Woman says she didn't deserve Taser treatment

[rodeodance]

Source: cnn



Woman says she didn't deserve Taser treatment


From Wayne Drash
CNN

(CNN) -- Heidi Gill admits she had been drinking at a bar in Warren, Ohio, and gotten into a "disagreement" with a bartender earlier this month. But she said she didn't deserve to have a police officer use a Taser gun on her multiple times.
art.tased.woman.05.cnn.jpg

Warren, Ohio, officer Rich Kovach is on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.
Video footage from the police cruiser shows Gill, 38, crawling on the ground while the officer stands over her with the stun gun. She's screaming wildly. At one point, officer Rich Kovach shoves her with his foot as she struggles.

"I've never been electrocuted," she told CNN's "American Morning" on Wednesday. "I didn't know what this was. And I really didn't think this pain was ever going to stop. It was nonstop."

She said she was trying anything to get away "so I could live." Video Watch Gill describe the Taser treatment »

In the video, Gill, once inside the police car, kicks the back-seat window and continues to scream. "At this point, I had been Tased for so long and just drug around by my handcuffs. I was terrified of this man. He was no longer a police officer to me."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/26/tasered.woman/index.html

[jdadd]

1. I just watched the video....

It looks like after she was in the backseat of the cruiser and kicking the police opened the door and tased her again....

Fu---n brown shirts!! :mad:

[indepat]

2. Many policemen are just acting like they think they are supposed act imo: like good little

goose-stepping brownshirted pricks!

[Trillo]

4. I didn't watch any video,

but based upon your description, if she was in the back of the cruiser, she was under their control already. So this is street justice, meted out on a whim. No guilt established, but punishment prescribed.

[Mortos]

13. How can you possibly have an informed opinion

on something based on a third hand statement in a single paragraph description. This is how "Al Gore invented the internet" type things happen. Don't investigate the incident yourself, just base your opinion on someone elses opinion of their 3rd hand experience.

Jeez, if the woman had complied she would not have been tazed. If she hadn't tried to kick out his window and been screaming out of control, she wouldn't have been tazed.

Let's sypathize with the out of control drunk who resists arrest and was fighting with the bartender prior to the officer's arrival.

What we hear from here now has no relation to her behavior then. Once she is cleaned up and sober she becomes a sympathetic character.

"In the police report, Kovach describes responding to a "fight/disturbance" at the Up A Creek tavern and finding a belligerent Gill, who began cursing, refused to give her real name, then ran to the back of the property and got into a sport utility vehicle that wasn't hers.

She was hunched in the driver's seat hiding from Kovach, according to the report. "She was drunk behind the wheel of a car," Hicks said.

The officer asked her to get out and she refused, trying to "climb over to the passenger seat to jump out the passenger side of the car. I then Tasered her from my position," the report said."

L

[niceypoo]

19. The woman was being tortured

The tazing was non stop. Nothing the officer claims in his police report is shown in the video. Believing that you are informed from reading the police report of a cop who just spent five solid minutes torturing a woman on video is a tad ignorant when the video clearly shows him torturing her. Being an, "out of control drunk who resists arrest and was fighting with the bartender prior to the officer's arrival," is not grounds for tazing. You would make a good Bush spokesperson.

[Trillo]

20. I never claimed I watched the video.

Nice strawman though.

I have never once seen a city police cruiser without a cage. That doesn't mean they don't exist. Should I presume that part of "the story" is a lie and the reporter uniformed?

If a person is so drunk that they are disallowed from driving, then why is it presumed a drunk has sufficient sense to comply with police instructions and follow commands?

Is tasing the new, judicially approved punishment for drinking legally?

[Ignis]

25. "Jeez, if the woman had complied she would not have been tazed."

To paraphrase Donne: "Never send to know for whom the goose steps; it steps for thee."

:puke:

[surfermaw]

62. She was in a car...and he made her get out, them in his car

She was told to get out, a friend told her to get in his car and he would come take her home, the policeman made her get out of her friends car..however it didn't mention if she got in the car thinking it was her friends and it wasn't. she was complying with instructions when she got in the car.

[antigone382]

85. Umm...I did watch the video.

Dude was about three times her size...she was screaming and writhing and crawling around while he was tazing her over and over again, and then he kicked her in the ass--or the side, can't really tell from the angle--as she tried to get up to go wherever it was he was ordering her to go. He tazed her as she was trying to get in the police car, he tazed her WHILE she was in the police car, and then he told her she had to get out of that police car and into another one and as she was getting out to go towards the other car he tazed her again about three times.

