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

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

[Republicus2001]

I think what REALLY pisses me off about this story is that I'm hearing WAY too many stories like this and given the thugs drawn to the job nowadays I can only see it getting worse.

In Los Angeles due to easy recruitment standards a few years ago the Crips and Bloods actually had members hired as patrol officers. They later became detailed to Antigang special units (cf. Perez case). The result was an unholy collaboration of the LAPD Ramparts division and the 18th Street franchise of the Crips to control the midtown street drug racket. The wreckage was profound. The "Miracle Mile" district of Wilshire Blvd. now is a charming desolation of tubercular disease, thousands of street beggars, a dead dog corpse laying against a fountain in McArthur Park, open flame food vendors, former Cadillac showrooms turned into a forgers bazaar and on and on ... forget it Jake, ... it's Chinatown...

[Veracious Poet]

LA could become the nation's biggest problem in the near future...

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of booboisies. ;-)

[Frapster]

Ed Marihart, a city employee, showed up at Crowder's home. He served her with an administrative search warrant to remove an accumulation of trash and debris.

I would speculate the problem started here. I'm sure Mr. Marihart encounters a lot of belligerance directed at him in his line of work and as a result is probably fairly jaded. While I doubt that they have established procedures for dealing with 71 year old, hard of hear, blind people but I would imagine they need some sort of reassuring. I also understand the liability involved about letting her in the trailer but surely someone could have said 'here, let me direct you to the wagon' and maybe even ushered her around. The cops came and probably saw an already agitated 71 year old, blind and nearly deaf woman and tried to strong arm her or talk her down - but I cannot for the life of me come up with one reason to tazer a woman of that age - particularly when her glass eye is rolling around in the gutter. For want of a nail...

[Veracious Poet]

Wow...how did you dig this article up?

It's been dead for over a month and a half...lol!

[Frapster]

oops! there have been 2 articles in the past month where police have tazered a 9 year old child and another where they tazered a woman in her 60's. Someone mentioned this and I just replied to it once I found the link... didn't think about the fact that it was so old. lol