What country is this? Unconsious diabetic tasered 11 times
January 2nd, 2010
ur country is in a violence crisis. Those with power, either a little power or a lot, seem determined to use it. Raw Story brings us this report of a man in the Chicago suburbs who was tasered 11 times because he inadvertently hit a cop while unconscious during a diabetic seizure. Apparently the cop, and his colleagues who didn’t make any effort to stop the brutalizer are still employed. We can only assume that the police department in this community has no problem with its officers tasering unconscious people who are having seizures. It should not take a lawsuit to achieve accountability for this horrific incident:
Chicago cop tasered unconscious diabetic 11 times
By Raw Story
Police officers from two Chicago suburbs are being sued after one of them allegedly Tasered a man having a diabetic seizure because the diabetic involuntarily hit the officer while being taken to an ambulance.Prospero Lassi, a 40-year-old employee of Southwest Airlines, filed the lawsuit (PDF) with a federal court in Chicago last week, following an April 9, 2009, incident in which Lassi was taken to hospital following a violent diabetic seizure — and being Tasered 11 times while unconscious.
That day, Lassi’s roommate found the man on the floor of his apartment having a seizure and foaming at the mouth, according to the statement filed with the court. The roommate called 911 for help, and police officers from the Brookfield and LaGrange Park police departments arrived to help with the situation.
As police officers were helping the paramedics move Lassi to an ambulance, Lassi — still in the midst of the seizure and described as “unresponsive” — involuntarily smacked one of the officers with his arm.
“Reacting to Mr. Lassi’s involuntary movement, one or more of the [officers] pushed Mr. Lassi to the ground, forcibly restraining him there,” the complaint states. “[LaGrange Park Officer Darren] Pedota then withdrew his Taser, an electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt a person’s control over his muscles, and electrocuted Mr. Lassi eleven times.
“Mr. Lassi remained immobile on the floor and was unable to defend himself during this attack. None of the other LaGrange and Brookfield Defendants attempted to interrupt Defendant Pedota’s repeated use of the Taser.”
The filing says that Lassi spent five days in hospital, and “as a result of this incident, Mr. Lassi has permanent scars on his skin, including a scar on his face. Mr. Lassi has also suffered, and continues to suffer, neurological and musculoskeletal injuries, among other injuries.”
According to Courthouse News, Lassi is seeking “punitive damages for battery, excessive force, and failure to intervene.”
Entry Filed under: Violence
1 Comment
1. Ang | January 3rd, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Psst.
Maybe, due to lack of funding for extra training, the (possibly rookie?) cops freaked out and suspected an ambush, of some type, and so one flipped and grabbed the taser?
Otherwise, the officer would have to be a complete psychopath to do that on purpose.
Just some thoughts, because Illinois is a fiscal train wreck, so you just never know which departments are severely underfunded.
I can certainly see a lot of bad or ineffective training as a result of monetary issues. The end result, of course, might be a total error in judgment by someone not trained to understand that duh, diabetics can have violent seizures.
They may be idiots. They may be underfunded, hence are not well prepared. Or, of course, they may be psychopaths (I’d like to think they screen those types out via some type of psychological testing, though!).
Most likely incompetence (personal opinion). Cannot believe one would willfully brutalize someone just for an smack, whether on purpose or due to a seizure.
11 times? Someone may very well have freaked out and thought the call was some type of ambush, or something.
Or that maybe it was a drug case, really, where someone just said the guy was diabetic, in which case, the sensible thing would be for all those people to physically restrain the man (druggies can be a handful to keep down, from what I heard from a classmate, once, who had worked on the police force–we were having a debate about legalizing certain drugs to save tax money wasted on the War on Drugs at the time).
Maybe total incompetence? Just a theory.