Family suing police for causing death

[tinasmom]

I was on the Epilepsy Foundations National site and found this article. Maybe now law enforcement agencies will finally train their employees.



http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/ep...Death-Suit.cfm

[haird18]

I police officer out here in Midland, Tx had been fired for excessive force. And I had a friend who had epilepsy who was assaulted by a law enforcement!
David

[Bernard]

Knowing a few people in law enforcement, I'd have to say... Don't get your hopes up. As long as they aren't personally liable, they don't really care.

[JLynn]

That is so.. sad
and I'd have to agree with Bernard too.
There are of coarse some good people who are officers,
but there are just as many or more who go into the profession
for the right to bully, and I believe this with all my heart, we see it
time and again on the news, and thousands of others we never hear about.
I personally lived next door to a police officer who was obcessed with me and my family, I always caught him spying on me, but I he thought I couldnt see him. One night while on duty, he called me up at 3 am, called me by name and said he was such and such from the police dept. and that my kids were running up and down the street with paintball guns shooting up cars.
My kids were in bed sleeping, and we didnt own paintball guns.
The next morning I confronted him, and he said that he thought it was my kids, yet there were NO cars that had been paintballed at all. So, he made some other dumb complaints about my kids, and when I asked him why didnt he just come to my door and talk to me? He then said he figured I had a gun and might shoot him! I told him the only person on the street I knew of that I was afraid of that had a gun, was HIM!
I know this has nothing to do with this sad story you relayed, just brought back the memory of what I went through with my old crazy cop neighbor.
He spread rumors all over the neighborhood about my family, said I had this record I didnt have, all sorts of weird stuff. I reported him of coarse a few times, and finally he was fired from the force. So at least his superior was decent enough to do that. In fact he said they had gotten other complaints about him from people he had pulled over for traffic things.
In my opinion, these love to be bully cops are over using these tasors, tasing people for minor things that force did not need to be used in the first place.
Ive seen video's of people being tased repeatedly even after complying, and people being tased just to be tased, because the cop could. For all thsoe we do see, there are many... more we dont. I think the use of tasers should be limited to extreme cases only, and those that violate ought to be sued, lose their jobs, etc. It is a shame what happened to this man! Stupid Cops!

[Belinda5000]

When I was a volunteer at EFA in Georgia one lady who worked there use to go places including talking to cops.
She'd tell them what to do and not to if someone had a seizure.
She went to schools and a lot of other places.
The guy replaced her is always there now.
She was always going somewhere.



Belinda

[tinasmom]

I sent the link to our Executive Director and Program Director of our foundation along with a suggestion to train a county at a time for the counties we cover. I did find out that our local police dept. did have training but it was very limited. The Sheriff's dept. in one of our counties has had training also. The ED has been told by training officers, "we don't have that problem [meaning seizures] here" and I've also been told, "the guys attend so many trainings that they don't retain much".
How ignorant to think that seizures don't happen in their area. The ED did say that when we receive the training materials, he will have our grant people look into grants for this training.

[BuckeyeFan]

I have a nephew who is a state patrolman and personally know many local officers. Having worked with them when I was an EMT, I feel I know them pretty well and their hearts are in the right place.

I know that this does not apply to all officers. They have their bad officers, just like bad doctors or bad accountants or bad janitors. The problem is they are in a situation where there is no room for this type of person. It is a very tough balancing act for the police and unfortunately when they fall the wrong way, someone suffers. Still, 'overall' I have to support the officers. They have saved tens of thousands of lives.

The situation above also has happened to people who are diabetic. Blood sugar levels can cause very violent reactions as well.

Training is the key. Every officer I know who carries a taser has been hit with it multiple times themselves. No weapon is perfect, but I will take the taser over a gun. I have "heard" that since the introduction of the taser, the number of police shootings has dropped.



Personal opinion - the above situation was wrong by the police from what I read. However, I can't use that to discount the benefits of tasers or police in general. Thanks for listening to my view.