Taser, the deadly less-than-lethal force

East Austin is mainly occupied by minorities, and you could call it "economically challenged" in an attempt to be politically correct. If you live on the east side, when you make you enough money to get out of there, it has been shown that you will likely move north to Round Rock or Pflugerville (Flu-ger-vil). Anyway, it's an area where they're attempting to "revitalize" and such. So, probably not surprisingly, it also happens to be an area with lots of crime.

Now, maybe it's just me, but if someone is threatening a police officer, I'm thinking they're either extremely pissed off, crazy, doped up, trying to impress, or some combination thereof. But if one is acting a fool, they shouldn't be surprised if they're treated accordingly. BUT THAT IS NOT ENOUGH TO KILL SOMEONE!

What happened? Not enough police to wrestle this guy to the ground and handcuff him? The police that were present were female or not big enough to do so? Or... is it just faster and less physically demanding to simply taser a person into submission? Yeah, I think the laziness factor is in play here. It gets hot here in Texas, and if you have to wrestle someone down to the ground, you might break a sweat and then you might feel some discomfort for the remainder of your shift.

Maybe it's just me again, but I was under the impression that Tasers were supposed to be used in lieu of times when an officer would normally shoot a suspect in the leg... so instead of shooting them with a bullet to a less-lethal area of the body that the chest, they could use a Taser. Was that the case in this incident, who knows? What's the policy for when Taser use is authorized? That should be found somewhere on APD's website.

Thing is, the police probably didn't anticipate the guy would die, and I'm betting they thought simply using the Taser would quickly put an end to whatever the situation was. However, it's this trend to use a jolts of electricity instead of manually forcing a person down that's causing these deaths. Think of Rodney King, if those officers had Tasers back then, King would likely have died instead of receiving the beating. Sure, beatings can kill too... but when was the last time APD beat someone to death for resisting arrest?

Therefore, Austin needs to rethink its use of Tasers to make sure that its use isn't killing more people than it's saving.

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DA to review Clark case; NAACP sponsors forum
10/5/2005 7:43 AM
By: News 8 Austin Staff

The Travis County district attorney's office is reviewing the case of Michael Clark. He died last Monday in police custody. Police used a Taser on Clark to subdue him. The DA's office says it will present the case to a Travis County grand jury.

East Austin community members also discussed the case. The NAACP held a town hall meeting Tuesday night where they talked about what they can do to stop what they believe is excessive violence toward minorities by police. 'We believe that when our community is properly educated, properly informed, and properly mobilized, we can solve this problem. The city of Austin, to us, is part of the problem,' Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder said.

A number of issues were discussed including asking the police department to put more veteran officers on patrol in East Austin. The city's assistant police monitor and members of the Texas Civil Rights Project also attended the meeting."

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FROM THE AUSTIN POLICE DEPARTMENT WEBSITE:

At 1:09 p.m., Southeast Area Command patrol officers were dispatched to a nature
unknown call at 6400 East William Cannon Drive. Upon arrival officers located a
male and female who were engaged in a physical disturbance.

Officers made contact with the male who was displaying behavior that was violent
and irrational. The suspect threatened the officers and did not comply with officer
commands as the officers went to arrest him. Officers had to use less lethal force
to control the suspect. The suspect was taken into custody and went into medical
distress. He was transported to South Austin Hospital by EMS for medical
attention.

He was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. at the hospital. The cause of death is
pending the results of an autopsy by the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office.
This incident is under investigation by the APD Homicide Unit and Internal Affairs.