-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Florida Highway Patrol officer Daniel Cole used his taser to stop a fleeing Danielle Maudsley. As a result, Maudsley fell and cracked her head on the concrete roadway. Maudsley has been brain dead ever since and is not expected to recover.
Maudsley had been arrested in a hit-and-run case and taken to a Florida Highway Patrol substation for processing. Maudsley, clad in handcuffs, fled out the door of the substation with Cole running right behind her. Cole drew his taser and shot Maudsley in the back. Cole has been cleared of wrongdoing by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
It was Cole’s responses to investigators’ questions that are most troubling.
If she makes it [to U.S. 19], you know, there’s no winning. I can’t let her get out and get run over.
What self-serving tripe! This is exactly the kind of response that one would expect from someone who’s trying to come up with an excuse to justify their actions.
Cole was also concerned that one or both of them would be injured if he tackled her. Is tackling her the only alternative to tasering her? How about moving your 267 pound fat ass and grabbing her? Cole’s weight is three times that of Maudsley. Notice how Cole plays the “officer safety” card. This card is often played when justifying the use of excessive force.
The cracking of her head on the concrete roadway was an entirely foreseeable outcome of the tasering. This young woman is dead because the trooper couldn’t be troubled running after her.
H/T: Hit & Run, Tampa Bay Dispatch.
Nal,
While I generally agree with your summation here…. The person was in lawful custody… Once they fled the station… The use of force is dependent on the circumstances… This case the officer could have justified using deadly force…. I do not agree that falling and hitting the head was foreseeable….
In handcuffs
In custody
Under arrest
What if she was your daughter? What if she had kids a home? She had handcuffs on: how could she have endangered the FHP?
I don’t know why the land of the free and the home of the brave is so enamored with giving Law enforcement the right to legalized torture through the use of TASERS. Ever since the days of Rodney King I realize we started becoming a nation of cowards. We vote for the strongest military, buy more guns per capita, put more per capita in prison or jail, less for education than any other civilized country and have in effect shifted the burden of proof to guilty unless proven innocent. We have more capital deaths, more convictions of innocent people, and more overturned convictions based on DNA evidence than any other country. Respect for life and dignity is at an all time low.
Phil,
Maybe your use of the emotion card indicates your bias….are all Leo’s bad… Not at all…. Are all arrested folks bad…. Not at all…. We’re you there? Do you know really what happened?
When I was jailed for a DUI, I was clearly told, that if you run, you WILL GET SHOT! I think a Taser is a far better choice.
AY:
Is her falling foreseeable? Is landing on her back foreseeable? If you fall on your back, with no muscle control, your head is going to strike the surface.
Hard cases make bad law … lack of tolerance makes hard cases.
Nal,
While I generally agree with you…. She was arrested, in police custody, hand cuffed in the front and under the influence of something….. I do not think it was entirely foreseeable…. But I was not there….
I have relation that are LEO’s, they have video’s of all of them being tasered before they are qualified to use them.
They ALL KNOW that a person is going to fall down when hit by them. WHY do you think they have mats & people on either side of them to catch them?!!?
Unless there is a PHYSICAL THREAT to an officer or bystander, there is NO REASON (or excuse) to use a taser.
These things have killed over 200 people…(and I don’t care what the taser manufacturers claim..)
Nal:
with all the publicity in the last few years about these types of head injuries, how long did it take them to figure out something was really wrong? Liam Neeson’s wife got a good head bump and was dead in less than a day.
When did they call the paramedics?
One of the TED talks discusses the escalation of the use of the TASER. It is directly correlated with the military mentality that is taking over the police. Each department has a different policy but it is my understanding that there must me a direct danger not a possible danger. Otherwise they will taze us at every traffic stop to make us more manageable.
http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_coleman_the_moral_dangers_of_non_lethal_weapons.html
The trooper decided to take the easy way out. Why run after someone who has escaped custody and break a sweat when it’s so simple to pull out a taser and zap the person.
The utter contempt these officers have for the public never ceases to amaze me. Even after she’s down, the officer is verbally abusing her. With that attitude its likely this type of abuse happens more often than is filmed.
