Thursday, November 29, 2007

Woman Says Orlando Officer Pepper Sprayed Her, Beat Her For No Reason

http://www.wftv.com/news/14724170/detail.html

Woman Says Orlando Officer Pepper Sprayed Her, Beat Her For No Reason

POSTED: 7:32 am EST November 29, 2007

ORLANDO, Fla. -- An Orlando woman said she was beaten and pepper sprayed by an Orlando police officer after she tried to complain about him.

Eyewitness News learned officer ANTHONY MILLER has had at least eight complaints filed against him and five pending lawsuits. Freelance writer Karen Holbrook said she was walking to her car when Miller and another officer said she could not walk down the street.


She called 911 to report their behavior.

"When I asked him for his badge number he slammed me on the floor. And then Miller did some crazy wrestling move. He put his knee on my back and slammed me on the ground," Holbrook said of the attack.

Orlando Police Internal Affairs is investigating this incident. Miller has never been disciplined by the department because it said he has not violated any policy rules.

An attorney representing Holbrook plans to file a lawsuit in the next couple of months.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

UN: Tasers Are A Form Of Torture

Published on Sunday, November 25, 2007 by CBS News

UN: Tasers Are A Form Of Torture

“Stun Guns” Are Under Fire After Six Deaths This Week; Rallies Held Demanding They Be Banned


(CBS/AP) - A United Nations committee said Friday that use of Taser weapons can be a form of torture, in violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Use of the electronic stun devices by police has been marked with a sudden rise in deaths - including four men in the United States and two in Canada within the last week.

Canadian authorities are taking a second look at them, and in the United States, there is a wave of demands to ban them.


The U.N. Committee Against Torture referred Friday to the use of TaserX26 weapons which Portuguese police has acquired. An expert had testified to the committee that use of the weapons had “proven risks of harm or death.”

“The use of TaserX26 weapons, provoking extreme pain, constituted a form of torture, and that in certain cases it could also cause death, as shown by several reliable studies and by certain cases that had happened after practical use,” the committee said in a statement.

Tasers have become increasingly controversial in the United States, particularly after several notorious cases where their use by police to disable suspects was questioned as being excessive. Especially disturbing is the fact that six adults died after being tased by police in the span of a week.

Last Sunday, in Frederick, Md., a sheriff’s deputy trying to break up a late-night brawl tased 20-year-old Jarrel Grey. He died on the spot.

“I want to know what he did that was so bad,” the victim’s mother, Tanya James, said. “Did the deputy think that their life was in danger? Did he have a weapon?”

The death came just weeks after Frederick police used a Taser to subdue a high school student.

Black leaders held a rally Tuesday calling for the department to ban Tasers, at least until there is a clear policy on how they are used. The NAACP says it appears the sheriff’s office is using Tasers routinely, rather than as a weapon of last resort.

Also this week, in Jacksonville, Fla., in two separate cases two men died after being stunned.

One suspect, who fled a car crash and tried to break into a nearby home, struggled with a policeman, prompting the officer to tase him three times. The man continued to fight, and tried to bite the officer, while he was being tased. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Another man died Tuesday after a Jacksonville officer pulled over his car. When the officer approached it, the man took off running. When the officer caught up with him, during a struggle, authorities say the officer used his Taser to subdue the suspect.

After being placed in the back of the police car the suspect became unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Last Sunday, in New Mexico, 20-year-old Jesse Saenz died after Raton police used a Taser to subdue him. Police say Saenz was struggling and fighting with them as they attempted to take him into custody.

Saenz died after being transported to a county jail.

In Nova Scotia, a 45-year-old man who was jailed on assault charges jumped a counter and ran for the door as he was being booked. He died yesterday, about 30 hours after being shocked.

And in Vancouver, where Royal Candian Mounted Police have been criticized for their use of a Taser against an irate airline passenger at Vancouver Airport last month, 36-year-old Robert Knipstrom died in a hospital four days after police used a Taser, pepper spray and batons to subdue him.

Police earlier said Knipstrom was agitated, aggressive and combative with officers. The cause of death has yet to be determined.

More than a dozen people have died in Canada after being hit by Tasers in the last four years.

