Andrew Torres "died of an enlarged heart"

Greenville, SC - An autopsy report released Tuesday said a man who police shocked with tasers died from cardiac arrhythmia caused by an enlarged heart and that the physical exertion of the altercation with officers may have contributed to his death, but because tasers are so perfectly safe, the multiple and repeated taser hits that occurred immediately before his death had absolutely nothing to do with the death. Last month, Andrew Torres' family had called police to help escort him to the hospital for mental health treatment. According to family, Torres, 39, suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Greenville police officers went to the family's home on Augusta Street as part of an involuntary commitment. Officers said Torres became violent and officers shocked him with tasers. Torres was taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later. ...

[LINK]

Amazing.

I wonder how long he had had the enlarged heart?

$145M lawsuit

(AP) - The family of a Frederick man who died after he was struck by a deputy's Taser has filed a $145 million lawsuit against Frederick County. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt alleges that 20-year-old Jarrel Gray died as a result of being shocked twice by a Taser on Nov. 18. A county grand jury ruled May 9 that Frederick County Sheriff's Corporal Rudy Torres was justified in using his Taser to subdue Gray after Gray did not obey commands to show his hands. [LINK]

You may recall two previous posts about Corporal Rudy Torres. [LINK] [LINK] "Frederick County, MD, USA: One officer, Corporal Rudy Torres, has deployed his taser seven times [another report says NINE] in the past two years. ..."

File under category: 'No sh_t, Einstein!'

CBC News: The use of Tasers, guns and physical force by Ottawa [Canada's capital city, population about 820,000] police dropped to the lowest level in years in 2007 — the year after the service introduced a special premium for officers who regularly retake a course on the proper use of force.

Tasers were used only a dozen times by officers last year, said the police service's 2007 use of force annual report, which was to be discussed at the Police Services Board meeting Monday night. That was the lowest number of uses in five years, even though 34 tactical officers were authorized to use the devices, and 61 front-line supervisors became authorized in November 2007. ...

Chief Vern White credits better training for the decline in the use of force. "I went through use of force training two weeks ago," he said, "and I have to say I was totally impressed with the use of force training itself, the instructors." He added that the instructors encouraged officers to talk to the people they deal with before doing anything else.

Since May 2006, officers have been eligible for a special salary premium called responsibility pay if they take the Use of Force training course every 11 months. ...

Link= Ottawa police Taser use drops after 'responsibility pay' introduced

This is pretty good news.

Much better than this idiot statement:

Staff Sgt. Couillard said that if Ottawa police issued a news release every time a Taser was used, "we'd be writing them 10 times a day."

Link= 10 times a day

Has anyone formally retracted that statement? Did I miss a memo?

But still, as a touted replacement for lethal force, twelve incidents per year still seems just a wee bit high. It's not ridiculously high, because there may be occasional incidents where the use of a taser might be justifiable when a gun wouldn't be. But it would be nice if they could continue to improve.

For comparison, another extract from the same news story:

Officers pointed their firearms 212 times, the lowest level since 2002, the report shows. They were fired 51 times, in all cases to destroy animals.

In other words, Ottawa police made it through the year without shooting anyone. It also appears very clear that the gun can be very useful even if the trigger isn't pulled (212 - 51 = 161 times a year). Another inconvenient fact that Taser propaganda slides past: guns don't have to be used lethally to be very useful.

All in all, this appears to be an example of the sort of improvement that can been seen when Taser Corporate Brainwashing, sorry - I mean 'Taser Training by Taser', complete with stupid taser-all-the-trainees nonsense - is replaced with more responsible, more balanced training that includes attention to The Proper Use of Force.

By the way - note: 'force' THE NOUN.

As another comparison, remember Corporal Rudy Torres of Frederick County, MD, USA, who used his taser 7 (or 9 according to some reports) times in two years? One officer - about four taser usages per year. By himself. One officer.

Link= Corporal Rudy 'Call Me Sparky' Torres

(And to preclude any whining about how Ottawa is not a representative city. Trust me, Ottawa has a rough section of town, around Rideau and King Edward, where there are many homeless people, drug addicts, bars, drunks, and occasionally crazed and violent people.)

So, credit where credit is due - good job Ottawa Police!

But still, even twelve per year seems a bit high for a so-called replacement for lethal force. I suspect that Ottawa Police wouldn't be shooting that many people per year if the taser hadn't been spawned. So it seems that there's still some room for improvement.

$145M lawsuit bumped to $155M

Gazette.net (MD) - Claims of cover-ups... [LINK]

The part about the extremely small amount of drugs found is interesting. Talk about 'digging for dirt' !!! The police searched the car to a degree that they claim to have found "...a small quantity of leafy substance still attached to the stem....not even enough to weigh...". The fact that they went looking for this and found it is indicative of the sort of investigation that was undertaken.


Previous posts on this blog about Corporal Rudy 'Call Me Sparky' Torres [LINK]

Frederick County, MD, USA: One officer, Corporal Rudy Torres, has deployed his taser seven times [another report says NINE] in the past two years.

High Taser Usage Stirs Controversy

Link= High Taser Usage Stirs Controversy

Frederick County, MD, USA: One officer, Corporal Rudy Torres, has deployed his taser seven times [another report says NINE] in the past two years. The local police force has had 70 taser deployments in two years.

Get this: "...the sheriff fiercely defends the number saying it reduces the times officers will pull their guns."

Reduce? Reduce? You're saying that Torres would have shot seven citizens, with his gun, in two years if it weren't for the taser? That your trigger-happy department would have killed 70 citizens in two years if it weren't for the taser? [Rolls-eyes...] Why do the police spokespeople sometimes sound like some sort of an 'Orwellian 1984-speak' when they are answering the taser controversy? There's enough illogical spin to make the world turn backwards.

