Langley RCMP kill unarmed (and seriously wounded) man with taser

Another day, another taser death. Who's still counting all taser deaths?

A man is dead after he crashed through a second-storey window, naked and bleeding from a chest wound, and was hit with an RCMP Taser.

If this man was seriously bleeding from a chest wound, then why would someone taser him? Is having crashed through a window any reason to taser someone to death?

RCMP say they converged on a home in suburban Langley, B.C., Tuesday, following an armed robbery earlier in the day. A witness who saw a vehicle leaving the scene of the hold-up alerted police and followed the car to the home.

That's quite the stretch, "following an armed robbery". Is the account of one eyewitness enough to taser somebody to death?

Cpl. Peter Thiessen said police heard a man and woman arguing inside the home, and then witnessed the man come through an upper-floor window and hit the ground.

Did the woman throw this guy out? Then why taser the guy and not the woman?

With the gun used in the robbery nowhere in sight and the suspect trying to run inside the home despite a serious chest wound, police decided to use the Taser, Thiessen said.

What do you mean, despite? If I was naked and bleeding like hell I wouldn't consider going for a drink or see a movie; I would go inside, call an ambulance and if possible get dressed. What's so weird about that reaction?

[Thiessen] said the man was still alive when he was arrested but died en route to hospital.

Does anyone else have a Robert Dziekanski deja-vu here? Robert was still alive when he was arrested. But not much later he was dead, thanks to the great work of the RCMP.

Thiessen said a woman who was inside the home was arrested.

Well, problem solved then. It was all the woman's fault. How wonderful to turn the single reason for tasering the now dead man (to protect the female) into the perfect scapegoat.

This story stinks, and I don't like it.

LINKS
- Canadian Press: Langley RCMP kill seriously wounded and unarmed man with taser
-Truth not Tasers: 371+ Taser deaths, and still counting...

Full Article follows, comments at the bottom.

PS: RCMP spokesman Cpl. Peter Thiessen says that they killed the suspect "in the interest of public safety and the safety of police officers". Well done, Peter.

Wounded B.C. robbery suspect dies after being Tasered

LANGLEY, B.C. — A man is dead after he crashed through a second-storey window, naked and bleeding from a chest wound, and was hit with an RCMP Taser.

RCMP say they converged on a home in suburban Langley, B.C., Tuesday, following an armed robbery earlier in the day. A witness who saw a vehicle leaving the scene of the hold-up alerted police and followed the car to the home.

Cpl. Peter Thiessen said police heard a man and woman arguing inside the home, and then witnessed the man come through an upper-floor window and hit the ground.

With the gun used in the robbery nowhere in sight and the suspect trying to run inside the home despite a serious chest wound, police decided to use the Taser, Thiessen said.

He said the man was still alive when he was arrested but died en route to hospital.

Thiessen said a woman who was inside the home was arrested.

The RCMP Major Crimes Unit and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team are investigating the incident with the oversight of Vancouver police.

The use of the shock weapons has been under scrutiny since Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski died after RCMP officers shocked him with a Taser at the Vancouver airport in October 2007.

A public inquiry into Dziekanski's death is scheduled to get underway in November.

Last week, Vancouver police used a Taser on a 16-year-old mother who refused to hand her one-month-old baby over to social workers.

Police said they acted because of fears the "mentally distraught" mother might smother the little boy during the three-hour standoff.

Alan Greenspan's email address and why Republicans bailed out on the bail out

BBC:

Members of Congress have been dealing with two powerful conflicting forces over the last week.

The first was remorseless pressure from the White House - the argument that the country faced a crisis so profound that unless they approved the government's plans, American capitalism would grind to a halt as funds flowing between the banks began to dry up.

But the second pressure which is much harder to measure came from ordinary voters writing or emailing their own members of Congress angrily demanding that they reject a scheme which is universally perceived here as a bail-out of Wall Street bankers.

They are perceived as greedy, incompetent fat cats who have created this crisis themselves and who are now being allowed to pick the pockets of American voters to fix it.

Direct democracy at work, ain't it great?

BTW does anyone have the email address of Alan Greenspan, the architect of this mess?

