AP source: NYPD taser Lt. dead of apparent suicide

[Ghost in the Machine]

AP source: NYPD taser Lt. dead of apparent suicide
Published: 10/2/08, 9:05 AM EDT
By COLLEEN LONG

NEW YORK (AP) - A New York Police Department official says a lieutenant is dead of an apparent suicide, days after he ordered another officer to fire a stun gun at a naked, distraught man who then fell to his death.

The police official says the lieutenant was found in Brooklyn early Thursday, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. It wasn't clear when he died.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the family had not yet been notified.

The lieutenant had ordered another officer to shock Inman Morales during a confrontation with police in Brooklyn on Sept. 24, even though the disturbed man had climbed out his third floor window onto a ledge. Morales fell to his death.

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=2728&eeid=6128465&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne

[Lerkfish]

1. two head-scratchers on this

1. the police will almost ALWAYS change the crime scene to make it appear murder rather than a suicide to protect the surviving family from the pension/insurance company
2. The cop sounds unstable, since he could have easily weathered the investigation, whichwould have concluded that his actions, though stupid, were not intentionally trying to kill the guy. (not that I personally would give him this slack, but you know the prosecutor would)

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Maybe he actually...er....

felt consumed with guilt about it?

These people are human beings, you know. It wouldn't be the first time somebody couldn't live with being the cause of another person's needless death.

[Lerkfish]

5. well, sure, there's THAT.

that's the first and obvious conclusion, so I didn't bother mentioning.
But you're right, that's the conclusion that is easiest to draw.

[rucky]

8. Police and dentists have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. n/t

[soleft]

2. Taser takes two lives - something has to be done about this

The idea that it's non lethal is leading to all kinds of misuse - there needs to be a national review of this.

When that man was killed last week, I was so enraged at he cops - it was so unnecessary and felt that someone had to be held criminally responsible.

But not this. As enraged as I felt, the dispair the LT. must have felt for being responsible for that man's death - must have been 1000 fold.

[tom_paine]

4. Perhaps he felt shame over what he'd done. Unusual in Bush Amerika, but certainly

if there is any and I mean ANY repository of the Old American Decency left in this country, surely it lies locked away in the hearts of the few remaining free people that exist in this Nation of Cowed Subjects.

OTOH, he just may have been feeling sorry for himself at what happened to HIM over what he considers "an insignificant life".

We can never know, though...unless he left a note which apparently he didn't. I'd like to think that if this was to happen, the at least let it be for the right reasons (crazy as that sounds).

A Lieutenant? Probably at least 40 years old, which means he is of the Final Generation Who Remembers REAL Freedom in America. (or at least an acceptable remnant of it...it's all semantics)

That also, in a general way, makes it a little more likely that the first reason I mentioned was why, not the venal reason.

I mean, can you imagine the reaction of a Lt. who was a 30-year-old Freeper? Can you imagine that person doing ANYTHING OTHER THAN QUIETLY EXULTING IN GLEE OVER WHAT HE'D DONE (at least when he thought no "Little People" were listening)?

I sure can't.

[lynnertic]

10. tom just HAD to pull freeper-bashing into this.

"I sure can't"

A couple of years ago it was a rivalry, like you'd see with sports fans. Now its grown into bigotry. What a shame.

It's making DU a place that's harder and harder to visit, because I don't want to be around a bunch of bigots who are as nasty and mean as the 'freepers' they constantly deride.

[tom_paine]

15. Yeah, constantly calling attention to a growing band of fanatics in our midst

who are increasingly connected to electoral fraud and other crimes, not to mention semi-legal Rovian Trickery, is so, you know...IMMATURE.

Do you REALLY think this DU antipathy to Bushies and Freepers is solely the result of some dumb sports-style rivalry?

Can you be that blind as to why most of us are here on DU? Or why I and many DUers have spent hours and hours working these last four even-year-elections, even if many of us had NEVER done so before and DO NOT enjoy doing it? Why I and many DUers have donated all we can afford and sometimes more these last four elections?

Some dumb HS Rivalry? That's it? Can you really be that deluded?

