There is another disturbing case involving police tasering a suspect who ended up with a serious, life-threatening injury after a traffic stop. Bryce Masters was put into a medically induced coma due to injuries to his brain after an encounter with an Independence (Mo.) police officer. The brain damage was due to either hitting his head on the concrete or losing oxygen for a long period of time.
Masters is a good student who plays football in high school and was planning to join his brother at Missouri State University to study computer science.
Masters was pulled over outside of his friend’s house. Police say that he refused to get out of his car or fully open his window. Sgt. Darrell Schmidli has said that there was an outstanding traffic citation. That is hardly a serious offense and it turns out that it was a warrant associated the license plate for a female.
Schmidli said that Masters opened his window a crack in response to the officer but “was just being completely uncooperative with the officer.” A friend says that Masters’ window was broken and could not lower all of the way. Witnesses also say that the officer became enraged by the lack of response to his orders.
One witness in the article below says that the officer quickly pulled out his taser and used it. However, Schmidli said that the officers warned about the taser before it was used.
What is clear is that the officer used the stun gun while Masters was still sitting in the car. The probes from the stun gun struck Masters about six inches apart near his heart and caused Masters to go into cardiac arrhythmia. He showed severe acute oxygen deprivation to the brain during the cardiac arrest.
Masters’ father is an officer with the Kansas City Police Department. The Masters family issued the following statement:
“Because of significant inconsistencies between public statements made by the Independence Police Department and information made available to the family in the form of statements of eyewitnesses and video and audio footage of the occurrence, the family has asked the United States Department of Justice to conduct its own investigation into these tragic events.”
The video below shows a police officer standing over Masters body, who is not moving.
We have previously discussed how police today seem to use tasers as a first response weapon to any resistance or in some cases the failure to follow their orders. We have seen various serious injuries causes by heart attacks or falls as a result of the use of tasers but some police officers continue to use the weapon relatively freely in encountering what they consider resistance.
Kudos: Michael Blott
At a required safe driver course it was pointed out that it’s best to open your window a crack, enough to pass through your license and registration. If cop demands you get out of your car, comply, but put your keys in your pocket and lock the door. Don’t give permission for a search unless the cop has a warrant.
John (at 1:04 am): I would love to watch a documentary starring you living in a city of 100,000+ with a police force consisting only of illegal aliens working for minimum wage. Although the documentary need only cover a span of 4 days, I would pay extra if it examined life in that city over a period of 4 weeks.
Shaking, We have the worst police chief of all time, Daryl Gates LAPD, for popularizing SWAT teams.
The kids at his school should show up tomorrow at school with black armbands which state on the armband: Don’t Taze Me Bro. If the school punishes the kids for wearing the armbands then take the teacher, principal, and school board to court. This way the tazer issue is brought to the public attention front and center. Tinker v. Board of Education of Des Moine, IA. Google it.
Taze a cop. Catch him while he is eating a donut. Get revenge.
The world is crazy
Over the last two decades, SWAT units have become ever more heavily armed. Under the so-called 1033 Program, named for a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, the federal government has transferred vast amounts of military equipment — machine guns and ammunition, helicopters, night-vision gear, armored cars — to local police departments. The process accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, under both President George W. Bush and President Obama. Inevitably, some people, including police chiefs, have asked if all this amounts to a solution in search of a problem. Take the transfer of MRAPs, the military term for mine-resistant ambush-protected armored vehicles. How many minefields are there on America’s Main Streets?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/us/the-rise-of-the-swat-team-in-american-policing.html?_r=0
The rise of swat teams
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/us/the-rise-of-the-swat-team-in-american-policing.html?_r=0
Karen S
In general, I wonder if they’ve developed something better than the taser by now, perhaps some military tech.
= = =
Just what we need… More police armed with even more military tech, and gear, and MRAPs and etc. then will the police more or less like the military?
The first rational caveat: DON’T TAKE THE ——- JOB.
Nobody promised you a rose garden.
The subject of this article should not be in the hospital.
Cops take the job first and foremost because they don’t want to work for a living and they get artificially high compensation for unskilled labor. Once we get those stipulated, we can resolve the issue of abuse of power by the government against the citizens.
In the private sector, successful business mangers fully comprehend that the customer is king.
Cops have a false belief of “entitlement” and dominion over the sovereigns which are the citizens. Cops have unions and, thus, absolutely no fear of discipline. Cops do whatever they choose with impunity.
The “dictatorship of the proletariat” must be annihilated as all dictatorships must.
Cops should do their jobs by hand and without weapons.
Weapons should be used only as a response the use of weapons by subjects.
Cops should expect to physically engage with subjects without weapons.
Cops should be penalized/fired for any damage to any subject.
If cops don’t want to do hands on policing, they should not take the job.
Cops should not make $100K+ compensation 4 days work and 6 weeks leave,
with full 100% retirement pay, medical, dental, vision and huge COLA at 20
years “service.”Illegal aliens will drive a car and write tickets for minimum
wage.
For every position opening at the police and fire, there are 5,000 applicants.
http://www.policemisconduct.net/
John – one of my husband’s friends is a cop who’s unfortunately been involved in multiple deadly force shootings. They were all gang members that opened fire on him, and at least once there was no cover. He’s been shot at least once. If he had been unable to shoot back, he would have been murdered.
But I would look at everything in the investigation – including this cop’s particular reaction, the department protocol, and training in how to recognize and respond to distress. I believe cops have to be certified in first aid, at least in some areas.
I’ll say the same thing for this that I said in the Brown case – there needs to be an independent investigation into this.
Someone sitting in a car doesn’t sound like a threat, and I hope he wasn’t trying to drive away. As has been pointed out, it is possible that if the kid was smoking weed, he didn’t cooperate because he didn’t want his dad to find out.
We need to find out if the taser was used solely for non-compliance, and what the protocol was for such a situation at that precinct.
When we got our drivers licenses, my dad had a talk with each of us as to what to do if we get pulled over. Be polite and cooperate, and if you have a complaint save it for later. Don’t do anything wrong where you’ll feel like you can’t cooperate.
It’s a tragedy for the boy and his family. So sad. I hope he recovers, and is spared brain damage. His poor family.
In general, I wonder if they’ve developed something better than the taser by now, perhaps some military tech. Something non-lethal that can subdue someone without the risks inherent to the taser.
Looks like this may be another instance of police going berserk when being recorded by their suspect.
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/09/16/missouri-cops-tases-teen-son-cop-recording-leaving-critical-condition/