Drumbeats from Over Analyze It told us that police responding to a false shooting call broke into a deaf man's apartment and shot him with a taser as the man was getting out of the bathtub. Donnell Williams was wearing only a towel when police entered the bathroom with guns drawn.
Williams kept pointing to his ear and yelling, "I am scared. I can’t hear, I can’t hear!" He is functionally deaf without his hearing aids. When he didn’t obey the unheard police commands he was shot with the taser.
Were the police so frightened of a naked Blackman coming out of his own bathroom, inside of his own house, that they felt a need to use 50,000 volts of pure electricity on him?
Can you imagine how Donnell Williams had to feel at that moment?
After police realized they were at a false call they apologized to Mr. Williams. The police are trying to trace the source of the call and stated only that it came from a cell phone. The case is being reviewed by the department. Anyone have the name of the cop that used the taser on this brother? It wasn't reported in the initial news reports.
The Wichita police are begging for forgiveness now (before the lawsuits come down). But, is there any defense for this type of shoddy police work? It ain't happening this way in the 90210 zip code ... only in OUR neighborhoods.
Villagers, how many brothers and sisters do we need to see victimized by the shoot-first, ask-questions-later mentality of these taser-happy cops before we recognize that there is a serious problem going on.
- Pregnant woman
- Innocent Blackman with his mother on Thanksgiving day
Now we see it happening to a deaf Blackman. Was he engaged in some illegal activity? Was he out after 3:00 am in the morning acting a fool? Nope, this brother was buck-naked coming out of his own bathtub in his own dayum house. What is wrong in our country?
9 comments:
You are from Wichita! I grew up in Valley Center. Small world. Thanks for commenting on my blog!
A deaf guy?
Wow, how do you defend that?
Um...uh...
The Chewbacca Defense?
Woozie - The police in Wichita blamed it on whoever called in by cell phone (i guess to x911). They took no responsibility themselves...
peace, Villager
How come this taser incidence seem to be getting more frequent? Have they always been this frequent but few under the radar? Or were the police recently being issued new radar guns?
These taser incidents are pretty alarming. I guess we should be thankful that this far less lethal weapon is available to the cops, because in all of these cases, if all they had was a gun, these brothers and sisters could be dead. On the other hand, the very fact that it is not lethal (under most circumstances) may be leading officers inclined to act unprofessionally to even more quickly use it.
Cases like these call for a coordinated response of monitoring, evaluation and strategic challenge in order to raise the standard of conduct. Cops can be almost impervious to public outcry unless it is brought to bear judiciously. Organizations like the NAACP and the National Action Network should be able to address systematically this kind of activity or help support organized action by an offshoot or task force effort to address such issues and raise the cost for police departments to engage in or tolerate this kind of conduct. Unfortunately, our national organizations are on the lame side when it comes to getting systematic about this sort of thing. They can put together a whiz bang march, but when the chanting is over, very little has changed.
Shaun - Actually, I've never been to Wichita before. My pops worked there for a few months in the aerospace industry back in the early 1960s. I'm currently in Cincinnati.
Omodudu - Tasers are relatively new to police forces around the country. The force here in Cincinnati rec'd them 3-4 years ago with some federal funding. There are enough to create a blog dedicated to the phenomenon.
Aaron/Alaine - We're talking about taking a stance to request congressional hearings. You feel up to drafting such a letter for our consideration as a template?
Regrettably, the police all around this country have two systems of dealing with situations inside the Balck and White communities and this is futher proof of that. Your guess is as good as mine with regards to when and what will ever be done to bring these sort of injustices to a halt.
Something must be done otherwise they shall continue unabated.
Lakeith Amir-Sharif
Making The Walls Transparent
(MTWT-TEXAS)
www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas
Supposedly they tased him because they thought he was disobeying their order to show his hands. How does that even make sense? He's pointing to his ear with one hand, he's wearing a towel, and he's probably holding on to the towel with the other hand.
How could they have possibly feared for their safety? Those police officers should be fired and not be permitted to work in law enforcement or security ever again.
Anon - Thank you for sharing your village voices with us! Come back often...
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