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
Dashcam has not been mentioned in any of the articles I have seen.
Yes, where is the outcry?!! I keep thinking of myself–my son will be driving soon, and what might he run into? Luckily, for the most part (except for the cities), the police seem to be more professional and respectful here. Maybe that is due more to a smaller community, but who knows? Once again, where is the outcry from the media???? I’m afraid it is an outrage, but not a “hot-button” situation. Shameful.
“However, Schmidli said that the officers warned about the taser before it was used.”
If the dashcam video doesn’t back this up, fire the Sgt. too. The first thing out of the police department in every single case is to back the officer. How about just for once you reserve judgement in the case your officer is completely in the wrong?
This poor kid. 17, had a future to look forward to, and is cut down by a thug. If this was my kid I’d seriously be considering taking action on the cop before the courts decline to do so.
At the very least they should send the cop the boys medical bill to be paid out of his own pocket.
Seems like the apt punishment is for the officer to be testicular tazed….. After he is sued for everything he has and fired….
He was cuffed? Looks like the cop nudged him with his foot, dragged him a bit and then stepped on him, did he even try to take a pulse? No CPR? Did he even call the paramedics? How long was he without oxygen because these cops stood there? This guy needs to go to jail and there should be demonstrations in the streets.
The Gestapo act again. We lowly citizens who pay their salary dare not question their muscle brain authority.
When did “comply or die” replace “serve and protect” as the police motto?
Just another day in America… land of the free and the home of the brave.
This story was all over the national media yesterday. AG Holder has issued a statement. Here are links to the reports:
Oops! Spoke too soon; there was no coverage.
The kid’s not black so, unfortunately, there’ll be no federal investigation.
Psychopaths anonymous.
Using a taser is legally equivalent to whacking someone upside the head with a baton.
Would that have been acceptable for this situation?
There should be riots in the streets for this, as it is so much more clear as to what happened, and who is at fault.
If someone else did this to the kid, they would be in a holding cell facing charges.
Without some painful pushback to municipalities that condone this kind of behavior, it will continue.
Police use tazers when they feel citizens are not subservient
Enough immediately. Using tazers is not non lethal
force. Until police officers who assut citizens or kill them in
This manner got to jail along with their supervisors things will
Not change.
My sympathies are with the family of this young man.
I know people who worked on the KC Police Sept. w/ the victims father. Good family and a horrible tragedy. We do know there will be no riots or looting over this, for which I am grateful.
What happened to the cops that administered CPR? The guy seems very casual about the whole thing.
Sue the officer and the Independence PD and City for $1,000,000. They are good for it. That is the only way renegade cops like this one will be put in their place, homeless and on the lamb.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/19/im-a-cop-if-you-dont-want-to-get-hurt-dont-challenge-me/
Masters was pulled over outside of his friend’s house.
And did the officer explain WHAT he was pulled over for? Did he put the kid under arrest? Did he TELL him he was under arrest?
Sounds like a cop that thinks they have no limits on what they can do.
Nothing will happen to the cop.
The kid got the death penalty for being insufficiently worshipful of the policeman.
We are no longer free citizens, but merely subjects or serfs.
If the cop wants the cash you have on you, it’s theirs.
If the policeman wants you dead, you’re dead. Too bad.
If the DA wants to indict you, you’re indicted, you ham sandwich you.
If the IRS believes you committed wrongparty, you’re audited.
If the DNR wants your land, it’s theirs.
If the EPA wants to close your company, it’s closed.
If the VA kills you by mistake or delay, too bad.