I only know what I saw, so I have no idea if she was acting like an idiot before the tazing started...it appears she admits that she was. But in any case there is absolutely no excuse for the treatment she received. Once he started tazing her he didn't give her time to comply with what he was telling her to do, he just kept tazing over and over again until she was understandably hysterical beyond the capacity to act in an even tangentially logical manner. There is such a thing as necessary use of force, and this guy far exceeded it.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. This seems to be a situation that was handled badly by both parties.

Had she not been drunk, she might have complied with the officer's commands and avoided being tasered. That being said, it does appear that the officer got carried away and overused the taser. After being hit by it several times she probably was just trying to get away and I can imagine that her ability to think clearly was probably impaired.

On a report that I saw on CNN today, the spokesman for the police dept. said that perhaps the taser "malfunctioned" and fired on it's own, which makes me believe that they realize the officer overused it and they are trying to cover for him. I expect it will eventually result in a lawsuit.

[LiberalFighter]

51. If the tazer malfunctioned then they shouldn't be used!!!!!

[Arkansas Granny]

67. The way it was worded made me think that they would use the

"malfunction" as an excuse for her being repeatedly tasered. I believe it was the officer who malfunctioned in this case.

[surfermaw]

63. No doubt he overused it, if you look at the video, you can see

him doing a constant thing on her.

[Arkansas Granny]

68. Yes, it looked to me like he kept following her and tasering her as

she was trying to get away from him.

[peace13]

5. I think tasers should be treated like guns.

When an officer uses one there should be investigation. That would stop this abuse in its tracks! Why is it necessary to taser a handcuffed individual?

[PATRICK]

16. Finally

someone gets it. Yes this easy answer toy substitute to the club and gun needs full accountability. it is not a Star Trek painless stun gun but a dangerous torture device. EVERY story regardless of what right is being violated misses the point unless it regulates this thing according to its nature. EVERY conceivable abuse will, must happen in the meantime and unless it by nature degrades the officer holding it there is no need to think the police themselves are any the worse than other generations of police.

Subdue. Pain. Bodily damage. Violation of rights. New unregulated torment weapon sold as humane and easy. There are many ways to get at the issue but you can see the difficulty the police have when all this gets set aside in the drama of the moment.

Regulate or remove the damned things. Training, not mechanical devices, are the answer to responsible police work.

[peace13]

18. You can add death to the list! n/t

[Crayson]

80. A REAL criminal will treat it like a gun

I think police officers underestimate the DANGER the use of a Taser poses to THEM.

If faced by a REAL, ARMED (conceiled) criminal and the police officer grabs the Taser the criminal will grab his gun and shoot him.

Personally I am waiting for that to happen.
("Looking forward to" would be a bit too tough to say, but close to that)

Police officers need to know that a Taser IS A WEAPON.
For them it's a toy, but for the victim it's not, and one day a victim will overreact or PREEMPTIVELY act!
A Taser victim has FEAR OF DEATH and if given the chance, will react on instict.

Police work is ALWAYS about escalation/deescalation of situations and using a taser gun is an escalation step they take willingly and much too often, instead of being the friendly police officer who TALKS reason into people.

[jody]

6. Perhaps she should have obeyed the officers instructions. There are probably thousands of drunks

each day that obey LEO instructions. Still others do not obey and are hit with various devices including tasers. Only one or two of the latter group occasionally complain about being hit too hard with a baton or tased inappropriately.

Would she have complained about highway factors if she as a drunk driver was injured in an accident she caused?

The best approach is not to drink if you can't handle your liquor.

[Lautremont]

7. So what if the cop was a Leo?

I'm a Scorpio, myself.

[jody]

10. LOL, I'm a Virgo! n/t

[RamboLiberal]

8. Yeah she was stupid - but still no excuse for a cop to torture her

There are times I think a taser has it's use. But IMHO there are cops who have become too dependent and/or too enamored with them. She may have been even deserving of being tased at some point in this arrest but from the video I saw this cop took it's use way too far and seemed to be enjoying her pain.

[jody]

11. Absent a report from the official investigation, why do you believe she was tortured? n/t

[Justitia]

21. Did you see the video? I did, and it was torture. She wasn't driving either, BTW. -eom

[jody]

29. I also saw the video. I saw a woman who had apparently been hit with a taser projectile. She was

thrashing around on the ground on her knees.

She may or may not have been tortured but I see nothing in the video to support an assertion of torture.