Am I saying I am 100% moral and 100% pure? HELL NO! I am as human as the next primate, and I have no doubt that there is (if it could be dissected and quantified) some element of the personal mixed in. No doubt.

But to go to the extreme and say that ALL it's about? NOT EVEN CLOSE. Did you really think about that before you said it, or was it a short sharp knee-jerk post because you are getting irritated about Freeper-bashing?

Sorry, lynn. As a Jew I NEVER will grow tired of drawing attention to Nazis and "Kinder and Gentler Nazi-like forces" when I see them. NEVER. As someone who lost two great-uncles in Stalin's Gulags, before I was born, I NEVER will grow tired of drawing attention to embryonic manifestations of authoritarianism and totalitarianism when I see them. NEVER.

I'll never shut up about it, the same way I'd already be dead if I lived in Germany, because I would have been always flapping my gums Nazi-Bashing. The same way I'd already be dead if I lived in Soviet Russia, because I would have been always flapping my gums Commie-Bashing.

And you Good Germans and Soviets, now as then, would cluck their tongues in superior amusement, accusing the victims as being the attackers. It would all be a he-said/she-said to you, right. Just a dumb HS rivalry, right? Bigots on both sides canceling each other out.

Oh, the Nazis say the Jews are serial liars and propagandists out to enslave the world. The Jews say the Nazis are serial liars and propagandists out to enslave the world. A couple of years ago it was a rivalry, like you'd see with sports fans. Now its grown into bigotry. What a shame.

Did your REALLY think about what you said, or are you going to come at me with the Godwin Dodge and not reply to what I said, but just insult me as you did in your last post?

Can you be civil or will you escalate after I responded to your attack by attacking you back and putting up a mirror for you to look at? It will be interesting to see, for I have previous to this always respected you and thought your posts were good and thoughtful.

It's not that you disagree with me (civil disagreement is one of the basic tenets of being an American in the Old Republic 1776-2000), but how you said it. And how you accused me of having the motives of an 8-year old. I am struggling not to call you names even now, thinking about it.

But just explaining your historic analogue in clear terms and showing you that mirror that even now hurts you to look at, I'm sure, will just have to do (preparing those insults, are you?... most do after being shown the mirror of inconvenient truth, in my experience...best defense is a good offense, eh?)

As I said, your previous history of civility and good debate weighs with me, so I think if there is anyone who can try to respond civilly after you attacked and I counter-attacked, it would be you. But we shall see. If you respond civilly to me, I'll call the "insult game" even and we can have a conversation.

But that aside, I stand by what I said in BOTH posts. You might want to consider that before you accuse someone of having the motives of an eight-year-old.

[lynnertic]

17. You seem to have me confused with someone else.

So you wrote,

And you Good Germans and Soviets, now as then, would cluck their tongues in superior amusement, accusing the victims as being the attackers. It would all be a he-said/she-said to you, right. Just a dumb HS rivalry, right? Bigots on both sides canceling each other out.

Oh, the Nazis say the Jews are serial liars and propagandists out to enslave the world. The Jews say the Nazis are serial liars and propagandists out to enslave the world. A couple of years ago it was a rivalry, like you'd see with sports fans. Now its grown into bigotry. What a shame.

Did your REALLY think about what you said, or are you going to come at me with the Godwin Dodge and not reply to what I said, but just insult me as you did in your last post?

The italicized paragraph is not something I wrote. I wrote the part in bold, you added the previous two sentences.

It seems like you're conflating something I wrote (which is a perfectly reasonable statement calling out your bigoted language, that I stand by -- you and people who write like you do are making DU a miserable place with your hatred, Tom.) with something somebody else wrote, and then using that as a platform to jump into histrionics.

I'm a Good German? Really?

[tom_paine]

18. Well...DUH. Try stating the obvious for $200, Alex.

Either you were being literalist on purpose, a kind of willful ignorance in order to make a weak rhetorical attack based on nonsense, or you really couldn't tell that of course I knew it. I would have to be brain-damaged not to, and you would have to be brain-damaged to actually not have guessed that.

