This video is the latest case of a person seriously injured by multiple taser hits from police. Angela Jones, 50, went into cardiac arrest after three hits from police at a routine traffic stop. Jones had objected to the police officers demanding to go through her purse and then tried to get back in her car when she was shot with the taser.
The officer stopped to question Jones who was stopped along the side of the road. She denied drinking but the officers removed her from the car and questioned her for 15 minutes. That seems a reasonable response since they had to be sure that she was not a DUI case. It was then that they asked her to give them her purse. She refused and said “I just don’t feel like I want you to take my purse from me.” She ran back to her car and the officer then tasered her. One officer deployed his TASER® X-26 TM three times. Jones can be heard screaming in pain as the officer yelled at her not to move . . . while tasering her. She then stopped breathing.
One officer was able to revive her with CPR on the sidewalk.
There was no illegal drug or alcohol levels in Jones’ system. Nevertheless, police charged her with resisting arrest and possession of less than one ounce of pot. It is not clear what she was being arrested for at the time. We have previously seen cases where alleged abusive police conduct results in questionable charges against a victim — an incentive to settle the claims against the police and a rationalization of the alleged abuse. In this case, I am curious as to why a driver cannot refuse to hand over her bag. If they were arresting her, they can search the car and the purse at incident to the arrest or as part of the custodial exception at booking. They would not have to ask permission.
Then there is the controversial use of the tasers, including shooting people in the chest (which the manufacturer warns against). Police too often use tasers where they would previously physically restrain a person. The speed with which tasers are deployed in many cases has drawn widespread criticism. There is a growing view that tasers are becoming the instant response of many officers to any resistance or problem.
When Jones runs back into the car, I do think that there was legitimate concern by the officers that she might be grabbing a weapon. It is certainly an uncommon response even when arguing over a search. That makes this routine traffic stop less routine in the end. However, the need to use the taser — particularly three times — remains a question. My greatest concern is the criminal charge since I fail to see the basis for the arrest before the tasering.
What do you think?
Source: CBS
“My greatest concern is the criminal charge since I fail to see the basis for the arrest before the tasering.”
I can’t even see a basis for the arrest AFTER the tasering.
Folks, the police are just plain OUT OF CONTROL. Unless you live in a really REALLY bad neighborhood, you don’t have as much to fear from criminals as you do from police.
Lou-John, Being a purist martini lover[Beefeater dry up] I appreciate your advice. However, I’m a lover of bourbon. I drove the bourbon trail. So, it will take some discipline to wander to a martini. But, I’m up for it! No pictures of me w/ the great Mick’s bat. “I’m not worthy”
Excellent points, Woosty.
From JT’s CBS article:
“Jones’ attorney Maria Cavalluzzi said her client now has many memory deficits and cognitive issues after the incident.
Cavalluzzi would only let Jones speak briefly due to the pending criminal charges, but the Studio City resident spoke just long enough to describe what little she remembers from the night of the traffic stop.
“Do you remember what it felt like when that TASER hit?” Paige said.
“I can remember fear,” Jones said.”
“I’m going to modify my statement to say they mostly killed her.”~Lottakatz
————————————–
mm, kinda like being mostly pregnant?
you are right about the text book definitions of cardiac arrest and heart attack….from the AHA;
‘People often use these terms interchangeably, but they are not synonyms. A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked, and sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating unexpectedly. A heart attack is a “circulation” problem and sudden cardiac arrest is an “electrical” problem.’
the thing is, they both cause death without intervention and they BOTH almost immediately cause circulation and oxygenation problems…the difference is the initial point of reference, a blood clot or an electrical disturbance…the difference in tissue death, without intervention, is essentially nil. And while giving CPR restores some circulation it does not restore all of it….there ia always some tissue death when there is a cardiac event…if you are lucky, it is the kind that can e repaired or replaced (ask Mike), but she was still taken out of her life stream by what in my book is tantamount to violence….and her loss of faith in police and law enforcement and those who serve sincerely is probably forever changed as well….funny how fcourts don’t take these things into consideration because they will all have a negative effect on her life…
femeister, In Mexico, when the police ask to look through your purse, you know they can be bribed. This is what these breaches of rights come to. Pay me off or I will: give you a ticket, arrest you, take you down for resisting an officer, etc.
The stop and frisk program also encourages the police to force the population to submit to unreasonable search and breaches the right to privacy and property of citizens. The Toronto police department that is regularly beating up homeless men for no reason also has a stop and frisk policy, calling it ‘carding’. This is where it starts, imho.
