True Stella Awards #36: 30 July 2003 www.StellaAwards.com
Madera, Calif., police officer Marcy Noriega had arrested Everardo Torres, 24, and had him handcuffed in the back of her police cruiser. The charge was not too extreme: he was arrested "on suspicion of resisting and delaying police" as they tried to quiet down a noisy party. Torres, however, was far from cooperative. As he sat in the back of the police car he kicked at the windows. Officer Noriega decided to subdue him with her Taser, which fires two metal pins attached to wires and then charges them with current to "stun" the target. Amazingly, instead of pulling and shooting Torres with her Taser, Noriega says she accidentally drew her service handgun and shot him. The bullet ripped through his heart, liver and right kidney, ensuring his death. The District Attorney ruled the shooting accidental and did not file charges against officer Noriega, but the city admitted liability in the shooting and offered Torres' family a $350,000 settlement. In response, the family filed a claim for $10 million. When the city rejected the claim, the family filed a wrongful death suit in federal court. Such is not what Stella Awards are made of, however -- complaining that a professionally trained police officer mistook her firearm for a non-lethal stun gun to shoot someone in her custody is not frivolous. Rather, it's what the city said next: officer Noriega isn't at fault for killing Torres! Not the way she and the city see things, anyway. While they admit they were "partially responsible for the loss" of Torres' life, she and the city of Madera have filed suit against Taser International Inc., the manufacturer of the non-lethal weapon. The lawsuit says Taser is responsible because the company's training procedures do not adequately teach police officers the difference between the Taser and their own handguns. The company, the suit says, "provided related training and representations in such a manner so as to cause any reasonable police officer to mistakenly draw and fire a handgun instead of the Taser device." Got that? "Any reasonable police officer" could pull the wrong gun and kill a suspect they merely mean to stun! Considering the thousands of police officers in the USA, and how long Tasers have been on the market -- coupled with the dubious "fact" that "any reasonable police officer" is likely "to mistakenly draw and fire a handgun instead of the Taser device" -- there must be hundreds of cases of just that happening, right? Wrong. In their research, Madera's lawyers found just two previous cases of such mistakes, though both times the unfortunate victims survived. "Once we found the two other incidents, we made [a] change" in Madera police procedure, advising officers not to carry their Taser on the same side of their belts as their handguns, says the city's lawyer. (Remember! The gun on left to stun, the one on the right to kill. Got it?) The suit says Taser was "aware" its training methods were flawed, and had "a duty" to inform police departments of the risk that a trained professional might grab the wrong gun. The suit asks that Taser pay whatever amount the Torres family wins from their wrongful death lawsuit. Cops have incredibly stressful, important jobs. To get that job done they're given astounding powers, up to and including killing citizens who are threatening others. With those powers come similarly awesome responsibilities, such as carefully preserving suspects' rights and knowing when -- and how -- to use the various weapons at their disposal. For Madera and officer Noriega to stand up in public to say "any reasonable police officer" doesn't know the difference between a non- lethal weapon and a handgun is an insult to every professional peace officer -- and an abdication of the responsibility that has been placed on them. Torres was likely not a choirboy, but his death is a tragic accident, and shouldn't be treated as an opportunity for the city to try to pin the blame on an equipment supplier. SOURCE: 1) "Madera Sues Taser Maker", The Fresno Bee, 29 July 2003 http://StellaAwards.com/cgi-bin/redirect3.pl?36a xponent An Eye Open For This Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l