Fatal Shooting in Vic

[MindExpansion]

News link

The fatal shooting by police of a 15-year-old boy has prompted Victoria's police union to renew its call for all officers to be armed with Taser guns.

Officers shot the boy in the chest on Thursday night, fatally wounding him, as he approached and threatened them with two knives in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote.

Police Association secretary Senior Sergeant Greg Davies said while the full circumstances of the tragedy were not clear yet, a Taser gun may have prevented the fatality.

"Certainly, it seems this may have been a situation where a Taser gun could have been deployed," Snr Sgt Davies told AAP.

"You can almost guarantee if the circumstances were conducive to the use of a Taser, then using a Taser would have meant he wouldn't have had to have been shot. He would have been temporarily disabled and handcuffed."

Police said they fired warning shots and used two hits of capsicum spray to subdue the boy, with no apparent effect.

They were called to the All Nations Park at Northcote shortly after 9.30pm (AEDT) following calls from a number of people reporting a young man behaving irrationally and violently.

Snr Sgt Davies said the police association's members were doing a tough job without the best technology available.

"Our people are being sent out there on behalf of the public to do a pretty difficult job and they're clearly not being provided with the range of technology that they should have," he said.

Shooting him in the leg may also have been a better choice than the FUCKING CHEST if they didn't want to kill him.

[Re-Grifter]

Perfect opportunity to ask for tasers again, and they are milking it for all it's worth.

The problem is they will taser us for the most trivial of reasons once they get 'em, we all know that.

[Fenris]

Ive heard of a number of cases in the US where people in wheelchairs have been tazer. If the police had tazers here I don't think it would take too long before they would be using them as a weapon of assault on people who are annoying them. What ever happened to the old net and trident method of taking down an opponent.

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/09/p...-granny-to.html

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Police Taser wheelchair bound granny to death

This blog documented numerous cases where police use of Tasers resulted in the death of the individual. This, allegedly “safe” form of control is, in fact, dangerous and lethal.

When dealing with mentally disturbed individuals there is a problem. Police think that threatening someone with a Taser will get them to obey orders. That assumes a functioning rational process. If the person is irrational this threat rarely works. Instead of finding other means of dealing with the situation the trigger happy cops just Taser someone to make life easy for themselves, even if that leads to the unnecessary death of the person involved. Our previous article on numerous such killings is here.

Emily Delafied had mental problems. She was schizophrenic. She was also confined to a wheelchair, which certainly limited her mobility and the type of threat she could become. It wasn’t as if she could leap at someone and harm them. And to direct her chair she needed to use her hands. She couldn’t pursue someone easily and carry a weapon at the same time. In addition her family says her range of motion was very limited. And due to her medical condition she was on oxygen. Clearly this was a fragile woman who really couldn’t pose a real threat.

In April 2006 Emily didn’t take her medication and she had an episode. I knew a schizophrenic who periodically got the idea in his head that Jesus would heal him, and to show his faith he had to stop taking his pills. The result was always a pretty scary psychotic episode. And that is what happened to Emily.

That day she called the police saying her sister was going to hurt her. When police arrived they found Delafield in her chair holding two knives and a hammer. She would swing them at family who approached her believing they were going to hurt her. It appears from press reports that Delafield was hallucinating that she was under threat and was trying to protect herself. There is no indication that she was planning to harm herself.

Clearly the woman couldn't be reasoned with and threats would make the situation worse. No one else was under immediate threat. Family could vacate the premises quite easily. Delafield was in no position to pursue. The situation seems relatively easy. Vacate the area, keep Delafield confined and under surveillance, try to talk to her from a distance so she doesn’t feel threatened and wait.

If she was trying to harm herself then perhaps a different strategy would be necessary. If she was able to harm others then a different strategy would be necessary. If unable to do either then a little patience, until she calmed down, may have resolved the case. Police were clearly impatient. They used the Taser on the woman after “a 13-minute standoff” -- just 13 minutes. That was the entire amount of time they were willing to invest in trying to find a non-lethal way of solving this problem.

Police were impatient. One police officer used a Taser on Delafield nine times and a second officer used a Taser once, all in under three minutes. The repeated shocks combined with a heart condition to kill the woman. The medical examiner listed cause of death as a homicide.