Well...DUH. So, you stated the obvious like it was the wisdom of the ages and now I am supposed to stand amazed.

Again, you confuse bigotry with the legitimate outraged of free citizens wronged so badly for so long. I understand. People you always have been...confused, that is. Big assist to tyrants throughout history, you are, and the tens of millions like you throughout history.

I can't help you. Maybe Naomi Wolf can. Read her book.

http://www.amazon.com/Give-Me-Liberty-Handbook-Revolutionaries/dp/1416590560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222979224&sr=8-1

Oh, and yes, you are most definitely cast from that Good German head-in-the-sand model, but then, I would guess probably anywhere between one and two thirds of our nation, if not more, fits that mold, currently. Naomi could explain to you why, far more eloquently than I, if you would but have the guts to read (which you probably won't) and the requistite level of conscious self-awareness to let it pierce that ego of yours (which you probably don't).

OTOH, if you read it, maybe you would have both. I don't know you from Adam.

As for what you think of me, I could care less. I've been right about almost all this shit since 2000, and it gives me a confidence someone like you could never understand if you lived to be 100 (you won't).

Hell, just to choose one concrete demonstrable example among more than a dozen, MANY times since 2001 I said that our National Debt would be $10,000,000,000 by the time the theft was over. Even before 9/11 I said that.

http://brillig.com/debt_clock/

That's 2001. It's all archived here at DU if you don't believe me. Do please check into it.

Ever done anything like that? Use your knowledge of history to predict the future trend, then have it happen 100% the way you said? Yeah...sure you have.

So, I don't give a shit about what you say or think about me. You don't like me? Put me on ignore. But, I have been right about more shit more advance of their occurrance at least a dozen times, possibly two dozen. There a partial list in my journal, if you want to check me on THAT. I was on DU from the very first, and I marched in some of the very first anti-Bush protests in 2001, pre-9/11?

What were YOU doing in 2001? Voting for Bush and waving your plastic flag?

What I have done a dozen times with my critical thinking skills, you will never do ONCE, most likely, even if you live to be 100.

So, take your pseudo-intellectual-straw-man-statement-of-the-obvious-an-infant-could-formulate, and your disdain for that which you don't understand and which has a track record of being able to critically think and analyze than you couldn't even dream of.

I am sick and tired of holier-than-thou bullshit like yours. I make you miserable put me on ignore or STFU about it, whiner.

Sick and tired of your blind head in the sand bullshit. No more political correctness with you ostrich types. No more pulling punches and being nice to the Blind...the mentally blind, anyway.

Go ahead...chastize me again.

Oh, and by the way, how much have YOU helped the Obama Campiagn so far?

[Raskolnik]

19. Wow, you're as smart as you are modest.

You shouldn't hide your light under the bushel basket of DU--you should be sharing your precious gift with the world!

[tom_paine]

20. ROFL. You're a pretty funny guy. Smart, too. Take your own advice.

Weak, dude.

You can do better than THAT for an insult. My ten-year-old nephew can do better than that.

Trite and overused much? C'mon. Try again. This time a little creativity, please. I can help, if you wish.

:rofl:

See how you've cut me to the quick with your rapier nine-year-olds' wit? I haven't been this distraught since I was called a boogerhead on the playgrounds years and years ago.

Now, I'm gonna :cry:

Now you've done it.

I'll get a tissue to mop my tears. You think of something smart and original to say. You can do it. I have confidence in you.

:rofl:

[Raskolnik]

23. You have a confidence someone like me could never understand.

The way you use your knowledge of history to predict the future trend, and then have it happen 100% the way you said is absolutely amazing, and if I live to be 100(which I won't), I will probably never do ONCE what you have done a dozen (or probably two dozen) times with your critical thinking skills.

And the thing is, all of it is there in the DU archives for me to check out.

[tom_paine]

27. I was right! You ARE a funny guy! You made me laugh good there!

Thanks again. Bye now.

:hi:

[Raskolnik]

29. I'm glad you're getting this out of your system before you "help" the Obama campaign.

Thanks for helping out with the campaign. I very much hope that your internet persona is an affectation that you can leave behind when you talk to people in the real world.

