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A 60-year-old man who had long suffered from bipolar disorder died in a jail cell Friday, September 14th, hours after police tased him and placed him in isolation. Bill Williams was arrested for shoplifting at a gas station in Snohomish County, Washington. He had recently stopped taking his medication, and his family said they called the police and his case manager the previous week saying he needed to be hospitalized, but were ignored.
It happened again! This time a mentally-ill 25-year old man - Victor Duffy - was electrocuted by the tasers of unidentified police officers in his own home. Most of the information that is known comes from the dead man's mother. [SOURCE]
Victor Duffy's mother returned to her Tukwila home on Saturday just as the police were arriving.
Her son, 25-year-old Victor Duffy Jr., called 911 during a fight with his younger sister despite his "deathly" fear of police, Deanne Mills said.
According to Mills, her son had been diagnosed as being bipolar and having post-traumatic stress disorder after a confrontation with police in which he was tased six years ago, she said.
Mills said she told the officers who came to her house on Saturday that her son was mentally ill and had not been taking his medications.
"I begged them not to use a Taser on him," Mills said Monday. "I told them he was afraid and I asked them to take care of him."
She said she and other family members were herded outside their home leaving her son alone in the house with police.
"As soon as we were out, I heard 'zzzt,' 'zzzt,' and knew they were tasering him," Mills said.
A short while later, she said, her son was dead.
The police haven't publically acknowledged that a taser was used. The Tukwila Police Department say that Duffy began to experience "breathing difficulties" while he was in an ambulance and died later at Harborview Medical Center.
The Tukwila police statement said officers were called to the home, where a "male with a history of mental illness was being combative with his family and making strange statements to the 911 operator" late Saturday morning.
Duffy was "holding a golf club and threatening his family" when officers arrived, according to police. Duffy's relatives said they could hear a Taser being used and him screaming inside the home while they were outside.
As officers tried to take him into custody for an involuntary mental-health commitment, Duffy attempted to escape and broke his ankle.
"He was so afraid that he jumped out of a second-story window to get away," said his cousin, Kevin Duffy.
Duffy's mother said that while her son was on the ground and unable to move, officers attacked him, used the Taser on him again and handcuffed him.
Police seem willing to use the power of their taser guns without any regard for the damage that it can cause. Were the police officers in danger from an unarmed man with a broken ankle? If not, why was a taser deployed on him? Instead of being helped by mental health professionals a 25-year old man is dead. Something is wrong with this picture.
It happened again! This time a 30-year old man in San Antonio, TX was killed by taser-happy cops who couldn't figure out another way to deal with a person showing disrespect for getting a traffic ticket. The taser-killing happened in front of the man's family.
The initial call was for a wrong way driver. Police followed Pierre Abernathy, the driver, all the way to his mother's house.
“Once the driver was out of the car officers attempted to handcuff him. They got one handcuff on and then he started to resist. Then he broke free,” according Police Chief Bill McManus.
I'm fairly certain that the maximum penalty for 'resisting arrest' is NOT death!
Four officers tried to make the arrest. But Chief McManus says, at about 6’2 and weighing more than 200 pounds, Abernathy was too much for them. McManus explained a taser was used to try and subdue the man; but that didn't work. That’s when police tried to use a K-9 dog to take Abernathy down.
Abernathy's family watched all of this go down from just feet away. Lee Griffin, Pierre’s brother, says his entire family was screaming at the officers that Pierre was a paranoid schizophrenic and was begging them to stop.
"He was already on the ground and they continually tased him while he was already on the ground, laying motionless,” Griffin remembers. “He wasn't saying anything. He wasn't responding and they killed my brother right in front of me."
While the department investigates, the four officers involved are on administrative duty.
The Abernathy family know Pierre wasn't perfect, but he was human and didn't deserve to die like this.
“That was over, over, overly excessive. How many tasers does it take,” Tiffany Allen, Pierre’s sister, questioned. “That's what I have to ask the police department. One? Two? Cause this was about eight to ten.”
The police appear to have difficulty dealing with people who have mental illness. This isn't the first time that a mentally-ill person has been killed by taser-happy police officers. When will they learn?
There is some rank shyt out in the world. Racial profiling and improper imprisonment of mentally-challenged people are high up on the list. Villagers need to know about a young 19-year old man in Stafford (VA) who is a victim of both issues!