The reported incidents this week did not have cameras documenting the use of the Tasers, but in British Columbia, a tourist’s video camera recorded the death of a man tased twice while in custody at the Vancouver Airport last month.

That horrifying video shows Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who spoke no English, become increasingly agitated. He was shocked twice, and then died.

The stun guns were denounced at memorial rallies in Vancouver and Toronto for Dziekanski.

Among the 1,000 people at the Vancouver rally was Paul Pritchard, who shot the video of the confrontation at the city airport.

The crowd gave a hero’s welcome to Pritchard, who said he “saw the life drain out of a man’s face” and heard “blood-curdling screams.”

A rally in front of the Ontario legislature in Toronto drew several hundred people, including Bob Rae, a Liberal candidate in the next federal election.

Rae said the events leading up to Dziekanski’s death must “never, ever be allowed to happen again.”

The prominent - and sensational - reports of deaths following the use of Tasers has increased attention to their legitimacy, and prompted a bold defense by their manufacturer.

Taser International, based in Scottsdale, Az., released a statement following the Vancouver Airport incident saying no deaths have ever been definitively connected to what the company describes as: “the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser.”

That’s 50,000 volts.

“The video of the incident at the Vancouver airport indicates that the subject was continuing to fight well after the TASER application,” Taser International said. “This continuing struggle could not be possible if the subject died as a result of the Taser device electrical current causing cardiac arrest. [Dziekanski’s] continuing struggle is proof that the Taser device was not the cause of his death.

“Specifically in Canada, while previous incidents were widely reported in the media as ‘Taser deaths,’ the role of the Taser device has been cleared in every case to date,” Taser said.

The devices are used by about 12,000 police departments, often in chaotic situations.

Retired police officer Paul Mazzei told CBS News correspondent Joie Chen, “Minus the Taser, they would have to use an impact weapon like a baton, possibly pepper spray or in some extreme cases of violent behavior they might even have to use deadly force to control that individual.”

In fact, in New Mexico earlier this month, the parents of a suicidal woman who was shot to death by Bernalillo County deputies two years ago are suing, contending that the police should have used Tasers instead of firearms.

Brittany Wayne was killed in her bedroom 23 seconds after police arrived.

And in Utah, a patrol car’s dashboard camera caught an officer tasing a driver who refused to sign a speeding ticket. The officer is now under investigation, accused of being too quick on the draw.

Amid a growing outcry, civil rights groups are urging police to put down their Tasers until more research is done.

“The danger of Tasers is that they seem safe, they seem easy and therefore I think it’s natural that police will be inclined to use them much more quickly than they would ever use a gun,” Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox told Chen.

CBSNews.com producer David Morgan contributed to this report.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

ORLANDO COPS MACE MEMBERS OF BLACK MINISTRY

Ministry complains to police
Orlando's investigation of the use of Mace after the Florida Classic could take 3 to 6 months.


April Hunt and Willoughby Mariano |Sentinel Staff Writers
November 20, 2007

A representative for a black evangelical church filed a formal complaint with Orlando police Monday, accusing an officer of roughing up church members after the Florida Classic football game.

Members of J.U.M.P. Ministries International were evangelizing in downtown Orlando early Sunday after the game between historically black Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M universities when officers pushed two church members and sprayed the group with Mace, they said.


Police said they used the spray to keep a crowd of 10,000 from getting dangerous.

The Police Department's internal-affairs division is investigating the case, and it may take three to six months to complete the probe.

Church member Celine Cannon, a Winter Park attorney, met with Orlando police investigators Monday and handed over unedited video footage in addition to filing the complaint. She said her group was not blocking traffic or causing trouble and clearly identified themselves as members of a church.

The evangelical group regularly preaches to revelers at Black College Reunion and spring break in Daytona Beach. They videotape their efforts to air on television.

Durone Hepburn, bishop of J.U.M.P. Ministries, said he worries that police showed no regard for the fact his church members were trying to preach to the crowd. He thinks that the officer's response was, in part, racially motivated. Police have said race had nothing to do with it.

Members of the church group are consulting with the Central Florida ACLU and the Orange County NAACP.

A police report released Monday shows four officers sprayed thousands of revelers just after the bars closed early Sunday to break up what they called a hostile crowd.