[Justitia]

31. You forgot: Handcuffed, trying to crawl away, while being kicked by the officer & tasered again. nt

[jody]

33. See #32 n/t

[Justitia]

35. Tasering & kicking a handcuffed woman, following her while she tries to crawl. WTF? -eom

[surfermaw]

64. I saw that video and aconstant tasing of the lady

[jody]

69. What you saw is a woman with a taser probe in her body or clothing during most if not all the video.

It's not possible for constant tasing to occur with the type of taser issued to LEOs.

[RamboLiberal]

23. And I guess you believe the cops in the Rodney King

beating were justified? I can watch a video and judge for myself. Should we have waited for the official report on Abu Ghraib after seeing the photos before saying this was torture?

[jody]

24. I agree with you re Rodney King but you and I both know that newspaper articles are often wrong. n/t

[RamboLiberal]

27. Like Rodney King there was video

I'm not depending on newspaper report - I'm depending on what I saw on the video.

[jody]

28. I also saw the video. What I saw was a person apparently after being hit with a taser projectile

thrashing around on the ground on her knees. Nothing in the video indicates the number of times the taser was used. That should come from the official report after the officer's taser is examined.

You can speculate about the number of times the taser was used but I'll wait until the official report.

[Justitia]

30. Handcuffed, trying to crawl away, while being kicked by the officer.

You forgot those parts.

[jody]

32. My reply was to torture which IMO is not confirmed by the video. I'll wait for the official report.

[Justitia]

34. Tasering & kicking a handcuffed woman, following her while she tries to crawl. WTF? -eom

[jody]

39. If you saw the video, you know the LEO followed the woman because the taser projectile was embedded

in the woman.

But of course you already knew that.

The video does not show a kick but it does show the LEO pushing the woman's butt with his foot.

[Justitia]

40. He admits to tasering her at least 7 times. And why did he use his foot on her? -eom

[jody]

42. Why the foot? Why not wait for the official investigation? n/t

[Justitia]

44. My EYES tell me there was no reason to use his foot on her. -eom

[jody]

46. Perhaps but that will come out in the official investigation. n/t

[Justitia]

49. I don't need to wait that long for an "official" to tell me what I clearly SAW. -eom

[jody]

50. And now you claim divine insight! You should volunteer your special skills to police and help them

solve open cases.

[Justitia]

56. Sounds like the police are getting all the help they need, right here, on this thread. Sick. -eom

[jody]

57. IMO it's truly sick when people rush to judgment before an official investigation is completed. n/t

[Justitia]

59. I saw a woman being tortured by a cop. You think some "report" is going to change the visual facts.

Looks like you're just waiting for some way to excuse this cop and his behavior.

I get where you're coming from, and it ain't pretty, but there it is.

[jody]

61. "I saw a woman being tortured by a cop." Not in the video link in the OP. I know your opinion and

I'll withhold mine until the official investigation is released.

Have a nice evening and good bye. :hi:

[LeFleur1]

87. Come On

People are put in jail every day by those who 'saw'.
There are some people who went into police work because they like being in control.
And in this case, they like tasering women. I bet he beats his wife. There is not a cop on a beat anywhere who would think this was normal procedure to get a drunk (a much smaller drunk) under control. Sadists, yeah.

[timtom]

97. Of course it will.

"Official investigations" have a long history of uncovering truth.

[LiberalFighter]

54. I think it must be part of that "cultural thing" for Jody.

[jody]

58. What point are you trying to make? n/t

[LiberalFighter]

65. Cause of your cultural background you think anything a cop does is okay

Does that spell it out for you?

[jody]

66. You know nothing about my cultural background. My point is wait until an official investigation is

complete.

Your cultural background must lead you to conclude anything a cop does is not okay, that's the same attitude criminals have.

[Downtown Hound]

71. Some 300 pound cop standing over a little woman

and repeatedly tasering her while making virtually no effort to subdue or restrain her is not okay and never will be okay as far as this citizen is concerned. If that makes me a criminal then so be it. Lots of criminals would never treat a woman like that.

[Evoman]

96. Why?

Do you think that the official report will say that the women was tortured?

If the official report says something different then what you saw in the video, are you going to believe the report?

*cue Pryor* "Who are you going to believe...me, or your lying eyes?"

[Justitia]

36. The cop himself admitted to at least 7 different taserings. Her clothes had over 3 doz burn holes.

If you'd read the article, those facts are hard to miss.

That cop looked like he was getting off on what he was doing to her.

