Once again, a person is dead for nothing more than a behavior problem. Cops with Tasers are judge, jury and executioner:
NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA – October 7, 2010 (WPVI) — A teen is dead after police used a Taser on him in Northeast Philadelphia.
Police responded to the 6900 block Souder Street at around 12:30 p.m. Thursday for reports of a disturbance involving an 18-year-old who relatives say is mentally challenged.
“He’s severely retarded. He was having a tantrum and my grandmother couldn’t handle him, so she called the police,” the teen’s cousin Michelle Rynkiewicz said.
Rynkiewicz says the teen, identified by relatives as Patrick Johnson, would not let go of a stick he was holding.
Police say the teen lunged at them and officers then used a Taser on him.
Johnson was transported to Nazareth Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:10 p.m.
“I think Tasing him was excessive, I think it was uncalled for; I think, maybe, they should have used mace or tried to tackle him onto the ground,” Rynkiewicz said.
Rynkiewicz says Johnson had the mind of a 7 or 5-year-old.
Police say they have been at the location a number of times before because of similar disturbances with the 18-year-old.
Lots of folks would deny knowing or thinking that Amerikkka has been a de facto Police State for a very long time, especially in the northern cities. The incident involving this poor fellow is nothing new; as a kid growing up in Detroit in the 60’s I (we) dealt with very similiar police actions, the only difference being the police used dogs and overpowering numbers of officers to subdue and take down us ‘suspects’, as in Rodney King-type stuff————–if tasers, and all the other new tech stuff had been around back then, I’d be a very dead duck by now.
How about just letting the tantrum pass and letting him drop the stick on his own? People just have to draw lines in the sand, don’t they?
Power struggles everywhere we look.
Everybody has to exercise control.
This time cops over a retarded kid, which for cops is a noble pasttime. Damned kid with a stick could take down the government or rend the fabric of society. But how long would it have taken to just wait the kid out and let it pass? How much time was this kid’s life worth to the cops and whomever called the cops? Apparently not much. Everybody had to get on with their Very Important Business and didn’t really care what was at stake. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Morons.