today with the realization that African-Americans are dying
>
> at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve the community in record
> numbers."
>
>
>
> The family's lawyer told [7] the San Bernardino Sun that "the evidence will
>
> show in this case that this did not happen as the deputies described it."
> The newspaper cited remarks by his widow, Bianca Carlisle Parker, who is
> left with five children:
>
>
>
> Bianca Parker said since her husband's death, her youngest son, 6-year-old
> Dan'te Parker, has asked every morning "Why all black men have to die?"
>
>
>
> "He was our provider, he was the rock of our family," she said, beginning to
>
> sob. "And I don't want to go through life being a bitter person but I feel
> myself having a whole bunch of anger and I'm not an angry person. I'm very
> forgiving, and it's not right. He taught me how to be a better person. He
> taught me how to not be prideful. He taught me how to apologize to people.
> We've known each other since we were 13. This is not just some dude off the
>
> street. He was a loving, caring father."
>
>
>
> The more one looks for examples of police brutality and excessive weapon
> use, the more one finds. George Curry, editor in chief of the National
> Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, wrote [8] after Michael
> Brown's
> killing that estimates based on incomplete reporting by police agencies
> across America suggest that white police are killing African Americans at a
>
> much higher rate than is admitted.
>
>
>
> "According to stats compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice, an unarmed
> African American died at the hands of an armed white police officer at the
> rate of nearly two per week from 2005 to 2012. Over that 8-year-period, 400
>
> police killings were reported per year. White officers killed a black
> person, on average, 96 times per year.
>
>
>
> "As bad as those figures are, they grossly understate the problem. The FBI
> statistics are based on the voluntary reporting of local law enforcement
> jurisdictions. Currently, approximately 750 of 17,000 law enforcement
> agencies regularly report their figures to the FBI. That means if the ratio
>
> holds true for all 17,000 agencies, the annual 96 black deaths at the hands
>
> of white cops could be as high as 2,170 a year or almost 42 (41.73) per
> week--nearly six per day (5.94).
>
>
>
> Curry said that a conservative estimate--based on cutting those numbers in
> half--would still mean three deaths at police hands daily. Of course, not
> every person shocked with a Taser dies. But police agencies across America
> certainly know that Tasers can be very dangerous, if not fatal.
>
>
>
> In March, San Francisco police responded to a report of a young man with a
> Taser in a city park in a neighborhood that's become a Silicon Valley
> bedroom community. Police ended up shooting and killing Alex Nieto, 28, in
> an incident that prompted his family to file a federal civil rights lawsuit
>
> [9] against the city this past Friday.
>
>
>
> "In the aftermath of the incident, the City and County of San Francisco
> ('CCSF') and the involved Officers claimed Alex defied Officers' orders and
>
> pointed a taser at them," the suit said. "To date, CCSF has refused to
> release the involved Officers' names. Instead, CCSF has engaged in a media
> campaign to besmirch Alex's reputation as a well known San Francisco
> resident who never sustained a single arrest."
>
>
>
> On Monday, the media covered the funeral of Michael Brown. The same day, two
>
> federal lawsuits were filed on different ends of the country, including one
>
> by a police officer, saying that police are using tasers to unnecessarily
> assault civilians and torture prisoners.
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, in the same county where a Latino man was mercilessly attacked
> by sheriff's deputies, the NAACP called on the FBI to take over the
> investigation of yet another police killing involving excessive force and
> Tasers. That same day in Georgia, the lawyer for the family of a man who
> died in April after being tased 13 times held a press conference saying [10]
>
> police didn't follow their own rules for using tasers, prompting the police
>
> to say that man, Gregory Towns, died from other causes.
>
>
>
> And in San Francisco, Alex Nieto's family is still waiting for answers about
>
> why their son was killed by police.
>
>
>
> [11]
>
>
>
> See more stories tagged with:
>
>
>
> tasers [12],
>
>
>
> police brutality [13],
>
>
>
> police killings by Tasers [14],
>
>
>
> naacp [15],
>
>
>
> San Bernardino Sheriffs and Dante Parker [16],
>
>
>
> San Bernadino Sheriffs and Cesar Vazquez [17],
>
>
>
> Philadelphia Police Sgt. Brandon Ruff [18],
>
>
>
> michael brown [19],
>
>
>
> Alex Nieto and San Francisco Police [20]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/do-cops-just-tase-people-fun-now
>
>
>
> Links:
>
>
>
> [1] http://alternet.org
>
>
>
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld
>
>
>
> [3] http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/08/26/70754.htm
>
>
>
> [4] http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/08/26/70763.htm
>
>
>
> [5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/taser-abuse
>
>
>
> [6]
> http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-analysis-finds-misuse-of-tasers-police-across-ny-state
>
>
>
> [7]
> http://www.sbsun.com/government-and-politics/20140819/naacp-calls-for-accountability-in-dante-parkers-police-custody-death
>
>
>
> [8]
> http://www.stlamerican.com/news/columnists/guest_columnists/article_00fb7d1e-27dd-11e4-bc3a-001a4bcf887a.html
>
>
>
> [9]
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/237546801/Refugio-Nieto-and-Elvira-Nieto-v-City-and-County-of-San-Francisco-et-al-8-22-2014
>
>
>
> [10]
> http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/27/georgia-cops-fired-taser-13-times-as-a-cattle-prod-to-make-tired-man-walk-before-he-died/
>
>
>
> [11] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Do Cops Just Tase
> People for Fun Now?
>
>
>
> [12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/tasers
>
>
>
> [13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/police-brutality
>
>
>
> [14] http://www.alternet.org/tags/police-killings-tasers
>
>
>
> [15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/naacp
>
>
>
> [16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/san-bernardino-sheriffs-and-dante-parker
>
>
>
> [17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/san-bernadino-sheriffs-and-cesar-vazquez
>
>
>
> [18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/philadelphia-police-sgt-brandon-ruff
>
>
>
> [19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/michael-brown
>
>
>
> [20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alex-nieto-and-san-francisco-police
>
>
>
> [21] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>