Reginald 'Neli' Latson is a young autistic man who was sitting on the front lawn of the public library in Stafford (VA) minding his own business. He was waiting for the library to open. The police saw him and made some assumptions about what a young Black man was doing out on the public library's lawn. They acted on their assumptions and approached Latson. They searched him and found that he had no weapons. The incident should have been over at that point.
However, it appears that Latson didn't show the proper amount of respect to the officers. They continued to harass him ... and his response was to physically resist the officers. What the police didn't realize was that Latson suffers from autism. He doesn't understand the normal 'cues' that the rest of us understand.
They arrested him. He was held without access to his family. He was sent for psychiatric evaluation. Eventually he was given a 10-year conviction for resisting arrest.
I'm joining with other online activist to call for this criminal injustice to be corrected. We need to get Neli into a treatment facility where he can rehabilitate from the trauma he has suffered. Each day that Neli is in the penitentiary he is in danger of missing important cues and getting in more and more trouble because he is just not able to understand what is happening to him. In order for this to happen he needs to get a pardon.
The police have a real difficulty dealing with mentally-challenged people. Unidentified Philadelphia police officers were called to the home where Patrick Johnson, a mentally-challenged teenage boy, was living the other day. When the police couldn't quickly deal with the situation as professionals they pulled out their 21st century version of a cattle prod ... their taser guns ... and electrocuted the young man twice. The second jolt of 50,000 volts of electricity into the youngsters body resulted in his death.
Patrick Johnson was a special education graduate with the mental capacity of a 5-year old according to those who knew him.
The sad thing is that 18-year old Patrick Johnson called the police himself. Account to the police this was a regular thing. Police say that they have been called to the home on 14 separate occassions due to the mental health issues of this youngster.
"He had problems, but he was a good kid. It should have never happened," said Steve Zielinski, Johnson's stepfather.
Johnson had become violent with family members, and had broken items inside and outside of the home. He had taken what police described as a stick, brought it into the home and attempted to set it on fire. Police had attempted to calm the youngster down, and officers with the city's Crisis Intervention Team had responded to speak with him.
However, the police got impatient with the situations. So when they thought that the teenager was allegedly approaching them with the stick .. they opened fire with the taser guns. Johnson fell to the ground when he was tasered twice by unidentified police officers.
Zielinski said he had been in the home during the incident, and had been holding Johnson's arms behind his back at one point. He said police had told Johnson to drop the stick four times before using a Taser on him when he lunged at the officers. He said the teen ran into the home's basement, where he collapsed.
Johnson was brought to Nazareth Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:10 p.m. on Thursday, October 7.
Investigators have been working to determine how Johnson died, and what factors contributed to his death. This blogger will go out on a limb here and say that the 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through his body not once ... but twice ... may be the cause of death.
There is no indication that the teenager was on any drugs or medications at the time of his taser-related death. Please let us know if you learn anything more about this case.
Another man is dead from pre-judicial electrocution by taser.39-year old Andrew Torres was a mentally-ill man. His family called the police for assistance in getting Torres to a hospital for assistance. They had no idea the police would taser him six times resulting in his death.
Two unidentified Greenville police officers came to the Torres home to serve mental papers. The police clearly understood that this man was ill ... not a criminal ... not armed ... just sick. Instead of handling the process like professionals, the police allowed the situation to escalate to a point where taser guns were drawn and fired multiple times.
Ten minutes later, while in police custody, Andrew Torres was unresponsive. An ambulance responded to the scene and medics found him in cardiac arrest. Torres was driven to the hospital where medical personnel pronounced him dead at 5:40 p.m.
The mother said her son was suffering from a form of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. For years the family turned to National Alliance On Mental Illness in Greenville for help. They attended support groups and education classes to learn how to deal with mental illness. [SOURCE]
"We understand their son had not been taking his medicine," said Fletcher Mann, NAMI Greenville program director. "His condition worsened (and the) family was seeking to go through the legal process of commitment," he said.
To families living with mental illness, Andrew's death is another painful reminder that the system doesn't always work.
We wait to see what the coroner says about this taser-related killing. In the meantime, the under-trained police continue to use their tasers as a killing weapon all over America. When will it stop?