Police Chief Robert Musco tried to justify the killing saying that the use of the Taser, ten times, “was utilized and the subject was disarmed.” True, she was disarmed, she was dead. It is very critical to remember what sort of threat this “armed” women posed. First, she was in her late 50s, not a spring chicken. Second, she was confined to a wheelchair. She wasn’t going to leap tall buildings in a single bound. She couldn’t even easily hold her weapons and operate her chair at the same time. She had limited range of motion and needed oxygen just to breath. This wasn’t Rambo but an older woman in a wheelchair with extremely limited ability to inflict harm on anyone.

Of course the police officers were cleared. They always are. The only way that bad cops go down is when they are taped committing the offense.

[_e_]

i thought they were already around??

i know some of them have made them ontot he blackmarket (i.e mugs brining them to doofs)

but i also heard a story of someone being tasered once inside the back of a paddywagon....

to be honest i think capsicum spray is probably the best non fatal immobiliser, but if tasers were put in place for use ONLY againsnt people weilding weapons then i wouldnt have a problem with it.

if per chance, i was french artist whom had a psychotic break after a nasty breakup, and was wondering around with a knife on a public beach threatening to kill myself id much prefer the two sleep deprived coke riddled police whom apprehended me to hit me with a taser then shoot me dead.

[paradox]

well i say we take a leaf out of Greeces book. any anarchists present?

[Re-Grifter]

well i say we take a leaf out of Greeces book. any anarchists present?

You know....i was thinking the EXACT same thing....it even crossed my mind that we would be hearing about "disturbances" tonight.

Northcote is a Greek area.......

EDIT: Well, in all fairness to the cops, he certainly seemed to be quite the bad apple, and he was a "skip"...so no chance of any rioting Greeks.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2...805-661,00.html

Still, 7 shots to the chest......just one in the leg might have done.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Re-Grifter

[baphomet]

Perfect opportunity to ask for tasers again, and they are milking it for all it's worth.

The problem is they will taser us for the most trivial of reasons once they get 'em, we all know that.

That's what I thought.. watch these power tripping assholes turn it into an excuse for more tasers.

Next we'll be tasered for asking logical questions like this: http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?q=u...+florida+stude#

BTW, what happened in Greece was a disgrace! They actually looted and trashed the jewelery store that belongs to the victims mother. Anarchists are fuckwits!! If people want to express themselves violently they should make sure that it is carefully directed at those who are responsible.

[Re-Grifter]

Here's another view of the proceedings:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LmvCHAaKGyk&...feature=related

Notice how many sheeple in the audience seem to be either indifferent to or even amused by what's happening?

He has a set on him, that kid....asking the questions he did.

[baphomet]

It shouldn't take that many cops to arrest someone anyways, let alone having to taser him.

There is a simple shoulder lock called a kimura which easily enables one person to get control of another persons arm and get it around his back, two judo or BJJ white belts could get him down and cuff him so it shouldn't take more than 2 well trained police officers to hand cuff him and tasers were certainly not necessary IMO.

There were at least 7 of them on that poor bloke and he was on the ground with no weapons, from what I can see he was passively trying to resist arrest, not trying to hurt anyone but they still decided to tase him and then charged him with "inciting a riot"

Some may think that he was getting a bit rowdy and deserved to be forcibly removed but a quick search on utube shows some concerning footage and stories of children as young as 11 being tasered.

Tasers are NOT safe! Many people die as a result of tasers each year and I would be willing to bet that the number of people killed by police in Australia will absolutely sky rocket if tasers become more widely available to police.

PS: Here's what kerry and bush said when they were asked about skull & bones on television: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mPh7sUvhZ3E

Edited December 12, 2008 by baphomet

[tardistestpilot]

Perfect opportunity to ask for tasers again, and they are milking it for all it's worth.

The problem is they will taser us for the most trivial of reasons once they get 'em, we all know that.

ive seen coppers in WA packing tasers and appeard to be wearing flak/bullet proof vests when i was working in perth cpl of months ago they were in the canington carousal shopping centre so yes WA coppers do have them

[Re-Grifter]

^

Insten-string...

Ya'll know what this incident was i reckon?.....classic suicide by cop.

[Vertmorpheus]

Shooting for the leg is nice but pretty much impractical... for the reason (all very icky, isn't it) coppers and soldiers alike are trained to shoot at Centre of Visible Mass.