[tom_paine]

30. It is most definitely not an affectation. And I can most certainly subside my patriotic outrage

grinding in my heart these last years for the greater good of speaking calmly and professionally when need be.

As to helping the campaign, I made 92 calls yesterday and got one person to make a commitment volunteer themselves for duty at county HQ, but I talked to 10 or 15 people total over three hours.

If you haven't phone-banked before, it can be a boring-ass trial of dialing people who mostly ain't home or are pissed that you called them. There's a reason why people usually don't do telemarketing for a living. If this wasn't so damned important I would NEVER do this for FREE.

Anyway, point is, that one volunteer I recruited, if they show up (which is never guaranteed...talk is cheap), along with the calm, persuasive chats (maybe THAT'S the affectation, eh?) I had with a dozen other undecideds makes my time already profitable.

No, I don't speak anything like this thread on the ObamaPhone. That would be foolhardy in the extreme and I might as well stay home if was going to do something like that.

I really would be a dope if I talked to people on the ObamaPhone like that. Or a Secret Freeper.

:rofl:

[Raskolnik]

32. I'm glad you agree that it is rather foolish to behave like that

if you are making a sincere effort to persuade someone.

[tom_paine]

33. Not persuading here. Just responding to those who attacked me first.

If they had simply started by disagreeing with me civilly, I would have responded in the same way. And we would have had a frank exchange of views that I hope would have ended, at worst, with us politely agreeing to disagree. But the first response was a sneering assault and an insult to the intelligence. More than I could take. But that had nothing to do with you, except you sort of jumped in and piled on a little, so I gave you some back, too.

It is starting to seem as if I mistakenly lumped you in with those other fools, and quite clearly you are not one.

What set me off, REALLY set me off by the first response that started it all, was the idea that this is like some stupid sports rivalry. The suggestion that the last 8 years, which has caused 1.2 million deaths in Iraq and 4,000+ soldiers, displaced 5,000,000, tortured and still torturing thousands, looting the Public Treasury of TRILLIONS and making lives for every American (well, 99% of us) and God knows how many around the world ,a good bit more painful than they otherwise would have been, comes down to two stupid, childish, but equally nonsensical and trivial sides.

Nothing that has ended and destroyed so many lives needlessly can be considered trivial. Can we agree on that, please?

But thinking about that is pissing me off again, and that is not the direction I want to go. The idiots are on ignore. You are not.

Time passes. Temper subsides.

Thanks for hanging in there with some pretty good wit and good humor. I hope to have some interesting (and civil, I promise never to "strike first with nuclear weapons" if you will also promise) conversations with you in the future.

See you 'round the boards. :hi:

Peace?

[Raskolnik]

22. Delete

Why can't I be as smart as tom_paine!?

[foo_bar]

24. slow down champ, you're typing like one of them

"you confuse bigotry with the legitimate outraged (sic)"

"People you (sic) always have been...confused, that is."

"and the requistite (sic) level of conscious self-awareness"

"But, I have been right about more shit more advance (sic) of their occurrance (sic)"

"There a (sic) partial list in my journal"

"how much have YOU helped the Obama Campiagn (sic) so far?"

"and your disdain for that which <...> has a track record of being able to critically think and analyze than you couldn't even dream of. (sic)" (Palinese?)

It's difficult to think of a more reactionary sentiment than "it gives me a confidence someone like you could never understand" (after "No more political correctness with you <insert scapegoat> types"), and comparing everyone you disagree with to Nazi collaborators is poor netiquette and a knee jerk excuse for debate in general, so Lynnertic was probably on the right track with "a rivalry, like you'd see with sports fans." On behalf of Brooklyn, have a Bronx cheer.

[tom_paine]

26. Big difference between Good Germans and Nazi Collaborators.

Good Germans just stood by, closed their eyes, and did nothing either way. Get it? Big difference.

So, you're wrong about that.

Your bullshit ad hominem "champ" and your use of my typing errors to smear me is bullshit, too.

figures.

Interesting. First time I've ever been tag-teamed quite like this on DU. Entertaining, too.

