Police settle excessive force suit with 71-year-old (blind) woman

KATU NEWS ^ | April 23, 2004 | The Associated Press

[The kings dead]

The officers have been transferred to the Drug Task Force, right?

[FourtySeven]

Your words: I have a brainflash for you, how about locating a relative or friend to assist in the situation??

Then my question: Are you suggesting that the police force a civilian to help her move, or what? (paraphrased, but of course that's what I was saying)

Then you say "I'm sorry, I thought I was communicating with an astute, intelligent person...not just another bot."

Well sheesh! I'm sorry if a simple question befuddles you so!

Were done...

Yeah, we are, right after you get that last word in we both know you're going to post, which, of course, will have nothing to do with answering my original question, it will simply be another tired retread like: Take that 47, you jackboot licker, or, 47, you statist, you'll never understand, or, there's obviously no use wasting my time on you. (IOW, much like your last post to me) At any rate....

Happy FReeping! :D

[Veracious Poet]

You're correct, I did intend ""threw the first blows".

I was typing to fast for spell-check.

In fact, the police "threw the first blows" in this situation, according to what I heard on a talk radioshow that alerted me to this debacle.

Does it matter though? Is this the way we deal with angry, blind 71 year old women (or men for that matter) in America now?

[thefactor]

ok Your Bitterness. i see you are way too busy typing the word "thugs" over and over again to get into a logical argument here. and you are also too busy telling us how much GREAT experience you have in your VERY PUBLIC position. that's all well and good. but i am obviously not a man of your stature and cannot compare to your voluminous experience. so you'll keep your vigilante ways and hopefully never need a real cop. wouldn't want you to be shocked by an officer who was actually helpful. that would be too much to bear. sorry to take up your time.

[Windcatcher]

The city of Portland has agreed to pay $145,000 to an elderly blind woman after police pepper-sprayed and shocked her with a stun gun.

They're lucky I wasn't a juror. I would have added a zero. Some things in society are totally unacceptable and demand that an example be made.

[The kings dead]

Doesn't look like Mike Tyson to me:

[Veracious Poet]

"Well sheesh! I'm sorry if a simple question befuddles you so!"

No, I'm not befuddled by your "question", just the stupidity behind it.

Your question, "Are you suggesting that the police force a civilian to help her move, or what?", shows your naivete in resolving domestic dispute situations.

Asking (not forcing) a friend or relative to help diffuse the situation (and communicate with this partially deaf, blind women) SHOULD have been the FIRST course of conduct employed by these jack-booted thugs if they were CONCERNED with this woman's welfare.

Was it necessary to escalate the situation to physical contract? Who was she threatening, and what THREAT could a blind, partially deaf 71 year old woman be to ANYONE?

My sincere hope for you is that YOU have a run with a jack-booted thug in the near future...and while your at it, pretend to be blind, partially deaf and elderly!

Somehow I don't think you could get "it" if "it" slapped you upside the head...

[Awestruck]

People here in the central valley of california are in fact, afraid to call the police anymore.. just about every other week there is an "officer involved shooting".. and it's usually someone unarmed..and the police ALWAYS get away with it... the most recent one had a policeman shooting an unarmed man in the man's own yard, when the policeman arrived at 4 in them morning, didn't identify himself and really had no reason to be there. But I'm sure all you automton statists will insist it was all ok.
As far as police "protection"... tell that to the guy who called the police here after being kidnapped...they finally showed up 5 hours later. Tell that to anyone around here who calls them about a burglary..and they show up... a day later. We have one of the worst police forces anywhere..they are trigger happy and useless for protection... oh, and don't ever try to give them helpful information about a crime, they will tell you that you have no right to speak and if you don't go away they will have you arrested... I can protect myself, thanks.

[Veracious Poet]

"So you'll keep your vigilante ways and hopefully never need a real cop"

I guess you would have been a REAL popular person among the Founding Fathers?

[paul51]

To protect and serve. What a disgrace. The award should have been ten times larger. I don't care what the circumstances were. If I saw a couple of cops man handling an old woman, I'd be going to jail with her and the cops would have a few lumps on the heads.

[StolarStorm]

Of course though, this occured on HER property. They were violating her property rights.

[R. Scott]

"…there is risk the City may be found liable."

“Risk“? How about “certainty?