If some poor bastard up the street had the top of his scone taken off by a glancing footpath shot thanks to Junior McConstable Annie Xanxious, we'd be hearing "oh, if only they had tasers". It's very, very easy to play CounterStrike, harder to be put in the position of No Good Outcome.

Having been CS'd (half willingly), I would take a pretty stab in the dark at this kid being upped to bullshit on somethingorother, in any case mental enough to be a serious risk.

The only way coppers and any other edge-phenomena workers keep the balls to keep going thru front doors and into lives every other day is because they rely on their comrades (ouch) to keep them relatively intact.

If some cracked up idiot with fistfulls of knives was posing a threat to anyone I care about, and my only practical option was to shoot him (assuming I couldn't obtain a retroactive certification in some martial art or other, and had to make do with what a cash strapped and poorly managed system provided me with), I suspect I would. I wouldn't enjoy it much, I'd probably spend a long long time wishing things could have been different, but if it's that, or seeing someone I have some kindof bond with having a face like a letterbox or guts like a delicatessen rack, I imagine there's only one option I could choose.

Probably, sadly enough,shoot him in the safest-for-the-average-bystander spot of about two inches below his heart. I don't know any wing chun, wankido, etc. Even if I did, something about the thought of as much room as possible between my organs and some schizoid's bad intentions would make me feel better. Good point though, I have heard that police in Japan are all borderline Aikido superstars which goes a long way with dealing with THEIR sporadic outbreaks of blade wielding psychopathy.

Somtimes they shoot people for really nasty reasons, in really bad ways, we all know that. And sometimes, things happen at Just The Right Time. But sometimes, there's actually some poor bastard (yes, really, even if he would do you driving 10 over hte limit, unlicensed and unroadworthy, with an unsecured load in the back) who now has to look at every 15 year old he sees, differently. Every sunrise is going to have a bit of piss preloaded from now on.

Mental illness is by nature a hard to handle field in some cases, but ultimately it's not time for therapy when you can see an able bodied young man legging it with knives. The VPU possibly using this incident as a footing to aim for tasers is no different, in some ways, to this death being hijacked to campaign AGAINST tasers. At the very,very least, it has to be seen and accepted as counterpropanda.

Icky. If they had've tasered him and he went into CVx, we'd be hearing about that too.

And hey, what are the odds that the area with the highest greek population in the southern hemisphere would get a hard on for this story? Call me jaded... interesting how "we" can dissect media in the most artful and objective of ways, truly chaser worthy, when it's something about "drugs are bad" or "freaks are weird" but we almost break our bong nursin knees to put the boot into some copper or other.

Fairness is a fucker of a thing, and legshots only happen in Hollywood.

VM

Edited December 12, 2008 by Vertmorpheus

[Re-Grifter]

He wanted to die and he got his wish.

I actually feel a little sad for the young shit-kicker constables involved, life just ain't gunna be the same for them from now on.

[Vertmorpheus]

Well, he may have thought, in some way, that he wanted to then, but then He may not have been Him at the time... etc...

None of us will ever know for sure, but it's ripe for the picking by any one of a number of advocacy groups.

Long as thru that messy, grabby process people remember that they, and we, are people then we might just stand to LEARN something from it all instead of it being some other sarcastic lil footnote.

VM

[MindExpansion]

The whole situation is fucked up for all involved, the kid must've had some shit going on, to be acting so erratically, but you tell me that 3 fully grown people, with some training in disarming assailants, could not disarm or subdue a 15 year old kid without shooting him in the chest? I'm not suggesting that the officers did wrong, because as was said, none of us were there and they made a split second choice, would have been far too hard to do, and something I could never imagine having to do so let criticism remain constructive. Feel sorry for the kid because he added some pissy myspace group that now he will be remembered as a racist yob (which he may or may not have been...but if he wasn't it is certainly a shame).

That video of the kid being tasered for asking questions of that polly is SICKENING. The fact that we as a society cannot rely on each other to assist when basic humane liberties are so disgustingly and blatantly violated makes me cringe with deep sorrow. To be dragged kicking and screamining, pleading to be told what I had done wrong, and then to BEG, they make him fucking BEG, not to be tasered, without another soul standing up and even questioning the officers, let alone what I know I would like to do and fucking headbutt one of the drones, and no I'm not one of those 'all cops are fucked' type of guys who thinks the world would be a better place if people were left to police themselves HAH, but you have to draw the line on an institutions powers, because peace in society results when the government is as afraid of its peoples, as the people are afraid of the government...maybe it's approaching the time to make the gov feel afraid?