The problem in this case is Tasers and not the LEO, though he should have run her down. However, with the mythology that Tasers are not potentially lethal weapons, their use by LEO’s has increased and the system actually encourages that use. They can be useful LEO tools, but only in certain situations. Their supposed non-lethal properties let LEO’s know that they are very unlikely to face internal charges when using them. By emphasizing that quality, without commensurate training in their potential harm, ensures their over-usage. Also by having LEO’s tased as training there is a reinforcement within their minds of a range of permissible use that is much wider than the actual results should dictate.
I work with law enforcement on a regular basis. Tasers are a real problem with many agencies. Other agencies emphasize training and do not misuse them. One large Sheriff’s Department with which I work has used grant money to buy microcameras for their patrol officers, which I think is an excellent idea. The other day, I was reading about a department that had a history of near-wanton use of Tasers. After all the devices were retrofitted with microcameras, violent threats against officers must have dropped to zero, because Taser use stopped.
Here is one example of what not to do with Tasers. Also, in the video you will see an interview with Captain Thomas Rousset of the Ozark, MO police department. Now I ask you, would you buy a used car from Capt. Rousset?
“Otherwise they will taze us at every traffic stop to make us more manageable.”
Michaelb,
The “manageabilty” is the key issue with the police in these times. They see their role as “authorities” whose judgments are to be obeyed and not questioned. From such a view there is very little “backtalk” allowed by someone they interact with. This is exactly the military mentality that you talk about and link. I discovered this during an extremely minor collision in a Florida parking lot. Minor dent and my first traffic accident in fifty years years of driving. Police arrived after the occurrence and both cars had been moved from the position of the accident. The other driver was a very attractive young woman and I am an old fart in my latter 60′s. The police were taking her account verbatim, without listening to my version. When I tried to approach them to interject my version, projecting no hostility, I was blocked by one officer who insisted I get back to and sit in my car. Looking into his eyes I saw that were I to protest, the situation would escalate dramatically. Sat in my car and waited for a chance to give my statement. After about ten minutes one of the officers came up to me ad handed me a ticket for reckless driving and a statement assessing blame for the accident on me. I was astounded, but he walked off and drove away as I started to protest. When I went to court to fight the ticket I was told that to appeal would cost me a fortune in “court costs”. I let it be, although my 50 year spotless driving record in both traffic violations and accidents was spoiled.
“Cole has been cleared of wrongdoing by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.” … surprise, surprise
Police were cleared on the broken back teen also. I will try to contain my surprise.
Police training is quite variable. Watching a few episodes of COPS will show that. And then there is adrenalin, which “clouds men’s minds.” Combine that with a donut-sodden desk chair/patrol car bully. Evidently this was the deadly combination here.
While I agree in principle that TAZERs are overused, I think you’re being unreasonable. A hit and run suspect was in custody, in handcuffs, and decided to RUN. I don’t think you can reasonably argue that the officer isn’t doing their duty to regain custody of the subject. All of the options available to the officer involve some level of physical force and, with them, the possibility of injury and death.
Consider if he had indeed chased and tackled her. As you pointed out, he weighs nearly 3x what she does. If he does a leg tackle, she takes a header and, guess what, with her arms cuffed she has no way to protect her head. Similarly, if he does a full body check he lands on TOP of her – same possible outcome, or worse. Can you imagine the hue and cry if the same thing had happened to her because he had landed on top of her? “Look at him, he’s 3x her weight, why couldn’t he have just TAZERed her?”
Other non-lethal force might have been a bean-bag shotgun. Assuming he could bring it to bear and hit her, she’d have gone down, again, with arms in handcuffs she is unable to protect her head.
The officer is exactly right – the longer she runs, the more danger she puts herself in. She could trip, run in traffic and be hit by a car, or hurt other pedestrians.
There is only one person to blame for this tragedy: the idiot who decided to run from police in handcuffs.
She is with in arms reach, in a parking lot. He does not have to tackle her to control her. Just grab her arm. How fast do you think a handcuffed person her size can run? Perhaps physical fitness as an LEO is in question. 267 pounds?
The person is in a coma and cannot give their version. We have a hospital which ordinarily does the dirty work for the cops saying that a blow t the head caused the coma– not the electrocution. Some of the commenters refer to the police as Leo, I guess taht is Law Enforcement Officer. Cops is easier for me and the jury.