How can anyone defend this behavior?

[jody]

41. I'm not defending the LEO's behavior, I'm saying wait for the official investigation. n/t

[Justitia]

43. So I shouldn't believe my own lying eyes? What do you think of what you SAW? -eom

[jody]

45. You have lying eyes? What a shame! n/t

[Justitia]

47. I guess this was all cool with you. Disgusting. -eom

[antigone382]

86. It sounds like you saw the short version of the video.

The full version shows her in the back of the cop car where he tazes her again to make her get out and into another cop car, then tazes her 2-3 more times as she's walking in front of him towards the car. He admits to tazing her seven times, and I counted more than that.

I believe cops have the right to defend themselves with deadly force if necessary. I believe that if cops have adequate training on the proper time and place to use tasers, and on the very real dangers of their use, then tasers may well serve some productive function. Hey, I don't even completely condemn the cops who tazed Andrew Meyer for resisting arrest, although I'm not really sure exactly why he was arrested in the first place when Kerry seemed willing to answer his question...but I watched this video several times, watched a news analysis or two, and I have no doubt whatsoever that this officer acted in an unnecessarily brutal manner towards this woman.

[LiberalFighter]

52. The cop had or should have full mental capacity to perform their job

A drunk depending on their BAC will have diminish mental capacity to respond appropriately.

No excuse for anyone being drunk BUT no excuse for law enforcement to abuse their authority either.

If the cop enjoyed her pain then he needs to have a psychological exam to determine whether he is mentally fit.

[Cobalt Violet]

53. What was so "stupid" about her?

:shrug:

[peace13]

9. First they taser the drunks......

I guess you and I can wait our turn.

[jody]

12. What evidence do you have that LEOs use tasers inappropriately compared to other arms such as batons

and firearms?

[peace13]

14. Don't see much video of the ol' wand or guns but there seems to

be plenty of time to tape the taser abuse. That in itself says something.

[jody]

15. "That in itself says something." Please enlighten me, what are you claiming? n/t

[peace13]

17. Me thinks that I have struck a nerve.

I fold. Enough.

[jody]

26. No nerve, just wondering what point you are trying to make. n/t

[Doremus]

92. WTF is with this LEO crap?

I take it you're a police officer or involved in police work in some capacity?

That might explain your eagerness to write the cop a pass despite the fact he's already admitted to tasing the woman at least 7 times while she was cuffed.

One thing you ought to think about. You may be a cop but you're just a person. Jobs change, circumstances change, one day you're on one side of the law and the next, you might be defending yourself against some power crazed maniac in a uniform.

Life has a habit of turning around and biting you in the ass. Remember that.

[terisan]

37. May you offer yourself up tobe tasered, walloped, and batoned. There are rules for police as well as

rules for the all citizens.

Tasers are also potentially deadly weapons, just as are cars, guns.

In the 70s it was still commonplace for cattle prods to be used on "misbehaving" institutionalized patients. Sadly many people excused this and it took the courts to put an end to the use those of torture devices.

[jody]

48. At this point I will wait for the official investigation. n/t

[AX10]

78. It may takes the courts again.

[Tesha]

72. Ahh Jody. I see you've signed up for the "It'll *NEVER* happen to me!" club. (NT)

[KansDem]

22. Is this the case where the officer claimed his Tazer™ "misfired?"

:shrug:

I thought I read a few days ago that an officer in a torture-Tazering™ incident claimed his Tazer™ misfired.

[samplegirl]

38. I live here

and the Warren Cops are all ego driven pumped up wanna be super
hero's.

[LiberalFighter]

55. One of these days a cop or cops will be shot while tazering someone.

And maybe they will be tazered while laying bleeding.


If they don't want that to happen the police better clean up their act.

[AX10]

77. Agreed.

[Jed Dilligan]

88. It'll serve them right. nt

[FooFootheSnoo]

60. I thought it was overkill myself

She was on the ground, crawling and screaming. The whole time she was crawling, he continued tazing her. It was too much. I couldn't see where she posed a threat to anyone at that time. I don't know how she could have run either. It would have been fairly easy for the two grown men to pick the woman up and put her in the police car instead of tazering her over and over. I didn't see the point.

[AX10]

70. I know.

I hate that god damn thing.

[sarcasmo]

73. This Taser shit is out of control.

[Tesha]

74. In many areas, the police as a whole are out of control.

As another data point, consider how often you now
see routine patrols dressed in full SWAT gear instead
of "friendly cop on the beat" blues. It's gotten to
the point that every railway station, bus station,
and airport has nothing but wanna-be Storm Troopers
strutting around inside.

