Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser 10 Times

[Kat Kanning]

 
Wheelchair-Bound Woman Dies After Being Shocked With Taser 10 Times
State rules Taser death homicide

Local 6 | September 19, 2007

A Clay County woman's family said it's seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police.

The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court, according to a WJXT-TV report.


In April 2006, officers with the police department said they were called to a disturbance at a home in the 400 block of Harrison Street just before 5 p.m.

In a 911 call made to the Green Cove Springs, Delafield can be heard telling a dispatcher that she believed she was in danger:

Dispatcher: And what's the problem?

Delafield: My sister is waiting on my property.

Dispatcher: Your what?

Delafield: My sister (inaudible) is on my property trying to harm me.

Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.

Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield's death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes," Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

The family said it plans to sue the Green Coves Springs Police Department now that it has all the reports regarding their loved one's death.

"We're going to try to compensate the estate and the family and try to get justice," Alexander said.

He said he believes the evidence weighs heavily in favor of Delafield's family and that justice will be served.

"I think that this evidence is going to show, along with some of the evidence we've collected outside of here, that there is no reason Emily Delafield should have died that day," Alexander said.

He said he plans to file a notice to sue sometime before the end of the year.

[alohamonkey]

that's horrible.  the amount of police brutality is crazy.  and these "public servants" are overstepping their boundaries more and more frequently. 

[Kat Kanning]

Do we need a Police Brutality subforum?

[kola]

good post Kat...hopefully mvpel reads it...even if he does I already know what his reply will be.

And yes, there are many more cases of taser deaths where the vicim was NOT on speed/coke etc.

Should we talk about tasering pregnant women and children?

How about tasering people with heart problems? Do the gooncops ask a person if he/she has a heart condition before tasering him or her? Not that I am aware of. So then I guess ithe goons (and some sheeple) thinks it is ok to taser someone with a heart condition and send them into cardiac arrest.

pissed off and disgusted,
Kola

 

[mvpel]

You already know, do ya, Kola?

The Las Vegas Police Department (for example) has a Taser policy which prohibits the use of the Taser on individuals who are physically disabled.

If the Green Cove Springs Police Department has a similar policy, the woman's family will be needing longer checks in the near future.

The police in these cases seem to be at a total loss of how to proceed if the Taser doesn't work, and that's a major problem that needs to be addressed in the training process.

Pat K - sometimes the alternative to voltage is hot lead, so if someone can be subdued with voltage instead of hot lead, isn't that a better outcome?

Here's what can happen if the Taser doesn't work, in an article from 2005:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/27/BAGQQCVMSO1.DTL

A 34-year-old man was fatally shot by a San Jose police officer early Thursday after he wrestled away the officer's baton, shrugged off three stun-gun shocks, and threatened the officer with the baton, police said.

The man, who was identified as Samuel Martinez of San Jose, died from three gunshot wounds at a hospital hours after police were called to a north San Jose townhouse about 3 a.m. by a young woman saying her ex-boyfriend was trying to break in, San Jose police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten said.

Interestingly, San Jose requires 100 hours of firearms training and Taser-specific qualification training.

And in 2003, when Caren and I lived in San Jose, California, two cops were confronting a woman who they thought was coming at them with a six-inch dao bao she was waving in the air, and they shot her center mass and killed her.  They didn't have a Taser.



All police brutality involves the use of force, but not all police use of force is brutality.

[Pat K]

Only in the currant atmosphere of America,
would people think that sending thousand of volts
of electricity through someones body is good police work.

[Fluff and Stuff]

a link and video, http://www.news4jax.com/news/14144292/detail.html

[alohamonkey]

Do we need a Police Brutality subforum?

Yes.  But I think we should call it "Public Servants Gone Wild"   

[Braddogg]

Yup.  What you do there is barricade the woman in whatever room she's in and hope she calms down.  And hope that she calms down before using those knives on herself.  Right?

[Lloyd Danforth]

You already know, do ya, Kola?

