[Veracious Poet]

Makes you wonder if there are any good cops out there, doesn't it?

[Republicus2001]

what this story doesn't tell you is that she is a (gasp, shock and awe) a SMOKER!!! This same woman once served her family a dead bird for Christmas dinner. WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE?

[camle]

145K for this? they got off easy.

[Hodar]

I question the whole event.

First off, for $100,000 you can hit me, push me in the dirt and taser me twice. That's a heck of a deal in my book.

Secondly, there is no mention made with regard to the officers that did this. I would think that armed assault charges should be brought forward, and they can spend some 'quality' time behind bars for felony assault.

There is no excuse for this behavior; nor for the follow-up.

[Veracious Poet]

When Portland Officers Robert Miller and Eric Zajac arrived at the house, Crowder acknowledged she had one foot on the curb and one foot on the bumper of the trailer. She felt someone step on her foot and asked, "Who are you?"

Moments later, she felt someone strike her in the head, which dislodged her prosthetic right eye from its socket, and was knocked to the ground, she claimed in her lawsuit.

Is this the best method these two jackbooted thugs could come up with to deal with a blind, elderly widow?

They better thank their lucky stars she wasn't a relative of mine!

[FourtySeven]

While it's pretty pathetic for anyone to beat up on an old lady, I wouldn't be suprised if she was somewhat to blame. In these kind of "shocking" events, there are always two sides to the story. It's just that since she's an old lady, we naturally think, "What could she have possibly done?" She very well could have been biting and kicking, as the cops alledge.

Does that mean she should've been pepper sprayed and tasered? No, of course not. I mean, how hard can it be for a couple of young cops to subdue an elderly woman? I don't think they needed taser guns and pepper spray to take her down.

Again though, I'll bet the woman didn't do herself any favors.

Just another example of everyone involved acting like an idiot.

[thefactor]

yes you are right. the thousands of good cops who protect people like you and your family day in and day out should all have their images besmirched because the only cops you hear about from the media are bad. i fear you have fallen prey to the media we here at FR blast every day for only telling one side of the story.

i wonder what would have happened if you had come across an uplifting story about police heroism. would your first post have read, "Makes you wonder if there are any BAD cops out there, doesn't it?"

my guess would be that you woulnd't have even bothered to post the story.

[The kings dead]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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...

[Blue Scourge]

hmmmm, thank God for our second ammendment rights....hope we never have to use them, but it's nice to know that they are ther.....hey.....what is that Clinton woman and Kennedy doing to the constitution.

[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...