Police in Pennsylvania tasered a man who was trying to save his own pets from a fire. The police said that they warned Damon Baker three times and then shot him with a taser when he insisted on using a hose on the house before the fire department arrived.
Baker’s wife is pregnant with triplets and Damon helped her and two children get out of the house. He then used his garden hose to control the flames on the side of the house. He was trying to protect 11 Ball Pythons that escaped from their cage and were loose inside the burning home. Only five snakes survived.
Baker will not be charged.
We have previously seen tasers used on family members seeking to save loved ones or homeowners trying to save family or pets from a fire.
Source: Pittsburgh Channel
“VIP”?
The nephew of SCOTUS Thomas was illegally and insanely taser-tortured half-to-death “because” (?) he refused to don a hospital gown. So far I’ve not seen much formal reaction to this incident.
It’s worth noting that the debate about taser “safety” has had a major update recently. After years of denying the risk, Taser International has finally formally admitted (Training Pkg, 1 May 2010) that taser darts on chest may affect the heart. They also acknowledge that long duration or repeated taser hits can kill via acidosis.
I’m not a lawyer, but after hundreds of deaths, their corporate liability must be essentially infinite. Possibly even criminal.
Lots more on the blogs…
Tnx CM.
Is what these despicable police did – using excessive force on someone on private property for simply ignoring a police instruction, actually constitutional?
Maybe it will take, like the airport groping of crotches and chests, this happening to the close relative of the wrong, and now extremely pissed off, VIP for anything to change..
I’m only doing this to “save” you/me/everyone….how many times has someone used that lame excuse to abuse someone under the “color of law”!?!?
The guy is on his OWN property!
And there are people that still buy into this pathetic excuse?
I mean a poor excuse is better than none, but it should at least be believable.
As I read all the cogent comments here, including CM’s great links, I am perplexed by the failure to look at this thing from its’ simplest deconstruction. Why would the police object to a man, with burning house, trying to contain the fire by hosing it?
Riddle me that Batmen?
What we’ve seen too often in the various Taser stories JT has posted, many of them occurred when the person tased was doing nothing illegal. Thus as many here have alluded we can strongly assume that the increase in these incidents is a factor of the Police neeeding/desiring to enforce their will on the citizenry.
That a greater outcry has not arisen from the polulace in general
has an easy answer, besides the inherent approval of racist and classist assumptions made by the general public. More than 50% of the shows on television celebrate policeman and portray them in the highly favorable light of those trying to protect us all from the “great unknown” of fear that has been pushed by the corporatists in every area of public entertainment and “news”.
The “can do” nation has become a nation of fearful people who see danger at every turn. In response we turn to authority figures (parental substitutes) to save us from the gnawing fear of everything lodged in our chests.
I would say “only in America” but that would be tempting fate
A Y
Your second attempt at WMD sarcasm gets a mark of 95%. Your first attempt would have got a 95% rating as well had you not given the game away by admitting that you were being sarcastic.
The idea is not to care if some people think you are an authoritarian loon whose speech censor is not working properly writing in deadpan seriousness.
The final link:-
Tasered While Latino http://taseredwhilelatino.blogspot.com/
Two more links.
Taser Torture Victims http://www.taser-torture-victims.com/p1.php
Tasered While Black http://taseredwhileblack.blogspot.com/
Carlyle Moulton 1, September 8, 2010 at 2:22 am
This might be an appropriate thread on which to remind about taser issue sites:-
Excited-delirium.com http://excited-delirium.blogspot.com/
TNT Truth Not Tasers http://truthnottasers.blogspot.com/
Because of the two link limit per post I have to split this into multiple posts.
Professor Turley.
If you implement a blog roll you might consider incuding them.
HenMan,
I submit that truisms come about in this very way: an apt phrase for something true.
The torture has a certain level and exceeding it is really sad. The person is guilty and police have the liberation to shoot after all.
puzzling: I am amazed by the similarity of our first sentences. I think you expressed it better and more thoroughly than I did. The thing that startled me was, that as I was writing my comment, I was thinking that Prof. Turley has had similar stories about police misuse of tasers before and I wondered to myself whether I was merely parroting something that had been said earlier. I think the answer is “yes”. I just went back to a story from Aug.3,2010,”Pensacola Officer Fires Taser at Teen…”. Frankdawg commented, “many officers believe there are no consequences from using it(taser) and too many use it as punishment…”. Marnie wrote,”The officer applied the punishment. The punishment, execution by cop, certainly does not fit whatever crime the boy was going to be accused of.” Deja vu, and more deja vu. I apologize for any unintended plagiarism, but a well turned phrase tends to stick in my mind.
Mike S.,
amen to your comments. The media has many of us desensitized to torture, let alone tasers!
AY,
“what else would you expect a cop to do to show that they are in charge.”
Might I suggest peeing on the object of their affections leg?
What’s good for the canine is good for the cop . . .