At least a bribe does not kill you.
Nick Spinelli – next time you take the Louisville Slugger tour, make sure you follow it up with a nice martini at Proof on Main, next door. And I hope you got a picture while holding Mantle’s bat!
The one cop had every opportunity to EASILY grab the woman’s arm and stop her from getting in the car. Instead he just stood there. The second cop could probably also have grabbed her when she started to ”run” off! Instead, they sat there and watched her get into the safety of her vehicle and then pulled out the taser. The arrest report said THREE jolts hit her. They admitted to a full three. I have seen this in other videos also, where a cop could have reached out and grabbed his suspect by the arm, but didn’t because he preferred the taser. I spoke to an ex cop once who told me the tasers were only to be used when someone could not be subdued any other way. This was someone who left the force because of these types of things.
I also understand why this woman did not want her purse invaded by the cops. Purses are personal and they are ours, and we don’t want people willynilly going through them. I don’t see WHY they wanted to go through her purse anyway. According to the beginning of the tape, she was being stopped to check on her welfare. They did that. She apparently was fine. She looked to me like the kind of person that cops are there to protect; not to kill!
Very good point made earlier about when the pot came into this lady’s possession. Great question!
Nice article on the fallen cops. I myself would love to see one on the fallen innocent Americans whose lives have been ended by cops for no reason. Including the ones that have been killed while having seizures on their own living room floor, by old deaf people riding a bicycle who are tasered to death by cops, by people who are mentally impaired (the cops seem to REALLY love to taser THEM), by cops who have mistakenly chosen the wrong house and killed people in it, by unannounced raids when they scare people (the people maybe they got an anonymous tip about OR another mistaken address), the ones who kill each other in friendly fire and then blame the frightened person who is running away from them, etc. Is there a listing of these people who thought they were safe in their own homes? Or do these people not count, because they are not LEOs? I myself feel that they deserve their own list. I also feel that cops who are on the list given previously should be removed from said list if they were on there when doing things that were unconstitutional (by OUR definitions, not the ones that are set by the police after it’s all over with).
I miss the days gone by, when cops had integrity and protected the people they served. When you felt safe around them and knew they would protect you from evil. I know there are plenty left like that, but the problem is, you can’t COUNT on them being like that anymore. There are too many people out there who have called the police for help and wound up being injured or killed as a result.
Think about it! This lady was fine. The cops stopped her to check on her welfare. They killed her and brought her back. Now she is having cognitive problems. And yet it is HER fault, because she didn’t want her purse gone through by strangers and got into her car.
So say she sues and wins, even wins big. Nobody cares. It’s not THEIR money! They don’t get in any trouble. The real problem here is that NOTHING CHANGES!
We are exporting these militarized police all over, they think the civilians are the enemy, otherwise how can one explain their behavior? Acting like blood brother gangs against the civilians instead of doing their proper job:
i can remember my uncle, a police officer, telling his daughter never to stop for police in a deserted area. turn on the emergency flashers and drive to a well lit area, preferably where people are.
i don’t believe that would be good advice anymore.
Woosty
i was off topic and addressing the general meme of officer shootings.
JT: Pig, pig bot big, banana fana fo fig, fee fi mo mig, PIIIIGGGG.
–Name Game
How about igPay?
pete I’m not a lawyer or a policeman so I’m at a loss other than to say that this video, on its own merit alone, does not feed into any of the ‘fears’ that may be excusable for the police action. 1 woman and how many cops? They essentially killed her….and I’m appalled at the apologists….the argument is tantamount to don’t wear short skirts or you’re asking to get raped….fooey!
(who were you uggesting was the desperate party?)
Maybe all citizens should be required to take a class along with their drivers license on how to act around these badly trained cops these days. Because you are more likely to be killed by a cop than a bag of marijuana.
Are Police so badly trained it has to come to this? The cops were bored and were harrassing this woman. They were sure she was drunk- they ASSUMED she was up to no good, just like George Zimmerman.
It has alot to do with the gang mentality. it was those officers seeing how many orders they could make this innocent woman obey. I would bet that if it was one officer on his own, he would have questioned her and left when it was determined she was not intoxicated She did well until THEY overstepped her Constitutional rights.
They absolutely prodded her to a defensive position. So what if she hugs her purse? She already told them “no”, and I dont blame her for saying she was calling for help.