The Las Vegas Police Department (for example) has a Taser policy which prohibits the use of the Taser on individuals who are physically disabled.

If the Green Cove Springs Police Department has a similar policy, the woman's family will be needing longer checks in the near future.

The police in these cases seem to be at a total loss of how to proceed if the Taser doesn't work, and that's a major problem that needs to be addressed in the training process.

Pat K - sometimes the alternative to voltage is hot lead, so if someone can be subdued with voltage instead of hot lead, isn't that a better outcome?

Here's what can happen if the Taser doesn't work, in an article from 2005:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/27/BAGQQCVMSO1.DTL

A 34-year-old man was fatally shot by a San Jose police officer early Thursday after he wrestled away the officer's baton, shrugged off three stun-gun shocks, and threatened the officer with the baton, police said.

The man, who was identified as Samuel Martinez of San Jose, died from three gunshot wounds at a hospital hours after police were called to a north San Jose townhouse about 3 a.m. by a young woman saying her ex-boyfriend was trying to break in, San Jose police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten said.

Interestingly, San Jose requires 100 hours of firearms training and Taser-specific qualification training.

And in 2003, when Caren and I lived in San Jose, California, two cops were confronting a woman who they thought was coming at them with a six-inch dao bao she was waving in the air, and they shot her center mass and killed her.  They didn't have a Taser.



All police brutality involves the use of force, but not all police use of force is brutality.

Police used to handle these things with their sticks.  Police in England for the most part carry no guns, practically never kill anyone and are seldom killed in the line of duty either.
As I have said in the past,  anyone without a gun can be taken down by two cops with a weighted net.

Whenever a tazing incident is in the news that WRKO asshole Howie Carr runs tape of the victims screaming in agony and laughs about it.  I'd love to see a Youtube of him being tazered, cringing in the fetal position, with his pants full of shit.  Anyone in Boston want to think about it?

[mvpel]

Police used to handle these things with their sticks.

So they apparently can't do anything at all - they tried to subdue the huge and defiant and drug-addled Rodney King with their sticks when the Tasers didn't work, and they got the crap sued out of them.

Where are they going to carry this "weighted net?"  How are they going to get handcuffs onto a resisting subject under that net?  How are they going to get to the net when someone is lunging at them with a knife?  Do you support the right of ordinary citizens to armed self-defense?  If so, why don't you support it for the police, to whom our society has assigned the responsibility of pursuing, confronting, and apprehending violent people?

Funny you should mention England - violent crime in England is spiraling out of control, and the police are virtually powerless to stop it - they've resorted to fudging their statistics, prosecuting victims of crime since they don't violently resist arrest, and turning England into a Orwellian surveillance state since they can't conceive of restoring the right to armed self-defense to the English subjects.

[Lloyd Danforth]

First of all, I have not assigned or desire police to do anything.  They weren't trying to subdue Rodney King.  They were beating the shit out of him.  You carry the net in your trunk and take it out when you show up to a call where there is likely to be someone drunk, deranged or out of control and use the thing if you can.  Carry them away in the net.  Give me a 'nightstick' and come at me with a knife.  They will never be able to put your wrists back together.
England is a mess but few cops are killed or kill.

[kola]

yup..mvpel...your answer is the typical defense.

and my reply is that handicapped, pregnant woman and children have even been tasered.

hey..how about having gooncops ask the person first.."are u pregnant?..."are you on meds? drugs?"
"do you have a heart condition?"

The wheel chair incident that Kat posted? That could have been defused easily without a fricken taser.

I believe tasers are advantagous when used appropriately...BUT tasers are not being used appropriately. (was the Kerry incident a dangerous or life threatening situation for 7 plus fucking cops?) hardly!!



Think!
Kola   

[Romak]

Hey Kola I see you are out of work again and going on here every hour to smite Richard and I. Also see how your -40 karma is now +158. Told you you were full of chitola.

[kola]

here the gooncop said he felt "threatened". yeah right!..

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=62268