LINKS
- BBC: emailing works
- Aljazeera: Greenspan's crime of market deregulation

"If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself"

Kathleen Parker:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League. [...]

If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

PS: It's great to make fun of BS:



LINKS
- National Review: Palin Problem
- Wikipedia: National Review

Bailout Anger in the Streets (video)

American News Project: While government leaders worked behind closed doors to solve the bailout crisis, groups of concerned citizens took to the streets to express their anger and frustration. While some felt their voices would be heard, others felt helpless and lost.



LINKS
- American News Project: Bailout Anger in the Streets (video)
- Wikipedia: Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Video of New York Police tasering to death 35 year old mentally handicapped

THIS is quite upsetting:

New York Police taser 35 year old mentally handicapped to death

From Democracy Now!: Mentally Handicapped Man Falls to Death After Police Tasering

And here in New York, police are admitting at least partial fault in the death of a mentally handicapped man who fell from a building after he was tasered. Thirty-five-year-old Inman Morales was standing naked on a ledge when police confronted him to try to bring him down. Police say they had called for an inflatable bag to break Morales’s fall. But it had not arrived before an officer struck him with the taser weapon, sending him plunging to his death. [...]

More from the New York Daily News: NYPD investigates two officers in Taser death [of] Brooklyn man

Instead of waiting for backup to arrive with an airbag that would have broken his fall, "an [Emergency Service Unit] lieutenant directed another ESU officer on the sidewalk to employ a [taser] against Morales, who fell to the sidewalk, striking his head," Browne said.

Morales, 35, fell 10 feet and landed headfirst on the pavement. He was declared dead at Kings County Hospital.

"It just wasn't a smart move. When you Taser someone, they drop like a stone. No muscle control. Under regular circumstances, the (suspect) could have jumped himself and been OK," a police source said.

Indeed, not a smart move. Hell, this NY police officer is smarter than I thought.

"He froze and pitched forward," witness Ernestine Croom said. "They didn't put out a mattress or net or anything."

"That's a human being. You just let the man fall and kill himself?" said Robin Overton, 45, who works nearby. "I thought the cops were here to help him."

Inman Morales, dead at 35.

LINKS
- Democracy Now! Mentally Handicapped Man Falls to Death After Police Tasering
- New York Daily News: NYPD investigates two officers in Taser death [of] Brooklyn man.

Progressive Re-Framing, Democracy Now! Style

At issue is the US hypocrisy allegations in Russia criticism, well re-framed by the Democracy Now! crew at the end of the segment (in bold):

Rice Rejects Hypocrisy Allegations in Russia Criticism

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has escalated US rhetoric against Russia. On Thursday, Rice said the West should stand up to what she called Moscow’s “bullying.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Russia’s intimidation of its sovereign neighbors, its use of oil and gas as a political weapon, its unilateral suspension of the CFE Treaty, its threat to target peaceful nations with nuclear weapons, its arms sales to states and groups that threaten international security, and its persecution—and worse—of Russian journalists and dissidents and others. The picture emerging from this pattern of behavior is that of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad."

Rice’s comments were her harshest to date since Russian troops invaded Georgia after Georgia attacked the breakaway province of South Ossetia. It’s widely speculated the Bush administration helped encourage the Georgian attack, which ended up backfiring for the Georgian government. The White House has been widely ridiculed over its protests of Russia’s response to the attack. Rice was questioned on accusations of Bush administration hypocrisy in light of its own invasion of Iraq.

Rice: “If you look at an Iraq that will not seek weapons of mass destruction like the Saddam Hussein regime, that will live in peace and security with its neighbors and that will give its own people a chance for democratic governance, I don’t think that that bears any resemblance to invading a small democratic neighbor whose only crime apparently was that it wished to be a part of the emerging transatlantic world.”

There were other differences: the Russia-Georgia conflict led to several hundred deaths; the US invasion of Iraq has led to the deaths of anywhere between hundreds of thousands to more than one million Iraqis.

LINKS
- Democracy Now!: Headlines for September 19, 2008
- Wikipedia: Framing in Politics