[Colofornian]

Portland police force

How can you possibly fault the Portland police department with lack of proper on-duty protocol in these types of situations when they've had so many more important politically correct agenda items on their docket?

I recall an article in the late 1990s about the Portland Police Chief [I'm not sure if he's still the chief], whose daughter was a lesbian [Portland has the highest known lesbian resident rate in the U.S.], was concerned with ensuring that cross-dressers would be given a specially registered card that would note them as an officially recognized cross-dresser. Hence, that would keep them out of trouble whenever they used bathrooms targeted for folks of the opposite sex.

You know, with all of the diversity training + sensititivity training for how to respond to cross-dressers these days + additional urgent items like that, then other matters like dealing with highly calibered elderly folks just doesn't make the basic training cut.

[Henrietta]

JBT bang

[Onelifetogive]

I was typing to fast for spell-check.

I assume you mean "too fast"... hehehe ;)

Does it matter though? Is this the way we deal with angry, blind 71 year old women (or men for that matter) in America now?

I think it matters...

999 out of 1000 times that people get "beat up" by the police, the person was violent, drunk, and forcing the issue. This could be the 1000th. (And I would be the first to applaud throwing the bad cops in jail.

as an aside, this happened in Portland, Or. A liberal town in a liberal state... I am not terribly bothered by them getting taken for a wad of cash...

[joesnuffy]

hopefully.... she gets someone to verify the money they give her isnt counterfeit or at least in the right amount...hate to see her get shortchanged...

After all ...all they did was beat the snot out of a 70+ yr old blind woman...hit her so hard her artificial eye ball popped out...

[joesnuffy]

Thats what Frank Serpico said..bout the NYPD and the Knapp Commission....

My pop was a Provost Marshal at Great Lakes and what he saw about the "Chicago" PD was pretty dispiriting...

Same things I heard thirty years later by two different friends who were Chicago cops...

Same things I also heard about the Dallas PD..from a former cop they boyz swore to kill along with his blind wife....for testifying about an unrighteous shooting...

My little brother is a game warden...and as far as I know he is honest...

as far as protecting my family from bad guys?.....I can handle the chore just fine thank you...as my ancestors did...if the law would get the heck outta the way and let me....

[BushisTheMan]

That would be me.

[Spirited]

"To protect and serve. What a disgrace. The award should have been ten times larger. I don't care what the circumstances were. If I saw a couple of cops man handling an old woman, I'd be going to jail with her and the cops would have a few lumps on the heads."

That post was worth repeating.
A 70 year old would have known a time when she was taught and found exactly that; the LEO's did "protect and serve". Would she have believed or expected (especially in her blindness) that for putting one foot on the bumper of a "forbidden" vehicle her introduction to a policeman would have been to have been knocked in the head hard enough to dilodge an eye?

I am gaining even greater disrespect for even the family of LEO's who defend this kind of action for whatever manufactured reason.

There are often officers (I only hope more often) who do not participate in the current trend. Many have now left the force (read that "been forced out") because they do not qualify for this new kind of "bravery" (some of whom I know).

More often they are like the Sherrif's deputy I saw ignore two out of state young and black speeders doing 87 miles an hour on route 85 in VA to "take" an old white lady doing 79 (or whatever)in clear, bright weather with very, very little traffic. After all, the young black might have been from the Bronx and been a problem stop... Why risk his life "to make things safe"? She was speeding, too.

Guess what that old lady (and I) will teach to the younger members of our families? Respect? That they protect or serve? That they live for the power? That the county through which that highway goes needs the revenue generated by all the force they put on that road to supplement what they cannot get in taxes? That the reason most of the tickets given are to truckers or females, preferably white is because (fill in the blanks) while more of the drivers on that road are male.

A current joke for that road (and roads like it) used when someone speeds past is, "that must be the Sherrif's (wife, son, cousin etc.)" Disrespect? You bet. Earned and deserved disrespect. It would be totally inconsistent with reality to teach my progeny anything more than a wary vigilence over any action involving any law enforcement entity or agent. Certainly I could not, in good conscience teach them to trust first as children 70 years ago were taught.

If we teach our youngsters that respect is earned we can no longer exempt law enforcement agents.

[paul51]

Sad but so. I used to automatically respect anyone I saw in a police uniform and taught my kids the same. Not any more, and it isn't because of anything I did. Like you said, they earned it.