This increasing militarization of our civilian
police forces can't help but bring and/or signal
trouble.

Tesha

[AX10]

76. I guess I should be glad that the Stamford (CT) train station...

is patrolled by regular uniformed police with bomb detecting dogs and nothing more. That is perfectly reasonable to me. The full SWAT gear that is becoming more and more common is frightning..

[depakid]

75. Kinda begs the question

How did they handle routine situations when they didn't have their handy torture device?

There's obviously a time and place for tasers- but like any tool, they're easily subject to abuse.

[Tesha]

84. The pervasiveness of guns is a big part of the problem.

In the old days, I think the cops could feel pretty confident
that not every yahoo and yob they encountered was armed
and deadly, so they could use a lot more close-contact
physical force to restrain the drunk and disorderly. And
yes, cops got physical in the good old days as well;
the battons weren't just for show.

But nowadays, with handguns becoming far more common
in everyday life (along with concealed-carry laws
becoming widespread), the cops have to approach every
situation as though it may jeopardize their lives
(as well it might). So Officer Joe can no longer
just run up to you and try to pin your hands behind
your back with main physical force while Officer Bob
slaps the cuffs on; you've got to be incapacitated
from the possibility of you drawing and firing your
entirely-likely concealed weapon.

The rise in litigation also affects this. Whereas,
in the past, the officer might have punched you
and the community seen that as an acceptable
response to you fighting with the officer, punching
the perp is now frowned upon so the cops are turning
to weapons that are still seen as "sanctioned".

Tesha

[Mojorabbit]

89. I don't know how old you are

but when I was younger most people owned shotguns. Most cops I ran across were the good guys though there were always some bad apples. They did not dress up in paramilitary robotic outfits.

[Tesha]

91. Most people staggering out of bars aren't packing shotguns, sawed-off or full-sized.

Nowadays, they *MAY* be packing handguns, though.

Tesha

[AX10]

79. The taser did not "misfire".

That morAn is a big fat slob. He obviously has no physical ability to do his job. He should be fired and jailed. He should lose his pension too.

Where's a stray bullet when you need one?
:puke:

[droidamus2]

81. Original intent

I thought the original intent for the development of weapons like the Taser was because some cops were seen as too quick to use deadly force. These devices allowed them to subdue dangerous criminals without resorting to deadly force. Now it seems the cops have decided that anybody that isn't instantly cooperative deserves to be tasered. Even if you accept this use, I don't, once the person is under control no matter how much they yell or piss off the officer the taser is not there so the officer can get back at somebody that makes his or her job a little tough. I think the standards for using a taser or similar device should be tightened to only allow their use when the officer has reason to fear for their safety not just because a suspect is a little belligerent. Before somebody says I don't support the police, I have had police officers in my family and I know they have a tough job. If the police force is not respected because of misuse of their power it just makes their jobs harder.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

82. American cops get to punish people who piss them off.

I can't believe there are some people here who think she was acting stupid and should have obeyed the cop. Are you so stupid or blind that you don't recognize when a man is out control with anger and beating a woman? He was getting off on it! He kicked her to the ground with his foot. If the big oath can't do this job without using some muscle or his brain he should not be a policeman.
Who made this piece of shit the judge and jury? I wonder if that taser hurts like being caught in an electric fence? I have been tangled in an electric barbed wire fence and to escape it I scrambled like hell and ripped my flesh to bits. You don't think of anything but escaping.
As long as there are dip shits who try to justify this kind of behavior by these thug police it will continue. I hope you get kicked and zapped next.

[AX10]

93. Some people around here have a sickness.

They have a need to worship authoritarians.

[HopefulCanadian]

94. It gets worse

I've got a friend who is a cop and he says tasers are fun to use, and they look for every opportunity to use them, regardless of whether they are necessary or not.

[militaryspouse]

83. After she hit

her head on the side of the car(it looked like she hit her head really hard) the cop should have then got on her and handcuffed her instead of further tasering her.

[eagler]

95. He needs to be tased and fired

[colorado_ufo]

90. This officer is lucky he doesn't have a homicide charge to contend with.

A person who is drunk is already physically compromised. He had no idea of any underlying medical condition this woman might have had (pacemaker?). Repeated shocks - or even one shock - could have killed her.

These things are NOT toys and can have lethal consequences. This cop needs anger management classes.