Cops Kill Phoenix Man Who They Tase, After He Grabs Their Taser And Tases Them Back
Phoenix Examiner:
A brawl outside a Phoenix home turned into a fatal shooting this Saturday morning, when officers were forced to take serious measures with a suspect who used their own Taser stun gun on them.
Police responded to a burglary call at 3:05 a.m. at a house near 7th Ave and Wilshire after the homeowner saw someone in his yard and heard the person in his carport and shed.
An officer confronted a man who was clutching two metal flower stands in the front yard of the house.
The officer ordered the suspect to drop the stands, but he refused.
When officers tried to arrest the man, he fought back.
When the officer shot the man with a Taser, the suspect dropped the stands, pulled the Taser probes from his body and began fighting with two officers. Derge says he got one’s Taser and began shocking the officers.
A third officer arrived during the scuffle and shot the suspect, who died at the scene.
The officers were not seriously injured, but received minor scrapes in the fight. The homeowner stayed in his house throughout the incident and was not injured.
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So leme get this right. As I am emplying less than lethal force to subue you and you manage to best my weapons retention training and aquire my less than lethal device only and give me a taste of it… I get to shoot you?
If he had made for my gun, or been clubbing on me with my PR24 I could see shooting him. But for stealing my tazer, that is known non-leathal? Shooting a guy is not the proper way to save face.
More proof that the reliance on these less than lethals leads to cops that lack the basic “hands on” mele abbility to deal with perps when they fail, so then end up using deadly force on those that don’t rate it.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:22 pmpoe.. the guy was a burglar.. he was fighting 2 cops.. he took their nonlethal weapon fm them and was using it on them.. they are obliged to go to the next step up to subdue him,,,death.. sounds appropriate to me…no one asked him to invade private property..he failed to oby a lawful command.. then resisted arrest.. the cops go to work wanting to go home in the same condition they arrive at work in..
June 7th, 2008 at 2:01 pmI’m with Poe, The cops didn’t kill them man because he was threatening their lives with THEIR non lethal weapon, they killed him because they were pissed that he was more effective with their weapons than they were.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:47 pmHow about just blow his knee caps out? Then the citizens of Phoenix can pay for the hospital bill, rehab, court, jail time and gas to carrying this fuck stick around for years. Dude really fucked up and it cost him.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:48 pmI think the less than leathals are a great alternative to putting someone down, and a good way to de-esculate a confrontation without putting officers at undue risk.
However to use a perp getting ahold of one as the reason for using deadly force is a “cop-out”. If he was resisting arrest and they were rolling around and fighting DF wouldnt not be justified, but as he had a tazers, which are considerably less dangeorus than a fist fight, he gets shot?
I Got nothing… I am real forgiving when it comes to cops and shootings, I have been where you have a split second to make a decision that can cost lives that bean counters and other pricks can take all there sweet ass time to decide if it was the right one… But this just seems fucked up.
June 7th, 2008 at 3:39 pmCall for more backup if 3 weren’t enough but I agree with Poe the guy shouldn’t have been killed over it.
June 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pmit is quite obvious that none of u have been in a fight with weapons or an out of control person.. it is difficult to get the grasp of this particular incident with the information we have.. but these officers are trained and we must assume that they did all that they could.. to blame the cops for this guys actions is demeaning to the officers..cops are trained to shoot at body mass ‘tap tap’.. no trying to wound or shoot the gun out of their hand.. rounds flying have to land somewhere.. better in the chest of the bad guy than in the head of some kid reading his homework..even then the odds are that only 5% of rounds hit targets in firefights..cops don’t have time to second guess motives for disobeying lawful commands when the real threat is there.. the 3rd cop may have thought the laser gun was a real gun…who knows???
June 7th, 2008 at 5:18 pmIn my case you are mistaken, bigtime.
And we are not blaming the cops for this guys actions, I don’t blame the cops for him stealing some plant stands.
I do question how a lone unarmed individual vs. three cops ends up dead though. If thats demeaning to the cops so be it, because that is the worst outcome for everyone invlolved. There needs to be accountability and an explanation of how that shit went down…
I don’t mind that they offed the guy, so don’t try to sell that our concern was stray rounds or shoot to wound crap.
If you are going to do it, you do it right. I think BirdDog was just being sarcastic about the knee thing.
Regardless of what someone’s reason for disobeying a lawful command may be, inebriation, failure to understand the language, just being disobedient… None of those motives matter in this case as failure to comply does rate the use of deadly force.
If failure to comply rates a tazing and getting in a scuffle rates a tazing… Then how does it balance out that tazing a cop rates a deadly force response?
June 7th, 2008 at 6:45 pmThe dude made the decision to fight back. If the tazer didn’t put him on his ass, then he turns it on the officers, what is the 3rd cop going to do? “Please put the tazer down sir.” The 3rd officers used his training, made the decision, and ended the situation.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:09 pmTo bad there is no video, tazer vids are great!