Thanks again.

I'm guessing you don't do any work in the Real World against the Bushies and for the Dems/Obama, either.

Man, LOTS of people with mouths full of shit, eh?

tell you what. First, shove it up your ass. Second, go down and put in a few hours at the local Obama HQ phone-banking or canvassing so you can speak to me without a mouth full of hypocritical shit.

i have noticed of you three tag-teamers, not a one has done a lick of work for the Obama Campaign.

What am I doing posting here (since April 2001, for that matter)? What are YOU doing posting here if you haven't volunteered for Obama and therefore can't speak without a mouth full of shit?

Get your ass on the phone and call Obama HQ. Then get your ass over there.

==============================

Now, you kiddies have been VERY entertaining, But I'm afraid playtime is over for me. Spit and snarl and shout all you wish. Have the last word, champ. Have it on me all day. I'll never see it once I put you on ignore, which is about 5 minutes from now.

Oh, and thanks again for the laughs, and for starting ti by insulting me so I could, with a clear conscience, truthfully insult you back tenfold.

Very cathartic. Good for me to vent this venom here in meaningless cyber-world, because in a couple day I report to Obama County HQ to do, phone-banking for Obama, trying to persuade Independents and a few Republics to vote for Obama. Thanks for letting me vent venom on idiots like you, so I can better help Obama be being more calm and rational in a couple days.

I ask again, what will YOU be doing for Obama in the Democrats in the next couple days? What's that? I can't hear your answer through your mouth full of shit?

Plus I won't "hear" it, once I put you on ignore. But as I said...have a field day with it, little man.

:rofl:

[foo_bar]

31. I've never placed anyone on ignore, seems like a bit of a "cop-out"

Just pointing out that you resembled the thing you claimed to despise, at least when it came to poorly constructed emotional outbursts on the internet. Have another one, on me.

[Generic Other]

25. I have been reading your posts since 2001 Tom Paine and you have always spoken out passionately

I know exactly where your anger is coming from. To reduce it to 'sports rivalry' is such an insult! Many a time your words were the only comfort there was in the storm, reminding me I was not alone in my thinking that evil was being perpetrated, of the highest order.

Thanks for always confronting the lies and speaking the truth when you see it. You are a brave man and much more respected than those who have lined up here to take potshots at you.

[tom_paine]

28. Thank you so much. I have always respected and appreciated your posts over the years, as well.

I am just fed up at this point, and clearly you know what I mean.

Even NOW, with the report on the Fired US Attorneys and all the rest...all the puzzle pieces are now just laying out there in the open. Yet still, the urge to turn away is so strong.

But brave? Thank you for the kind words, but poting on an anonymous message board doesn't make one brave or make one ANYTHING, I think.

DU has it's place and it is great...always has been. But it is an anonymous message board at the end of the day.

All my posts here count for nothing against an hour of canvassing, phone-banking, calling a Congressional Office, or writing a single letter to the editor in the REAL WORLD.

Anyway, thanks again for the kind words.

:hi: :hug:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

21. Wish I Could Recommend Your Posts.

You were spot on.

Some here have devolved into the same sort of scum as the other side. The level of hatred and spew that some utter is definitely not something becoming of those claiming to be Democrats and Progressives. I'm totally with ya.

:thumbsup:

[lynnertic]

11. dupe

n/t

[malaise]

6. Maybe he knew he ordered a murder

and did not have to stomach to spend time in prison.

Sorry - these days I'm a cold pragmatist.

[VeraAgnes]

14. Oh for Chrissake.

Just wait, Karmic debt will ultimately teach you lesson.

[stray cat]

7. Two tragedies

[UK populist]

12. Too true

The guy obviously couldn't live with what he had done.

[shadowknows69]

9. Shit Ghost we posted the same story at the same time

You owe me a beer

[VeraAgnes]

13. See, they just should let idots jump and be done with it.

Try and talk them out of it of course, but if that's what they want..............so be it.

[slampoet]

16. Most of the people who kill cops are the the cops themselves. Cop Suicides far exceed deaths on duty