Read This To Be Amazed

Chicago Police Tasered 82-Year-Old Woman


DON BABWIN
Associated Press
November 7, 2007 at 4:09 AM EST

CHICAGO — Chicago's Police Department is investigating an officer's use of a taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who police say was swinging a hammer when they arrived.

Lillian Fletcher was rushed to the hospital after being jolted by the taser last week but has been released, police said Tuesday.

Officials with the city's Department on Aging went to her home Oct. 29 to make a welfare check and called police when they saw Ms. Fletcher in a window swinging a hammer, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday.

Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Ms. Fletcher, one of them used a taser, Ms. Bond said. The department is trying to determine whether the officer violated department policy on the use of stun guns.

Ms. Fletcher said Tuesday that officers pushed their way into her home. “They shocked me,” she said.

Ms. Fletcher at times sounded confused during the telephone interview. Her granddaughter Traci Taylor told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandmother has schizophrenia and dementia.

“My grandmother is easily confused,” Ms. Taylor told the newspaper, adding that the woman can be belligerent but is about 5 feet 1 and weighs no more than 160 pounds.

“I just don't think they should be tasing 82-year-old women. That's ridiculous,” Taylor said.

Tasers use compressed nitrogen to fire two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing to deliver a 50,000-volt shock to immobilize people.

Touted by law enforcement officials as less lethal than other ways of subduing combative people in high-risk situations, the weapons have come under criticism nationwide after they were blamed for several deaths.

In 2005, the police superintendent at the time suspended the distribution of stun guns after the deaths of two people who had been hit by police with tasers.

Today, about 150 field training officers are set to be issued new tasers, and about 200 sergeants have had the weapons for about five years, Bond said.

The human rights group Amnesty International USA has voiced concerns that police departments are starting to use tasers more routinely rather than in cases of serious danger.

In Ohio, a patrolman accused of repeatedly jolting a woman who had been arrested with a taser gun faces a disciplinary hearing Friday, The Tribune Chronicle of Warren reported. The woman had been arrested because she was acting unruly at a bar, police said.


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eh

 

What relevant factual information have you tried to reveal to me?? You won't even answer any points I've made, you just babble incoherent nonsense back to me. Reply to my post rationally and not like some deranged crackhead, smarty boy.

Big deal, you hassled some dumb cop. Do you want a medal? Now every time she's faced with the dilemna of arresting a kid for a little bit of draw she won't because of that valuable lesson she learned in 2007 in a shop from a really intelligent, mature, rational member of the public.

Calling me a robot, hehe... You know nothing. I'm not going to brag and get into the intricacies but when it comes to issues with the police I've had more hassle than you're likely to have in your life. I've been detained on terrorism charges twice, arrested on political grounds, had the shit kicked out of me more than once whilst behaving in a nonviolent manner and had lengthy legal battles on various charges relating to activism and direct action in several countries. I didn't want to mention it because it makes me sound like a bragging prick but before you go on about how I'm the robot when you're repeating the same tired old cliches about pot open your eyes. Me and Ann Coulter hehe. You sound about as open minded and informed as a Democrat.

 

Reading this and everyone's responses, I'm reminded of this quote attributed to Mark Twain:

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

 

Like fuck they don't! They were the ones who chose to become cops! You know why I won't become a cop? Because I would be forced to uphold laws I don't agree with. And even then, just because your job description says you have to arrest people smoking pot doesn't mean you have to. You can turn a blind eye to someone smoking pot, and concentrate on doing things that WILL make the world a better place, or you can go over there and arrest them and fuck them over by giving them a criminal record just for smoking pot.

 

Reverend, you make some great points.

No. I said what I said because smartass kids like the OP do more harm that good by pissing off cops and giving responsible marijuana smokers a bad image.

...and cam, you misunderstood my statement. I said that the cops can't change the laws, but sure... they can ignore some kid smoking the ganj. I'm not arguing about that. Some smartass kid hassling them will not make them any less anti-marijuana though.

I think that you people need to grow up and bit and face the harsh reality of this world. There are many ways through which you can make a difference... hassling cops is NOT one of them.

This thread and the responses honestly amazes me. Especially the OP. Sweet Jesus man.