Peace

[Legba]

Tyler Cassidy a member of white supremacist group Southern Cross Soldiers...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24793321-1243,00.html

[nabraxas]

Anarchists are fuckwits!!

Generalising again

100 lines:

Groups are grammatical fictions; only individuals exist, & each individual is different.

[Re-Grifter]

maybe it's approaching the time to make the gov feel afraid?

The system they have in place to oppress and control us makes no provision for the families of police and military personell, imo THAT will be a major part of it's undoing....(let's face it, it's human nature not to give a shit until it becomes personal)

Their family members will be arrested for the same trivial crap as ours....see what i'm driving at?....it will eventually collapse from within.

In order for a revolution to work, we'd need a decent slice of the military and police forces on our side, they would have to occupy Canberra and pyshically remove the tyrants from power....they won't give up that power without a fight, and don't forget that the population is mostly disarmed (parallels to Nazi Germany, anyone?...)

That's my opinion anyway. I don't condone the overthrow of the government, and who's to say that what replaces it won't end up becoming as morally bankrupt and corrupt as our present leaders...power corrupts, as they say. Some demented Christian group might seize power, in which case we are in for a a whole UNIVERSE of insanity and hurt.

Humanity makes me nauseous.

[rahli]

The system they have in place to oppress and control us makes no provision for the families of police and military personell, imo THAT will be a major part of it's undoing....(let's face it, it's human nature not to give a shit until it becomes personal)

Their family members will be arrested for the same trivial crap as ours....see what i'm driving at?....it will eventually collapse from within.

In order for a revolution to work, we'd need a decent slice of the military and police forces on our side, they would have to occupy Canberra and pyshically remove the tyrants from power....they won't give up that power without a fight, and don't forget that the population is mostly disarmed (parallels to Nazi Germany, anyone?...)

That's my opinion anyway. I don't condone the overthrow of the government, and who's to say that what replaces it won't end up becoming as morally bankrupt and corrupt as our present leaders...power corrupts, as they say. Some demented Christian group might seize power, in which case we are in for a a whole UNIVERSE of insanity and hurt.

Humanity makes me nauseous.

I think it would be very unwise to use brutal force to elevate a new level of consciousness. This is because in all probability the collapse of the current system would regresses the general consciousness to one of the warrior mentality and set use back about three steps in the evolution of thinking.

When a critical mass (around 10%) of people reach a new higher evolution of consciousness, this will spill over into the wider population and politicians will have to respond with appropriate policies that are relevant on all levels of thinking.

We need a representation of each level of consioussness for the whole of society to remain functioning in a sustainable fashion. The problem is that currently there are too many traditionalist and materialist dictating policy. When everyone realizes that these worn out ideologies are unsustainable they will have to rely on the evolution of a new level of consciousness to direct them into a more sustainable way of living. They will however not be overthrown and they will not cease to exist for they are needed to maintain the new sustainable world.

Want to be a part of this new world, well start thinking outside the box by leaving the box in the grey. If the traditionalist and materialist make the box illegal through over regulating the evolution of thought they are doing the whole of humanity a disservice.

[Re-Grifter]

Good points.

We just have to make sure we don't become what we hate, by looking down on/proclaiming superiority to the more "un-enlightened" members of society.

Why is life so complicated for humans... Animals just "are", so why can't we be?..........

[rahli]

When this becomes apparent a further evolved form of consciousness will surface to right the perceived wrongs that resulted from the previous ideology.

[Torsten]

if even the leaders of the white supremacist group call this kid a violent and out-of-control nutter then maybe he really was.

I hate cops because of what they do, but I also feel sorry for them having to deal with a situation like this. Then again, it doesn't take 7 bullets to stop someone.

[Vertmorpheus]

I think a lot of bronzed, tattooed fuckwits that haunt our streets in commos and japanese utes covered in vaguely sickening nationalist stickers need to do some actual reading up on the Eureka Stockade, but anyways.... I do get tired of seeing the Southern Cross hijacked by weird angry people. They don't love Australia, they just hate anyone else, their idea of our own history is so skewed as to be almost cartoonish and wer it not for channel 9, they wouldn't know WHAT they thought they thought.