Lawyer Ted William said, "This is a trigger-happy Sheriff's Department. The number of times they have utilized those tasers is shocking, in relation to the population of Frederick County."

Exactly right. This appears to be one of those jurisdictions where the taser deployment rate is roughly two orders of magnitude (100:1) above where you might expect to see the historical/accepted rate of police shootings. The only rational explanation is that they're using the taser not in self-defence or as a replacement for the gun, but much lower on the 'Use of Force' scale. Perhaps as a replacement for talking, reasoning, or waiting. Or perhaps as a pain-compliance device.

And what's the result? The statistics of overuse (=misuse) start to catch up and people die. Continuing the story: "Jarrel Gray's cause of death is still pending, as is a possible lawsuit..."

Deja vu all over again a second time just like before

Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day

JULY 17, 2009 - $145M taser-associated lawsuit to proceed [LINK]

A federal judge has ruled [LINK] that a wrongful death lawsuit can go to trial against Frederick County and the sheriff's office in the death of 20-year-old Jarrell Gray who was ShockedWithATaserAndDied by Corporal Rudy 'Call Me Sparky' Torres [LINK] in 2007. The family is, according to some reports, seeking $145 million. [LINK]

NOVEMBER 10, 2010 - $145M suit in Maryland taser death will go to trial [via TNT]

WASHINGTON - Four years after a 20-year-old man died after being shocked twice by a Maryland sheriff's deputy's Taser, a federal appeals court has ruled the family's $145 million lawsuit can go to trial. ...

Observations:

Notice how Taser International no longer even bothers to pretend to be indignant when a headline uses the phrase "Taser Death"? After Mr. Dziekanski was killed by a taser in 2007, Taser International went ape-sh_t and sent out "over 60 Legal Demand Letters" demanding that the media retract those outrageous words. These days, not so much.

Notice how many of these taser death lawsuits or criminal cases are associated with particular police officers that lead their department in their overuse, misuse and abuse of tasers. E.g. Corporal Rudy 'Call Me Sparky' Torres [LINK]. E.g. Scott Nugent [LINK]. There are several possible explanations for this correlation, all of them ugly.

Greenville cops getting (new) training after Taser death

Greenville police to learn how to spot "enlarged hearts"

Oh, sorry. No. That's not correct.

Greenville police are getting new training on dealing with the mentally ill after the death of a man stunned by officers with Tasers. Officers will get up to 40 hours of crisis intervention training. State police are investigating the Aug. 9 death of Andrew Torres, 39. Coroner Parks Evans says the mentally ill man died from an irregular heart beat as the result of having an enlarged heart, the physical strain of fighting with police and being stunned with Tasers.

[LINK]

$145M taser-associated lawsuit to proceed

A federal judge has ruled [LINK] that a wrongful death lawsuit can go to trial against Frederick County and the sheriff's office in the death of 20-year-old Jarrell Gray who was ShockedWithATaserAndDied by Corporal Rudy 'Call Me Sparky' Torres [LINK] in 2007. The family is, according to some reports, seeking $145 million. [LINK]

Grasping for excuses extends to drinking

Frederick, MD (13 June 2008) – The Frederick City Police released an official report on Friday detailing more information regarding a 20-year-old man who died after being tased. The report said there may [?] have been marijuana and drug paraphernalia in Jarrel Gray's car on the night of November 18, 2007. No trace of drugs was found in Gray's system during an autopsy, but there was indication that Gray had been drinking the night he was tased. The Medical Examiner also states that Gray's body had a strong odor of alcohol. Gray's family is suing the Frederick Sheriff's Office for millions of dollars as well as the officer who tased him. [LINK]

I assume that they're not claiming that the victim in this case had a lethal level of alcohol in his system. Is there an issue with measuring the blood alcohol content (BAC) postmortem? If the victim's BAC is at lethal levels, then I fail to see why a taser would be required. Since they haven't mentioned that, we can assume that the victim was - at most - simply drunk.

By mentioning intoxication all they're doing is attempting to do is to subtly shift the blame for the taser-associated death to be somehow related to being drunk. The insinuation is that the victim is somehow to blame for being dead.

Nice try - but stop right there.

The glossed-over necessary logical step would be that drunks are somehow more susceptible to being killed by a taser.

But the taser is intended to be used in daily street-level police work. Police, in the normal course of their duties, will obviously be dealing with people that have been drinking. And if those people that have been drinking are somehow more susceptible to death-by-taser, then the taser is quite simply not safe for its intended market (police work).

That logic would shift the blame to Taser. So either drop the stupid argument, or drag them in as a co-defendant.


The state medical examiner's office ruled the case a sudden death associated with restraint and alcohol intoxication. [LINK]

Is that 'electronic' restraint?

And what is the blood alcohol content? Is it lethal, or just normal drunk?

I don't see this case going well for the defense if this is the sort of logic that they're going to bring to court.


And keep in mind that the officer in question is Corporal Rudy 'Call Me Sparky' Torres. [LINK]

Taser deaths: homicides by internal causes

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Greenville's police chief said that though the death of a man who was shocked with a Taser was ruled a homicide, it is not considered criminal.

[LINK]
It's not difficult to accept that a homicide might sometimes be lawful, as opposed to criminal. (But it might be best if such decisions were made by way of a public inquiry - not just the opinion of a coroner, a police chief, or a local DA.)

An autopsy report stated that Andrew Torres, who police shocked with Tasers, died from cardiac arrhythmia caused by an enlarged heart and that the physical exertion of the altercation with officers may have contributed to his death.

So it's a homicide ('by the hand of another', i.e. EXTERNAL), but was caused by an enlarged heart (i.e. an INTERNAL condition).

ROLLS-EYES...