June 7th, 2008 at 7:10 pmpoe.. i will be willing to bet that the training of these 3 will be scrutinized as well as their actions.. and will be cleared of any wrong doing… the last thing these guys need is a murtha type lynching before after action reports and investigations.. i doubt these 3 want to be on paid admin leave..they would rather be working and the guy in jail.. but it is not the case..
June 7th, 2008 at 7:36 pmIf the guy was married. His wife is going to be very wealthy.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:41 pmBird, that third cop should have immidiatly called for additional support then followed his escalation of force
(ie tried another LTL (chemical) and then if that failed fallen back to his PR24, then, after all that had failed resorted to his firearm). Thats what would have happend if I had used my training anyway, maybe they do things differantly out west and deadly force is authorized on anyone who can shrug off a tazer or isn’t afraid to mess up your uniform.
Without getting to “Murthaesque” here I just want to make sure they were professional about it. Asking questions like that is not a witch hunt, it is making sure you have people out there doing the job that are capable of it, because if they are not its a danger to them and the public.
What I see is two cops who when a tazer failed were unable to apply the “hands on” part of police work effectivly enough to prevent an asskicking by a lone individual or even retain there LTL’s. Then, to make it worse, a third cop who arrives on the scene that instead of using his training and following procedures skips right to the end of the to-do list and engages with deadly force.
Thats a whole lot of ball dropping in a real short timespan…
June 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pmThe police officer was out of line on this one.
June 7th, 2008 at 8:03 pmHe was shot because he was using the Tazer, which has the ability to incapacitate an officer. If an officer is on the ground and cannot defend himself because he is being tased, what is to say the burglar doesnt take his pistol, or stomp on his throat. I’d rather not let myself fall prey to the intentions of the burglar. The burglar displayed temper and intent, and therefore was shot. I back the cops 100% in this.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:43 pmPoe has a very good point about the tazer being a non lethal weapon. You can’t have it both ways, it’s either equal to a fist or it’s a gun weapon so the cops need to decide weather this device is really non lethal or not. If they are going to reason it’s use as safe and non lethal that perps wife will indeed be wealthy. In my opinion too many people have died before being proved guilty from getting tazed and the weapon needs to be reevaluated for it’s use in law enforcement.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:32 amI’d also like to know the height and weight of the officers involved and how often they physically train for events like this, as I’m seeing way too many over weight cops out there.
Poe: Although is doesn’t tell us what the 3rd officer did before the shooting, I would be willing to bet that he did just that, called for back up. All the police in the area are listening to this on the radio and were probably going to the scene too. Now…if he called for back up..is he suppose to wait for them to get there? No.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:39 amHow many of the cops were 5′0 100 lbs women? Gotta have quotas.Just to make everything “fair”.
June 8th, 2008 at 4:36 amWho’s to say the guy wasn’t kicking the officers as well? I’ve had someone stomp on my face before. While it wasn’t permanently damaging for me, it may have been defined as “minor scrapes”. I have to assume this guy wasn’t just holding the button on the tazer down and smoking a cigarette. I’d assume he was also kicking, or stomping the officer. The fastest way to stop that amount of violence, especially considering the man had already, obviously, overpowered two trained officers at the same time leads me to believe that there WAS a mortal threat, at least in the eyes of the arriving officer, to the men on the ground.
In either case, I don’t understand how anyone could read this short article that lacks an accurate report of the events leading up to the shooting, and judge the officers as wrong right off the bat.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda. “If I was there!”. You weren’t.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:07 ambrach… more murtha condemnations… and this is in the submind..
June 8th, 2008 at 6:59 amhttp://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/63408.php
Ya, bird, hopefully it went down just like that and all that they will need is some more training in the hands on department of perp control so they are not pawnsauced when there tazers dont work… Maybe he went at old boy with his baton before he shot him and just couldnt get the job done.
He may of been stomping em Brach, but you can’t shoot a perp for that. Course if he was standing up and kicking them I want to know how he was shocking them as well as the X26’s they carry in pheonix only have the one cartridge and after that you have to press shock with it. Which is how I assume he was using it as its kinda hard to shock two of anything with one set of darts…
I am not saying these cops were in the wrong, I dont think anyone is. But for anyone to read the article and not wonder how 3 cops and one unarmed perp ends up with a police shooting and not want an explination of how that came to be baffles me. Saying “well he had one of our tazers” is a double standard as how are they going to justify continued use of them on perps if using one on a cop rates deadly force?
June 8th, 2008 at 7:34 amSeems to me 3 could have subdued 1 and put the braclets on.
they do have a dead man for sure now.
June 8th, 2008 at 8:27 am“Sow shit, reap shit”
June 8th, 2008 at 8:52 am