If this dog had the case I would file the federal suit immediately under the civil rights act and the companion conspiracy statute against the shooter, the superior to shooter, the Chief of Police and the Board of Police Commissioners and the municipality. Almost every state treats a municipali8ty as an entittiy and not part of the state itself and hence the little village or city has no sovereign immunity. If you folks would be interested, the statutes and the case summaries (annotations) are found in book 42 of the United States Code Annotated in the library or on Findlaw. 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and section 1985(3) conspiracy. Read the annotations on shootings with Smith and Wesson pistols and if you find some Taser cases good.
A Taser is deadly force. If you shoot someone you are electrocuting them. How do you know if the person has a heart condition, a brain injury, or anything of that nature. A Taser can kill a normal person. Here is how you get the other side to come to terms with their stupidity.
File the suit in Federal District Court and name the shooter, his superior, his Chief and the Village Idiots. Seek damages and punitive damages. Over $75,000 in actual damages and say a milli9on in puns. File with the Complaint a set of Request To Admit Facts, Interrogatories and Notice of Deposition and seek an order of court on the Deposition Notice to Take the Video Deposition of Plaintiff forthwith so as to preserve evidence in case the person dies. The other side may be lame and not respond to the Requests To Admit Facts and of course buried in there is the one that says that the device used was deadly force and foreseeable deadly force and caused the injury and coma. Often the other side in such lawsuits does not know that the failure to admit is an Admission. The clock runs from date of service even if served with the summons.
At the shooters depostion he will state that a good old Taser is not deadly force. Fine, we subpoenaed your grandmother today and you can shoot her with your Taser for our video and while you are at it shoot the Chief and his wife. Make the person objecting state a full objection. Take that one up with the judge.
If anyone knows this victim have him call TalkinDog, this is the kind of case to get TalkinDog out of retirement. The fact that this device is deadly force will soon loom large in the consdierations of these bozos who think otherwise. If you do not know the name of the superior officer or Board members just sanme them John Bozo Does.
Do not believe that nonesense that the blow to the head caused the coma. It could be the elctecticxity. Find an expert. Dont sue the Taser company, you wouldnt sue Smith 7 Wesson if the cop had shot someone with that product.
What result would have made this outcome different? If he had tackled her… He could have crushed her… Never mind the fact that she was arrested for hit and run… At this time she was lawfully in custody…. He had the right to shoot her… Her decision caused this action..
I will say for the record that I have been to Pinellas County… They are about as red necked as you fan get….I usually don’t take the side of Leo’s….In this case I think they were justified….they used the least force possible… Unless the leo encouraged and baited her to run…It was all caught on a dash cam…..
A couple of observations from the video tape. No one calls an ambulance. I dont see a serious head strike. Fatso doesnt remove the electrode very quickly. Junior is in no hurry to call for medical care. Tells her to lie down. Blazee about it.
He knew her name. She might have been running from him because he was acting like a perp.
The assumptions of use of deadly force by some of the folks commenting are the BS of the Tazer or Taser company. Deadly force. Period.
The video will kill them when the jury sees this. Soooo lackadaisical. Style of the case could be Braindead vs. Braindead et al.
Great story David. I agree that the use of the taser here was excessive. What danger did she pose to the public in her shackled state? Just because she fled doesn’t mean that you should use lethal weapons to stop her. Police forces in major cities now realize that high speed chases are too dangerous in most cases. This situation is no different. A lazy cop made a bad decision and should be disciplined accordingly.
AY,
We usually agree, but tasers are not the least deadly option available to the officer. He could have easily caught up to her without breaking a sweat, without tackling her.
Is the full dashcam video available to view?
Raff,
Suppose he had tackled her and the same result….would that have made a difference?
AY,
First of all, he wouldn’t have needed to tackle her. But if he had and your suggested result occured, at least he was trying his best to use the least dangerous method of recapturing her. The tazer has been show time and again to be a dangerous weapon with deadly results.
Raff,
We are talking Pinellas County Florida….. She was a white female…..if another race or sec…. I am almost certain deadly force would have been used….
