Mission Statement - De-Spinning the Pro-Taser Propaganda

Yeah right, 'Excited Delirium' my ass...

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The primary purpose of this blog is to provide an outlet for my observations and analysis about tasers, taser "associated" deaths, and the behaviour exhibited by the management, employees and minions of Taser International. In general, everything is linked back to external sources, often via previous posts on the same topic, so that readers can fact-check to their heart's content. This blog was started in late-2007 when Canadians were enraged by the taser death of Robert Dziekanski and four others in a short three month period. The cocky attitude exhibited by the Taser International spokespuppet, and his preposterous proposal that Mr. Dziekanski coincidentally died of "excited delirium" at the time of his taser-death, led me to choose the blog name I did and provides my motivation. I have zero financial ties to this issue.



Saturday, July 31, 2010

Details emerging about the death of Victor Steen, 17

In October 2009, 17-year-old Victor Steen was riding a bicycle at night while black. At 1:45am, Officer Jerald Ard spotted Steen and assumed that he may have stolen something from somewhere. So Officer Ard drove his car onto the sidewalk, and gave chase. He eventually fired his taser at Steen, causing him to fall down, and Officer Ard ran over Steen killing him.

The story is insane even at this point. But it gets much worse...

... The day after the funeral, Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigator Eli Lawson called Cassandra Steen's newly-hired attorney Aaron Watson and told him that TV news was about to report that a paramedic had found a gun in Victor's pocket.

A video, taken from the dashboard of another officer's car, recorded what happened in the minutes before the discovery:

Three officers squatted next to Ard's car, looking under it at Victor. Ard unlocked the passenger side of his car and got something out. The object is light-colored and floppy, but isn't clearly visible. Ard, holding the object, crawled under the car next to Victor's body and stayed there for 40 seconds. Two minutes later, paramedics found a 9mm silver and black semi-automatic in Victor's pocket.

Lab tests showed the gun had been wiped clean. No fingerprints were on it — not Victor's, not anyone's. Victor's family, as well as his pastors and friends, were aghast. Victor was scared of guns, they said. He would not have carried a gun around. ...
[LINK]

2 comments:

Don Kuhns said...

Reading the comments at the article you linked to, I am still amazed at the number of people who believe that disobeying an order from a police officer is an offense worthy of death. Most of these authoritarian freaks would probably describe themselves as lovers of freedom.

Excited-Delirium.com said...

One has to be generous and assume that they simply failed to pay attention during History, Social Studies, and Civics classes.

The ironic thing, those "law and order" freaks are exactly as likely as anyone to have an encounter with a rogue police officer (for example: one mentally affected by steroid abuse), and the L&O person might be so surprised that they'll react in a manner that would escalate the situation (more so than others whose expectations are lower).