About 2:15 a.m., fights broke out around Orange Avenue and Central Boulevard, the report states. At the same time, an officer heard gunshots in the parking garage on West Central Boulevard.

One officer had begun to arrest a suspect near the parking garage when "thousands of people began to encircle" the officer, the report states.

That officer and four others then sprayed Mace toward the crowd to disperse it.

"The chemical agent had the desired affect [sic] which created a mild irritant to those present and safely cleared the streets preventing injuries to the officers and the public," the report states.

Cannon, who saw the incident, said an officer shoved two members and sprayed Mace, making people gag. There was no brawl near where church members were filming, she said. Cannon said the officer sprayed without warning, but other church members said he asked them to leave and then sprayed.

The spray is considered a use of force by the department and is allowed in certain situations, said Sgt. Barbara Jones, an Orlando police spokeswoman.

April Hunt can be reached at ahunt@orlandosentinel.com

Willoughby Mariano can be reached at wmariano@orlandosentinel.com
or 407-420-5171.

•••

Ministry outraged after members say Orlando cop sprayed them with Mace

April Hunt, Susan Jacobson and Willoughby Mariano |Sentinel Staff Writers
6:08 PM EST, November 19, 2007

A representative for members of an evangelical church who claim that an Orlando police officer abused them during a post-Florida Classic celebration Sunday filed a formal complaint with police Monday.

The woman from J. U. M. P. ministries also met with Internal Affairs investigators on accusations that an officer sprayed her group with Mace and pushed two of her group during the downtown celebration and sprayed them group with Mace. She provided an unedited copy of the video as well.
Her name was not immediately available.

A newly released police report shows that four officers did spray "thousands" of revelers just after the bars closed, to break up a ["]hostile["] crowd. Internal Affairs investigators have up to 180 days to make a determination if the use of force was justified.


"They have got to be thorough and determine whether the spray was deployed properly," said Police Sgt. Barb Jones.

Churchmembers said they were videotaping a wrap-up of the night's events between 2:30 and 3 a.m. when an officer approached them.

That is when the officer shoved two members and and sprayed the Mace, causing people's eyes and noses to burn and making them gag, said Celine Cannon, a lawyer and a church member who was there.


"This is outrageous," said Cannon, who promised to file a complaint against the officer.

A police report shows that two officers were working crowd control from about 10:30 p.m. to closing time at 2 a.m. around downtown clubs.

At about 2:15 a.m., the report notes that several fights broke out around Orange Avenue and Central Boulevard. At the same time, an officer heard gunshots in the parking garage on West Central Boulevard.

One officer had begun to arrest a suspect near the parking garage when, "thousands of people began to encircle" the officer, the report states.

That officer and four others then sprayed Mace toward the crowd, to disperse it.

"The chemical agent had the desired affect (sic) which created a mild irritant to those present and safely cleared the streets preventing injuries to the officers and the public," the report states.

The spray is considered a use of force by the department and allowed in certain situations, Jones said.

"It is a tool that, if I witness a fight or am outnumbered, if people resist, I can use," Jones said. "Unfortunately, if it gets into the air, it spreads."

Some members of her group think the incident was racially motivated. Many black people were downtown after the football game between Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman, two historically black universities.

Orlando police Lt. Rich Ring denied that race played any part in the actions.

"We're going to use the same techniques on you whether you're polka-dotted, black, white, Hispanic or a mix of black and white," Ring said. "We have to maintain civil order."

Witnesses had conflicting stories about the number of officers present and exactly what happened. Cannon said the officer sprayed without warning, but others said he asked them to leave and then sprayed.

Darrell Walker, 29, said he and the member with the video camera chased an officer to ask on tape why they were sprayed, but the officer would not answer.

"It was crowd control," Walker said. "But when we turned to them and told them we were with the church, they shouldn't have done that."

Jones said investigators will review the video and wait to see if a formal complaint is submitted.

"If somebody did something wrong, they will address it," Jones said.

Ring said about 75 officers were policing a crowd of 10,000 downtown and used accepted procedure to avoid injury to officers and civilians. He said there were some arrests, but none related to this incident.

"If this one blast of a gas has got them upset, I'm sorry," Ring said. "But I'm proud of what my guys did last night."

The Rev. Randolph Bracy, president of the Orange County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the church contacted his group and he is looking into its claims.