Suppose he had run after her and grabbed her arm … would that have made a difference?
AY,
The use of a Tazer is deadly force. It has killed people repeatedly.
If I recall nal….. She was handcuffed in the front….so based upon that… I am certain….. It would have made a hugh difference…..
Don’t get me wrong…. I usually am not in the corner of 99. Percent of any leo…. This one appears to be an exception in my mind….
Raff,
She was in lawful custody after being arrested…. She should not have run…..but she did…. I am rarely for the use of tazers….
AY,
We will have to agree to disagree on this one. She posed no danger to anyone in her handcuffed state and very little danger to herself. The use of the Tazer brought danger into the situation.
Raff,
Fair enough….
To suggest that tackling/grabbing someone creates the same risk of death or serious bodily injury as tazing them does is completely nonsensical. It is not supported by any data or sound reason, and is really nothing more than a fantastic “what if.”
If fat LEO dies of cardiac during chase, murder?
This is absolutely sick. She was HANDCUFFED for crying out loud, she was moving slowly, and all he had to do was almost reach out and grab her! He wouldn’t even have broken a sweat!
I have spoken to someone who is ex military intelligence and ex law enforcement (retired). He told me that tasers are only to be used in dangerous situations, where there is threat of harm. This does NOT qualify!
I’m reminded of the old man on his bicycle who didn’t stop when ordered too (because he was deaf). He was tazered and died. That was especially sick, because the cop had been called in the first place because the old man had FALLEN off his bicycle, and the person calling was afraid he might have been hurt.
Also, I fail to see what the comment about Pinellas County had to do with what happened here. I live in Florida, and have never heard that there is anything ”weird” about Pinellas County!
first she removed one cuff in the patrol car. the trooper stopped and recuffed her hands behind her back. while in the station the trooper left her alone on a bench unsupervised and she moved her cuffed hands in front of her. the trooper didn’t know this because he wasn’t paying attention.
no, she should not have removed her cuffs, no she should not have tried to run.
she should not have been able to remove her cuffs and she should never have been left unsupervised.
trooper lardass should step away from the krispykream and learn how to properly cuff a prisoner.
But Pete, those Krispy Kremes are tasty!
Pete….
I think you’re on to something…..
i have been known to make unlawful u-turns when they have the hot donuts sign on.
I don’t get it, people defend the cop by saying ‘we don’t know all the facts’. Yet when she runs they don’t use that line to excuse HER ACTIONS. Maybe she had a good reason to try to get away from them…(probably not, but then we shouldn’t accept a crappy excuse from the cop either!!)
He was right behind her and if he hadn’t of slowed to get his taser he could have caught her in two steps…no need for a surmised flying tackle either.
The only thing dumber than accepting the cops excuse is saying she could have been shot…deadly force for an ALLEGED crime!??!
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this idiocy when our President thinks he has the right to kill American citizens without a trial.
When cop first appears in the video he is about 2 steps behind her with his taser already in his hand.
She was tiny and was able to slip her hands out of the handcuffs. Since she did this in the car it seems reasonable that she would do it again. Why wasn’t the officer between her and the door? Guess he thought he was one-who-must-be obeyed and she didn’t agree. He saved himself the embarrassment of “losing” a handcuffed suspect from the station house at a terrible and unnecessary cost to her and her family.
Poor judgement all around on his part.
Jus the facts,mam!…… Face the facts people, in this day and age we are on the verge of a police state. Our law enforcement are programmed (brainwashed) into believing everyone is guilty until proven innocent. I for one wouldn’t take a job in law enforcement. At some point they (law enforcement) will be put in a position of killing civilians or loose their jobs. No amount of money is worth that. I applaud and support the good and sensible officers we have. What kind of gang laden streets and communities would we have if not for them?
All he had to do was grab her, throw her over his shoulder and walk back in. Doing that would never enter my mind. I don’t think he meant to harm her and I would bet he probably regrets it. I know I would. I have a 19 yr old daughter. She never got in trouble because she knew this old Marine would kick the crack outta her ass if she did.
Johnny R …this old Marine would kick the crack outta her ass if she did.