Go to a gun show sometime, scariest bearded ppl on earth!

On force and bullets etc, 7 does seem a bit steep, I have no idea how vic police shoot people (other than it being quite often, historically) but a trio of triple taps isn't, sad to say, "excessive" by conventional western paramilitary standards. Wrestling knife wielding maniacs looks good in movies, in practice (and without a stick vest, as issued to english police) it doesn't take much talent at all to open a big nasty septic hole in someone.

What I wonder about , is why the options have to be either lethal, ie, "selective dehostilification" as it has been called, and sometimes lethal, such as tasers...esp in a climate where ppl tend to be sweaty, rained on, covered in liquid one way or another something about hooking ppl up to all that voltage sounds just too risky... a mate reliably informs me it would be entirely possible to set em up in such a way that it calculates surface resistance etc before zapping you, but eh, seriously...electrocuting people as a "Safe Option?".

As for safe, I did read a "worrying" article about RCMP officers having tasered 4000 ppl since I think 2001, with 20 odd ppl killed... which, once again sad to say, isn't THAT high a rate of death for subduing at times extremely agitated ppl (barring semi vegetables in wheelchairs, of course)... my maths sucks but thats like half a percent, or something...though I brace myself for firm correction (maths is a thing that mainly happens to others). if it was left to the "old right hook" I reckon we'd see a LOT more people end up dead in, or on the way to custody. A taser issued as standard is the same weapon, regardless of the user (though how it acts under certain circumstances might vary)...whereas an arm lock (many of which are now banned by more enlightened police forces due to risk of permanent nerve injury, etc) from Constable Short Cheeky Ponytail is a different thing to an armlock from senior sgt. Too Old For This Shit.

There are all kinds on non lethal devices, that don't involve electrocuting people or shooting them dead with something packing the equivalent kinetics of a small ute, or spraying em with nerve agents... subsonic gel guns "beanbags", various ultra sticky restraint sprays, big comical net launchers, all kinds of whacky ways to knock the wind out of someones sails... anytime you remove free movement from someone you run the risk of them cracking their head on the floor, or whatever, but something about ELECTROCUTING people just doesn't sit right... and i am not entirely anti-gun either, or allergic to weapons on principle. Just seems that even the road runner could make his arvo a bit safer by gluing coyote to his own arse, and he wasn't even that bright for a roadrunner.

If it's going to be an insidious internal method of subduing people, why not come up with, dunno, maybe a transdermal form of Nox or perhaps MDMA in an aerosol form.

Even a society with functional, perhaps even EFFICIENT pathways for the mentally unwell to get the recognition and help they need before it comes to hurting people... well, we can dream.

VM

Edited December 13, 2008 by Vertmorpheus

[Torsten]

I've been tasered with a 120,000V contact taser a few times [including by the german shopkeeper who tried to sell me one ] and found the experience similar but much much worse than touching a 6,000V electric fence. It was NOTHING like touching a live mains wire though and I always feel that when people talk about 'electrocution by taser' that this is compared to electrocution by domestic power supply. There simply is no comparison other than that your muscles stop working in both cases.

I think if tasers were only used in situations where a gun would otherwise be used then I'd have absolutely no problem with tasers. The problem is that tasers are seen as much safer than guns and hence there is a lower threshold where it becomes acceptable to use them. That is I think the crux of the problem.

The other non-lethal methods sound interesting, but are unlikely to ever take off. A taser can fit into every cop car, while a net etc would probably have to be brought to the scene on a case by case basis.

[Vertmorpheus]

lol, true.

the nets I refer too come prepacked in very slim tubes, I guess based on old pattern 40 mm projectiles, and get fired out of gun like things a few feet long... probably not a viable sidearm but then, english police only have a very technical looking stick most of the time and they deal with some pretty rough nuts.

still, good mental pic... average aussie copper but dressed more like a gladiator, bringing a hand spun net to bear on some loony. Maybe throw in some Christians and rhinos for a laugh

They always seem to find room for the dogs/extra evil bastards/sack of maccas/big chunky pistols/schoolgirls to show your big chunky pistol to, asking em to squeeze one more thing in there (especially if it goes BANG and makes someone else look silly) can't be that unreasonable.

VM