Sarah Langbein of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

2 DIE AFTER BEING TASED BY JAX COPS

Suspect dies after Jacksonville police Taser him

Associated Press
11:47 PM EST, November 20, 2007 (via Orlando Sentinel)

JACKSONVILLE - A man died Tuesday after police Tasered him because he fled a car crash and tried to break into a nearby home, authorities said. It was the second Taser related death for the agency in three days.

The man, who was not identified, crashed a car into a parked sport utility vehicle and then tried to enter an occupied home.

Authorities said the suspect struggled with an officer, prompting the officer to Tase him three times. The man continued to fight and tried to bite the officer while he was being Tased, The Florida Times-Union reported.

The man was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Another suspect died Sunday after Jacksonville police Tased him during a struggle. Authorities said Christian Allens shoved an officer who pulled over his truck for loud music before he and his passenger ran away. Firefighters cleared Allens medically after the incident, but he went into cardiac arrest a short time later and died. Allens was carrying a loaded handgun.

A telephone call to police Tuesday night by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sheriff suspends deputy who answered 911 call

Sheriff suspends deputy who answered 911 call


Rene Stutzman | Sentinel Staff Writer
November 16, 2007

SANFORD - Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger has suspended for 30 days the deputy who checked -- but quickly left -- the locked home of an 83-year-old widow who had called 911 as she was dying.

The woman's body was found the following day next to her phone, which was off the hook. Matilda "Tillie" Kovanich had bled to death.

Last week, the department concluded that Deputy Michelle "Missy" Ashby, 38, was guilty of neglect. But Eslinger waited until this week to decide how to punish her.

In a two-page memo made public Thursday, he wrote that Ashby's response was "woefully insufficient." He suspended her without pay for 30 days.

Ashby spent just three minutes at Kovanich's house Oct. 20, not nearly enough, Eslinger wrote.

Kovanich dialed 911 when she began to bleed profusely from her right foot. She said nothing to the dispatcher, however, according to department records.

Volusia County Medical Examiner Marie Herrmann, who performed the autopsy, told deputies that Kovanich likely died within seconds of placing the call.

Ashby arrived at the house four minutes after Kovanich called, according to department records.

Eslinger was unavailable for comment Thursday, but his memo criticized Ashby for waving off a backup officer before even approaching the house. She also should have talked to neighbors and checked her in-car computer for a log of 911 calls from the same address, the sheriff wrote.

If she had checked the computer, she would have seen that an elderly person had called for help from the same house before. Eslinger also faulted Ashby for dismissing a sign of trouble: bags of groceries on the floor inside an open side door, just behind a locked screen.

Kovanich's son, Joe Ruth, 59, of Wheaton, Ill., said he had mixed feelings about the suspension.

"I'm not really looking for vengeance; however, I am a little disappointed that it was a 30-day suspension," he said.

It should be longer, he said, although he was not sure by how much. The most important thing, he said, is that it not happen again.

A review of Ashby's personnel file shows that she is a popular officer, often praised by people whom she has helped.

Last year, when a bicyclist from Argentina got separated from his group while in Seminole, Ashby, out of her own pocket, paid for his hotel room because he had no money, according to department records.

In 1998, after she and paramedics were unable to save an elderly woman, Ashby kept returning to the woman's home to check on her 84-year-old widower. He called the department to thank her, according to agency records.

Ashby, who earns $44,600 a year, is a patrol officer. She was demoted from corporal in 2004 for failing to arrest an acquaintance whom she knew was named in an arrest warrant, according to her personnel file. She was faulted in that same investigation for using the department's equipment to run unauthorized criminal backgrounds check on friends.


Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-324-7294.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Wis. officer accidentally Tasers himself

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

(via Yahoo news)

Wis. officer accidentally Tasers himself

Mon Nov 12, 7:20 PM ET

MADISON, Wis. - A police officer has been reprimanded for accidentally discharging a Taser, causing an injury — to the police officer.

Madison police released a report Monday on the July 31 incident, without revealing the officer's name or gender. The department said the Taser accidentally discharged during a standard checkout procedure.

According to a summary of the investigation, officers are required to make sure no air cartridges are loaded before testing the Taser gun at the start of each shift. It's the air cartridges that propel the Taser's prongs, which deliver a jolt of electricity when they strike a target.

