Posted on 02/21/2012 7:44:12 AM PST by rawhide
A 20-year-old woman has been left brain dead - after she was Tasered by police and smacked her head on the ground. Danielle Maudsley had been taken to a Florida Highway Patrol Station after being arrested for a suspected hit-and-run in September. Handcuffed, she ran out of the door.
But as footage from a police cruiser dashboard camera reveals, Trooper Daniel Cole, who this week was cleared of any wrongdoing, fired a Taser's electric probes into her back.
She spun, fell backwards and hit her head on the ground. Bleeding and crying she tried to get up. She then blacked out and has remained unconscious ever since.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnoxaB17pA4&feature=player_embedded
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Of course if he had chased her down and tackled her, we’d be seeing the abuse article about excessive force.
First, running away in handcuffs is just stupid. She could have just as well tripped and fallen and be in the same condition without the Taser. She is the one most at fault for her condition.
However, as there was police involvement in the severe injury of a handcuffed, unarmed prisoner the department needs to make changes to prevent this happening again.
The first change is minimum fitness requirements for all officers. The officer in this case reached for his Taser first because he was not fit for a foot pursuit. Make sure all officers can lift a minimum weight and run sprints and the mile within minimum times with full gear. This poor slob could barely keep his pants up at a jog.
Second, restrict the use of Tasers on handcuffed runners. They are not a threat as long as they are running away and they probably aren’t going to get far. As if the stun of the Taser isn’t bad enough, the handcuffs limit their ability to catch themselves as they fall they are much more likely to suffer severe injury like this girl did. Tasers are not a harmless way of stopping someone, so police need to stop behaving like they are.
Bullshit!!!
Cause: a fat cop shot 50,000 volts into a citizen.
Effect: Citizen died.
So (Devil's advocate here), say he chases her on foot, catches up, grabs her by the shirt collar and pulls her to the ground (visualize the "horse collar" tackle now penalized in football). The same head injury could result. There was no intent to injure or kill, it just happened. Should we be demanding the cop's head for catching her?
Or, if during the chase she missed a step and crashed headfirst onto a concrete curb, would the cop be wrong for having chased her in the first place?
No, she did not deserve a death sentence, but in this life, s*it happens, and more frequently when one does stupid things.
I could be wrong, but I think shooting suspects in the back leads to a murder charges.
Yeah that’s true. Giving her the beating she deserved would have looked bad on the video too. I guess he took his best option in tazing her. Look on the bright side though, she won’t be killing anyone on the road on her next little adventure of driving impaired
“The poor young girl in this video”
“The poor young girl” is a freaking druggie who STOLE a car (and hit two cars and fled) and her mother, who just happened to find an attorney to show up on ‘headline news’ with her is SUING. She has been arrested for drug possession and theft herself...
“Cheryl Maudsley, mother of Danielle Maudsley, who has a criminal record that includes charges of drug possession and theft”
Sorry, but you are a fool.
Yes she chose to run, but her running did not kill her. If this cop had pulled a gun and shot her, he’d be up for murder, so don’t give me that the fact you ran means all bets are off and the cops can do whatever stupid thing they want.
This cop literally never even left a TROT, he didn’t even TRY to make an effort to catch her. He chose to be the fat lazy SOB that he is, and taze a woman whom he already had handcuffed, because he wasn’t willing or able to run.
He has culpability here, and if you think otherwise, you are unfamiliar with the law. I am not excusing her decision to run, it was stupid, however that does not justify this fat ass lazy cop deciding to taze a handcuffed woman on concrete who offered no direct threat to him that warranted the use of deadly force, and that is what a TAZER is meant and supposed to be for, an alternate to DEADLY FORCE, not an alternate for putting forth effort.
If a cop could not pull a gun in a situation, he shouldn’t be pulling a tazer in one, and this situation didnt’ remotely warrant the pulling of a gun. This guys and his district are going to face civil action and they are GOING TO LOSE! The review board decided to play CYA and keep the cop from facing Manslaughter charges which he should, but the district and this guy are going to pay out BIG TIME for this action! This guy’s flat out laziness killed a woman, and while he certainly didn’t intend to, his actions did it. Trying to argue he has zero culpability for this, shows flat out ignorance of the law, and honestly if you look at that video and think this guy isn’t a fat lazy ass, then you really do need to visit your optomitrist, he never even bothered trying to run.. a light trot and even then he was less than 3 feet from her, and tazed her.
This is the kind of cop who gives all cops a bad name. The true response to this is to ban fat lazy people from becoming cops in the first place, or firing them when they decide being fat and lazy is more important than being in just rudimentarly physical condition to be able to run down a person in handcuffs who is less than 3 feet from you.
Sorry I misread the post!
What a moron, no?
“Manslaughter as far as I’m concerned.”
Heck, I agree with you.
But, the officer may be able to hide behind departmental policy on tasers.
And most departments have terrible policies, which allow their officers to use tasers to force citizens to ‘comply’.
They are weapons, plain and simple. Their use should be restricted to situations involving officer safety.
A cop who weighs 2X as much as a woman who is already handcuffed loses control of her. That is incompetence.
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From the article:
"Danielle, who had a suspended driving licence, was arrested earlier that day for allegedly leaving the scene of two traffic accidents."
She had a suspended license and had left the scene of TWO traffic accidents. She was also on two serious drugs, oxycodone and cocaine. I have some sympathy for this woman, but she is more to blame than anyone else for what happened.
outrageous....
but we'll get the typical defenders....
the cops get away with massive abuse of power because we let them...
I think its a perversion...whenever they have their little prey expecially when that prey is female or disabled or alone.....they get their little power trips...
that's why they love to pile on some poor guy and start punching wildly and kicking at his head...perverted power...
we had a big case here where the cops attacked a mentally slow person holding a pepsi plastic bottle....he too was tasered and died 3 days later....bet they got their jollies on that one...thankfully, one cop has been convicted although going thru an appeal..
Man, she hit HARD and at just the wrong angle.
I certainly don’t blame the cops but prayers for the girl and her family.
Precisely!!
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