I would have made a phone call for backup to my friends or family at that point too.
This stop turned into pure harassment, and the only thing that will determine how long lasting the effect of their sadism and incompetence on her life will be the number of minutes her brain was without oxygen when they electrocuted her into heart failure.
I will take this into account the next time I pul over to make a call on my cell phone. i have a stick shift & never adapted to talking & driving at the same time. If a cop stops to ‘help’ me, i am calling for backup right away.
Woosty
i don’t have any numbers on this but i’ve always felt that “three strikes you’re out” habitual offender automatic life sentences contribute to many officer shootings.
if it’s their third offense people get desperate.
Darren,
That is what I tell the new hires I interview. Don’t let your emotions and testosterone overtake your brain. I often show them some of these types of videos and get them to tell me what their take is on the situation. Draw them out on what the officers did right and what they did wrong. Also, get them to tell me how the situation could have been avoided in the first place. Hopefully some of that will soak in, but sometimes you can’t fix stupid.
Our state supreme court (sorry I don’t recall the citation) ruled that flight from Terry stop constitutes the crime of Obstructing a Law Enforcement Officer. The standard of law to stop and detain a person is reasonable suspicion that the person has, is, or will commit a crime. The burden of proof for this is small compared to an arrest.
The Supreme Court also ruled that a person does not have a right to resist arrest even if that arrest is held to be legally tainted by a legal issue.
But regardless of whether or not the officers where not legally able to detain the woman for the length she was the law does not permit her to engage in actions that threaten the officers or the public. Even if the detention is held to be unreasonable, the officers will have qualified immunity in a case such as the actions using the Taser because there was a clearly articulable threat to the officers (going for a weapon by her, attempting to drive off and injuring the officers, or speeding off and becoming involved in a high speed crash resulting in injury or death.)
I would also disagree the severity of the detention, if held unlawful, would survive the “Shocking to the conscious” test of a civil rights violation.
Moreover, given the speed and action of the woman, and that she was seated in the seat, it is highly impractial to just Tase her in the legs and if she was going for a weapon, getting close to her to take her by conventional restraint holds would jeopordize the officers.
It is clear that everyone here involved would have been better off had this not happened. On a side note, as I had mentioned a few months ago in this blog. It is the “stupid stuff” like this that for some reason seems to blow completely out of control going from a minor incident to completely horrible, and it goes on and on and on. I don’t know why it is this way, but it is. I have been several times in deadly force situations where someone nearly got killed (shot) and nothing became of it beyond the arrest and the normal process. Then, I have seen other officers get involved in something insignificant and they or the suspect or a bystander does “something stupid” and it turns into a major ordeal that takes four or more years of court, litigation, hearings and consternation before it finally goes away.
That is why I always told rookies to not bother with the stupid stuff. I would postulate this is what Mike S and Woostie, in essence is mentioning what is to be avoided.
maybe if the police were less threatening they wouldn’t be getting shot quite so often OS (and I am not anti-police…) …..but fear is a funny thing….it is as contagious as a cold and there are better reasons to draw a weapon…
as she is getting into the car she is saying something along the line of “I’m calling for help”……and they were chasing her with those tasers in their hands……..pointd at her…..sheesh!
In re “pigs”.
I’ve known a lot of cops, from small town constables to big city beat cops to detectives and a few Feds. I liked more of them than not as people, but like any profession, there are good cops and bad cops. I’ve know a few that shouldn’t be allowed to carry a badge or a gun under any circumstances, a few that were little better than criminals themselves. One who was eventually arrested for his criminal activities. I have some real issues with the LE “blue brotherhood” mentality as well even among good cops. But “pigs”? Yeah, that’s a bit out of line. It’s a tough job and to use “pigs” is a disproportionate slam against an entire profession and the fallacy of composition. Yeah, there are bad cops and they are a huge problem for our society, but many of them are doing the job for the right reasons and most of them don’t like bad cops any more than you do. I think the biggest problem stems for the increased militarization of departments and the tendency to hire ex-military for policing. The job of “peace officer” and “military police” are diametrically opposed. One job is to keep the peace and resolve as much on the ground as possible without unnecessary escalation. The other job is to bust heads and clean up the mess afterwards, which is where the problems all come in. We need more peace officers and less police.
zzzzt stop moving, zzzzt stop moving, zzzzt stop moving.
kinda hard to stop twitching when you’re being electrocuted.