————————–
I hope this is just rhetoric. My dad was a marine during wwii and he had a similar mindset. it was abuse then, it’s abuse now. time outs are much more effective.
time outs and groundings or loss of privileges, depending on the age and the transgression.
Tazers were originally introduced as a replacement for batons. When judging the appropriateness of the level of force, you should ask “Would the use of a baton have been appropriate here?”
In my judgment, he could have easily smashed her skull with a baton rather than the more modern Tazer, but both lead to the same outcome. She is dead. He killed her. It was not an accident.
” If she makes it [to U.S. 19], you know, there’s no winning. I can’t let her get out and get run over.”
“What self-serving tripe!”
Hold your ponies, legal lips.
I’ve treated more arrested suspects in handcuffs than I can count. I’ve seen plenty who were clearly clobbered after they were in custody, as well as before. I’ve testified against wacko cops, After 3 decades, I’ve heard about every excuse out there – by suspects AND cops. So my take is this:
The self-serving tripe comment is over-blown and – if seriously uttered – too naive for words. There are plenty of reasons why a cop doesn’t want a suspect running in the streets that have nothing to do with altruism, up to and including the fact that once in custody – that L.E. agency is now responsible for their welfare. Who pays for a suspect’s medical bills? The cop shop does. Who gets blamed for pretty much anything that happens after someone’s iin custody? The cops do.
Had this particular suspect run into traffic, lots of things can happen besides her getting hit, and most of them are bad. People swerve & crash into bus stops. Who wants to get pulled into that legal mess?
“How about moving your 267 pound fat ass and grabbing her? Cole’s weight is three times that of Maudsley. Notice how Cole plays the “officer safety” card.”
In the first place, his weight may well have been the reason he knew he couldn’t catch her. So in a matter of seconds he decides not to shoot her, and he can’t catch her. Well, there go two options.
Now, is the “officer safety card” often abused? No doubt about it. But anybody who has ever worked in the field of public safety knows that your own personal safety comes first – everybody else comes after. And that’s a fact of life.
And then, of course, had she been tackled only to end up with the same injuries, or struck by a car – we would all get to hear the cacophony of “why didn’t they Taze her, for godsakes.”
So were I to start slicing the responsibility apportionment pie, a fleeing suspect would get by far the biggest piece.
Patric:
She wasn’t heading toward US 19 when he shot her. There was no evidence she would have run out onto US 19. Sure, she might have run out onto US 19, she might have done a lot of things.
Cole just picked the most dangerous thing nearby and used it to justify his actions.
QUOTE “But anybody who has ever worked in the field of public safety knows that your own personal safety comes first – everybody else comes after.”
Wrong, people’s rights come first, if they want a “safe” job then they need to go back to barber school….
What Nal said. This officer was covering his backside.
QUOTE “But anybody who has ever worked in the field of public safety knows that your own personal safety comes first – everybody else comes after.”
Yep, no courage from our cops anymore – big sissies ready to use deadly force at the drop of a hat I guess.
All I see is a lazy cop…….
Am I the only one to zero in on the fact that she and he were so close to the door that the dash cam could hear him say, “Where are you going?”
My take is that LEO expected her to run and gave her opportunity. His tazer was out so fast, I think he knew she was going out the door when he asked his question.
I see set up.
Maybe she was running away from the cops because she’s seen some of these video clips where the cops cuff a woman, “search” her, otherwise abuse her, taser her, walk on somebody, smash video cameras, and otherwise deal with “suspects” in various ways that prevents the “a55holes” from getting away. She might have been genuinely terrorized by being in the custody of these goons. She might have realized that once you’re in the control of armed and dangerous people who feel that whatever they do will be excused, your life isn’t worth very much. Maybe she fled because she felt threatened. After all, she was exonerated after the “situation,” wasn’t she? You can bet that if they had real evidence against her and THEN this happened, they wouldn’t have pretended they had nothing to arrest her for in the first instance.
The majority of cops in the state of florida are very overweight. They can’t even get a bullet proof vest to fit them. They need to implement weight standards. But because of the police unions the state can’t. Which is more of a public threat. A handcuffed person running or an obese cop who can’t catch a criminal
Cop was just to fat a lazy to chase anyone so feel he should not be fit to serve as a cop in the first place.