The officer's hand was injured, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.

A letter of reprimand was issued because failing to ensure the air cartridge wasn't loaded was a violation of department policy, the report said.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Sem. Deputy Found Negligent in Handling of 911 Call

Deputy found negligent in handling of 911 call before widow died
The Seminole sheriff says he'll discipline but not fire Michelle Ashby, who was 'careless.'


Rene Stutzman | Sentinel Staff Writer
(published) November 6, 2007

SANFORD - Before she even approached the home of an 83-year-old widow who had dialed 911 as she lay dying, Seminole County Deputy Michelle Ashby decided the call was no big deal.

She radioed a backup deputy and said she didn't need help.

She didn't talk to neighbors. She didn't find it suspicious that there was a car in the garage but no answer at the door. She didn't check whether the woman had called for help before. Instead, the deputy left after three minutes -- without breaking in and trying to help Matilda "Tillie" Kovanich. The elderly woman's body was found the next day, after neighbors called 911.

Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger on Monday released the results of an internal-affairs investigation into how his agency handled Kovanich's call for help Oct. 20.

Its conclusion: Ashby was negligent.


"She was careless and inattentive and didn't follow through," Eslinger said.

Ashby, a 13-year department veteran, remained suspended with pay Monday, her status since Oct. 29, shortly after Eslinger ordered the investigation. Eslinger said he would decide how to discipline the deputy after reviewing her career at the agency. He will not fire her.

"She's a good deputy," he said. [Comment: This raises the interesting and disturbing issue of what a Seminole Co. deputy has to do to be considered "bad" by Eslinger.]

According to the one-inch-thick report released Monday, there is little chance anyone could have done much to help Kovanich. She had begun to bleed profusely from her right foot, and Dr. Marie Herrmann, the Volusia County Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy, concluded that Kovanich died within seconds of placing the 911 call, according to the report. She suffered a heart attack because of all the blood loss.

Kovanich's son, Joe Ruth of Wheaton, Ill., didn't learn until Monday how little time Ashby spent at the house.

"I am extremely disappointed with the way the deputy handled the first call," he said. "It seems to me she made some grievous errors, and we're paying the consequences. . . . It's very unlikely that my mother could have been saved, but the fact that she was ignored is very upsetting."

The Sheriff's Office did not release a copy of the call, but it provided a transcript. It shows that the elderly woman called for help at 11:16 a.m., shortly after getting home from Saturday morning errands.

The unidentified dispatcher asked Kovanich if she needed police, fire or medical help, but there was no response.

"Hello? Hello? Hello, 911," the dispatcher said.

The dispatcher tried at least eight times in one minute, 43 seconds to get Kovanich to talk, then disconnected and twice called back. Both times, the line was busy.

The dispatcher then sent Ashby to the house.

According to the report, Ashby arrived at the house, called off a backup unit, walked to the front door and found it locked. She walked around the house, tried to peer into windows, saw nothing suspicious, heard no noises and left.

"The house was dark. I didn't see any lights on. There was no sound of television, radio. . . . Everything was locked up. . . . I was comfortable the house was unoccupied," she told sheriff's Capt. Martin Linnekugel, who investigated.

She saw a car in the garage, she told him, saw shopping bags inside a locked screen door but those things did not make her suspicious, she said.

"OK. And if you'd checked the call history you would've found a . . . prior call from two years ago, that noted an elderly female lives by herself . . . but you didn't think to check the prior call history?" Linnekugel asked.

"No, sir," was Ashby's response.

Two paramedics who went to the house the following day told Linnekugel if they had been Ashby, they'd have broken in.

Eslinger said Ashby had violated no agency procedures on how to respond to 911 hang-ups.

The agency has no policy, he said.

"We cannot instruct someone to use common sense or logic or deductive reasoning," Eslinger said. "It's practice and a matter of routine to handle these types of calls."

Sheldon Greenberg, associate dean and director of the Public Safety Leadership Division of Johns Hopkins University, said there is no national standard for dealing with those kinds of calls. In general, people need to trust officers to make the right decision, because they usually do.

But if a 911 caller says nothing but stays on the phone line, "We tend to think that an open line is someone in need that can't communicate."


Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-324-7294.