The New Hanover County Sheriff’s office had a neat idea of how to arrest Gladwyn Taft Russ III, 42, for threatening his wife. When his father died, they waited until he was putting the casket in the hearse on the way to the cemetery and swooped in to grab him. When they ended up kneeing him in the back and tasering him in front of the shocked mourners, who said that the officers pointed guns and tasers at them. The family canceled the trip to the cemetery.
Threatening one’s wife is a serious offense. However, this does not appear to have been a drug kingpin with an array of safe houses. If they could easily locate him at the funeral, decent people would have waited for the end of the funeral to carry out the arrest at a minimum. Instead the North Carolina Sheriff’s office turned the funeral into a chaotic scene — during which the gun of one of the officers actually fell out of his holster.
Russ’ sister, Taffy Gause, said when she got out of the car a deputy “was waving a gun at me and my mom and yelling to get back or he was going to shoot.”
Russ was charged with assault on a government official, resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and felony malicious conduct by a prisoner. What discipline will be meted out to the officers who ordered this arrest? While the office has apologized, this is a horrendous act by officers who cared little about the family grief or the occasion. Not only was the act senseless and cruel, it virtually guaranteed a hostile reaction from any grieving family and crowd to watch officer interrupt a funeral in such a brutish manner.
Now come on we have no idea what lead up to this. It is very possible that the cops had just got done reading a memo that was passed around stating that not only was Sara Palin a slut she lost Miss Alaska to a black woman. One of the only black woman in Alaska. Now just think how that could have affected them! Well actually it could have been even worse. That might have realized that the Mexican that they know as Jesus that starting going to their church and cried when his best male friend betrayed him, the very one they had been hiding all the kids from. Spelled his name the same way as JESUS. They might have been very confused, and of course frustrated. Now I am sure either case could have been just too much for their simple minds to handle. There is a reason for everything you know. They might not have been shallow minded idiots.
Land of the fake tough and phoney brave.
Police arrogance is the essence of this tale. Tasering indiscriminately is sweeping the country. The public is pacified and propagandized by the plethora of cop shows and is secure in the belief that it can’t happen to them. Meanwhile the police in general think they don’t get enough respect and that the Bill of Rights makes their job harder. The MSM has worked hard to turn the American public’s long term cynicism about law enforcement, which was always justified, into a fear-filled public believing that criminals are about to abuse them.
You don’t go to the funeral to make an arrest. Of course the crowd is going to advance on you and they probably have Bernie ” General Harmar” Marcus leading the pack (at least if they’re decent Republicans). Wait till the reception and everyone is drunk, celebrating the demise. Then move in.
North Carolina; home of the only police department more concerned with guarding a stock car race than investigating crimes.
A friend of mine brought me to the Winston Cup one year and I recall there were about four cars broken into in the hotel parking lot and not a single cop would come and investigate. They were too ‘busy.’
Some people in the Sheriff’s office should lose their job over this kind of incident. I am not as concerned about interrupting the funeral, although that was stupid timing on the Sheriff’s part, but I am shocked at the use of the drawn weapons on everyone at the event and in the car. It was sheer luck that one of these over excited police officers did not shoot someone. Between these kind of cases and the recent taser cases, one begins to wonder what they are training these officers and their superiors at the various police training institutions. Something has to change before we have a real sad event.
We used to have bounds for police conduct–we called them the Constitution and the humanity of those in charge. It appears here have lost the latter here.