Image of Taser use lingers | Denton Record-Chronicle | News for Denton County, Texas
His brother, Travis Baker, 17, remembers all of it. He recalls screaming at Corinth police to stop shocking Blake with a Taser. His mother, Deana, remembers hearing Travis crying on the telephone.
“He was saying, ‘Blake is having a seizure, and they’re hurting him,’” she said.
And in case they should forget Blake’s experience, they have photographs of 12 separate sets of burns from the double posts of a Taser.
Corinth police did not respond to a message asking for comment about the incident. Corinth city attorney Michael Bucek won’t release records because the city expects litigation, he said. He did say there was no internal affairs investigation into the incident.
This appears to have happened in a middle class neighborhood too. This is what professional police departments bring to America. There is no community involvement. The cops are not familiar with anything or anyone in the town.
Found by Eddie.
#32, bob,
Go read some history, and learn about real police states. Then learn about police procedures in places you probably think are better – say Japan (a particular gem) and the UK and Italy and France.
Why? What would your mother say if you told her all the other kids were jumping off of bridges? Two wrongs do make everthing else right.
The police were wrong to taser him once. They were even more wrong to taser him a second time. They were even more wrong to taser him the twelfth time.
End of story.
#22, #27;
The likely reason we are just now hearing about this is because many (most?) states have laws limiting the process by which you can litigate against a city.
Let’s assume the mother is a reasonable person and takes a couple of weeks to a month dealing with the incident’s affect on her child. After that, she begins tracking down the police and trying to find answers. Let’s assume it’s now been a couple of months.
She decides to talk to a lawyer, not intent on suing, but wanting answers. By now, it could be October or November 2007. If she decided to file a formal claim with the city, the city is usually legally allowed to take 90-180 days to respond to the claim. If this is the case, it would be about the proper time for her to file a lawsuit and/or begin to alert the media.
I don’t think the time frame is off, considering the speed at which the wheels of justice turn.
If any of you complaining about thealleged “Police State” have a similar condition, and the EMT’s are unable to treat you and get you into the ambulance and call me, I’d be tempted to leave you on the ground and walk away. But I can’t. It’s not an option to me. The situations faced by emergency responders are often chaotic and hazardous to all parties involved. And, I agree this did not turn out well. But to impune all involved as ruthless toreturers isn’t fair. How can you quesion their intentions? I love to read the comments of armchair liberals. Just once I like to see how the likes of you would walk into an unfolding in-progress crisis and make decisions on the fly.
#35, gary,
But to impune [sic] all involved as ruthless toreturers [sic] isn’t fair. How can you quesion [sic] their intentions? I love to read the comments of armchair liberals.
That you can somehow justifying tasering a victim having a seizure is beyond me.
The main cause of the EMT’s liability is that a family member told them what the problem was and they ignored him. Any time a history can be gotten of a patient it is to be treasured. If the EMT’s are aware of any condition they are duty bound to consider that in the course of their treatment.
My wife is a RN. Her explanation is that this is getting a history is one of the first things learned in emergency medical care. In my own First Aid courses, this was stressed.
The police also declined to accept the family member’s explanation and applied torture to force compliance. The youth had not committed any crime and was not under arrest. If someone changed the makeup of the law so that citizens now answer to the police instead of the police answering to us, they forgot to let us know.
Just once I like to see how the likes of you would walk into an unfolding in-progress crisis and make decisions on the fly.
This was not a life or death situation. The brother told the EMTs that he was in a post epileptic state. If you personally have a difficult time handling stressful situations, maybe you should find a new line of work. Your attitude doesn’t encourage me that you would do the correct thing if you attended a scene in an emergency. Yes, you can do it right 100 times, but that one time you make a mistake, remember, it is a human life you erred upon. EMTs are hired to do the right thing, not to make mistakes.
I’m a paramedic and I never heard of postictal psychosis until now. And I can understand why: it’s very rare, affecting only 6 to 10 percent of epileptics. It usually takes 1 to 3 days to set in. Having one immediately after a seizure must extremely rare.
That being said, I can understand why they called for police. They had a extremely combative patient. I don’t know what the protocols for their area is; I could have given him a dose of Geodon and Valium and knocked him on his butt. But guess what… I have to have police on scene to do that.
The first duty of the paramedic is the protection of himself/herself and of his/her crew. We can not help anyone if we get hurt ourselves.
Anyway, taser happy cops not doing something simple like handcuffing the kid. Seems to be happening a lot lately.