Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Police Violated Taser Use Guidelines when they tasered Black man on Bridge



As reported by
African American Political Pundit, publisher of the blog Tasered While Black, "It appears that some police departments have established reasonable taser guidelines, but the guidelines make no difference to officers on the beat, particularly, when it comes to black folks."

Get this folks,
The Columbia, MO. Police Department has operational guidelines that state that an officer should not use a Taser against someone the officer believes “is in a position where a fall would likely cause serious injury or death.” Well it's clear that they violated the rules when they tasered a black manwho threatened to jump off a pedestrian bridge above Interstate 70 and they Tasered him and induced the fall.

Phillip McDuffy suffered two broken arms, a skull fracture and possible broken jaw on July 25 when he fell 15 feet from the bridge onto a concrete embankment below.

Police used two Tasers in an attempt to subdue McDuffy after a 90-minute standoff that snarled traffic for miles. More HERE

Tasered while Black publisher wonders if all of the hoopla around getting tasers with videocams will make a difference if poilice are just going to violate thier own policies anyway? Check out what one police department is doing about taser videocams here


1 comment:

Robert Norwood said...

They tasered a brother on a bridge, a black brother?! See, ain't nothin' changed in this country, nothin'. If that was a white man up on that bridge they woulda give him a ride home, axed him how his kids are. And why they tasing him anyway, can't a brother walk across no bridge?

Look, in my neighborhood, if you get popped, and brothers be cappin' brothers all night around here you can't bet they wuz up to somethin'.

Wuggy