'Nobody deserves to die that way,' dad says of teen hit with Taser

[CHIMO]

Source: CBC News

Michael Langan, the teenager who died after police zapped him with a Taser, may have been a high-school dropout who wandered the streets of Winnipeg's inner-city core, but he didn't deserve to die like that, his father says.

"Nobody deserves to die that way, no matter how many problems you had," Brian Minchin told CBC News on Thursday.

Minchin is still struggling to cope with his 17-year-old son's death Tuesday following an altercation with police officers in a back lane in the city's core.

Police say they pursued the teen into a back lane after reports of a smashed window on a Lexus, then zapped him with a stun gun when he refused to drop his knife.


'Nobody deserves to die that way, no matter how many problems you had," Brian Minchin told CBC News Thursday. (CBC)

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/07/25/langan-father.html

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Our world. We created it.

[Occulus]

1. How MANY times will this happen before we just out and out BAN these things?

"Nobody deserves to die that way, no matter how many problems you had,"

Indeed. NOBODY deserves to die this way, and since you never, ever know for certain that the first hit from a taser will kill, they shouldn't be used AT ALL.

[livingon]

9. The DHS is providing funds in the US for them to local law enforcement. They will never

be banned.

[Honeycombe8]

14. Police started using tasers as a safer way to arrest people resisting arrest.

Before tasers, the suspect would have to be wrestled to the ground and possibly hit. Suspects died every year, as you can imagine...it's a risky business trying to wrestle a speed-high criminal armed with a knife to the ground. And the police were sometimes harmed or killed, as well. So the intent for tasers was right, it seems to me.

The problem seems to be that some people, in some conditions (high on drugs, for example, or having a prior heart condition, or being especially small-like a child), can't take it as well. But I read a report that injuries and deaths of suspects (and police) have gone down since tasers started being used.

The cops didn't intend to kill this suspect. He could just as easily have died if they'd had to wrestle him to the ground, take his knife away, and try to restrain him long enough to cuff him. He apparently wasn't going to allow himself to be arrested...he drew a knife on the police. And the police might have been harmed, too.

But....none of this would've happened if the guy hadn't been doing criminal acts and brandishing a knife on law enforcement. Whenever a person does that, they assume the risk of injury when the law goes to arrest them, esp. if they resist arrest, as this guy did.

[somethingwicked911]

17. Couldn't one be taught...

...how to "man handle" a suspect without hurting them? I've seen Sean Connery do it all the time.

And without a taser.

My HO: Let's get cops off the street that use their job as a chance to beat the shit out of people and show some aggression. They need help too (cops), maybe more therapy? Etc. Believe me, I know a lot of police officers, so I'm not just being an ass.

[Realityhack]

21. No.

If you study martial arts, restraint techniques, etc. their is no safe way to wrestle down someone holding a knife.
Their are 'safer' ways to do it but no actual safe way. It is very easy for someone to get seriously injured.

Are we asking the police to risk dying themselves in trying to physically subdue a person with a knife rather than put the risk on the person brandishing a knife at police?

What is the % chance of death due to a taser hit vs. the % chance of dying when the police wrestle you to the ground while you have a knife? Batons result in fatalities too.

[CRF450]

22. I'd tazer him too if he had a knife in his hand.

Theirs no way a police officer or any sane man is going to try and tackle someone holding a knife, and an officer's own safety is first priority in situations like this.

[Honeycombe8]

26. It's less risky using a taser...less risky for the police, too. They count, too.

I know there are bad apple cops. But that doesn't take away that they are the only thing standing between civilized society and anarchy. I'd rather have cops doing their jobs, with some bad apples not doing their job, than to be faced with gangs roaming the streets without a chance of being arrested (or tasered).

Ask yourself...if you're walking down a dark alley at midnight, who would you rather run across: a policeman or some young guy without a job who was just on a crime property destruction spree and is carrying a knife? I'll take my chances with the policeman.

Put the blame where it belongs: on the criminals who don't drop their weapons when officers tell them to and who resist arrest when caught dong obviously criminal activity. It doesn't give policemen the right to kill them, of course. But their job is to disarm the guy and cuff him and arrest him. It's a violent job. People will get hurt.

[Realityhack]

19. Your right... they should have shot him instead.

"zapped him with a stun gun when he refused to drop his knife"

Nobody knows all the details of what happened in this case, much less me. However, if lethal force is warranted then I have no problem with them using a taser instead of a gun if they think it will work.

[UndertheOcean]

2. The thug had a knife on him , so he is fair game . Atleast his chances were better than

if they used a gun.

I can't fault the officers in this case.

[CHIMO]

4. Had

They used a gun he might not be dead.

Had they used a gun they would have had to justify the use. They were not attacked.
The laser is a lethal weapon, it has to be used as if it is a gun.

The article did not describe him as a thug.

[Pavulon]

10. A knife is considered deadly at 20 feet.

that is justification to shoot if a person does not drop it. The officer does not HAVE to shoot but can.

I would say tazers are generally less deadly than 9mm or 40cal.

[WriteDown]

12. A bullet wound....

tends to cause massive tissue damage as well as the obvious injury. If he was brandishing a knife, the taser was the best option to try to disarm him wtih as little injury to him or the officers.

[Realityhack]

20. And they still do have to justify their use of force.

and no the article does not use the term thug... it described them casing him after a car window was smashed and him holding a knife and refusing to put it down.

I think 'thug' while rather inaccurate is not unreasonable.

[Realityhack]

24. Are you seriously claming the chance of dying from a Taser is simmilar to that of being shot? n/t

[Honeycombe8]

27. They have a job to do. We the public rely on them to do their job. When someone is...

holding a knife as a weapon, and esp. is a suspect in criminal activity, and he fails to drop the knife when police tell him to....all bets are off. The guy knows he's going down one way or another. Taser is among the safer ways to take him down.

That's their job. As a citizen, I want them to do their job. I certainly don't want guys running around my neighborhood in the middle of the night breaking car windows and carrying knives as weapons without fear of anyone stopping them.

How do YOU think they should've arrested him? It's late at night, he's done some violent behavior (although it seems only property damage), and he's holding a knife as a weapon out in the open, and he refuses to drop it upon instructions or submit to arrest. Take it. How do you and your partner get him cuffed and to the station? (Don't forget to follow the police procedural rules for apprehending suspects. You can't do just anything you want.)

[Realityhack]

23. agreed... sort of.

given the information I know now. I agree with you.

I am glad it is being investigated as you never know what else might have happened.

[struggle4progress]

3. No Tasers for municipal police in Saskatchewan due to safety concerns

REGINA — Regular municipal police in Saskatchewan will not be issued Tasers because of safety concerns over the conducted energy weapons, the province's police commission announced Friday.

"After questions about the safety of the equipment arose, accompanied by the public inquiry in British Columbia ... the commission believed it was not prudent to move forward with the authorization of conducted energy weapons for general use," said Michael Tochor, chairman of the Saskatchewan Police Commission.

"We will await the findings and recommendations of the various inquiries and studies taking place now before moving further on the issue." ...

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jTj2E8mQrzZKr3zBlY1YtZov8bjA

[geomon666]

5. At least the cops are investigating it.

If it was in the US, they wouldn't have even fucking bothered.

[LibinMo]

6. Parents question why Ozark police used stun gun on injured son

This happened last week. It appears the kid's only "crime" was a 30
foot fall off a bridge.



"They tested his system. He was clean of drugs and alcohol. We don't know why unless just being in shock and the whole thing in itself caused him to forget everything,” said Hutchinson.

His aunt says he is undergoing major surgery for a broken back and broken heel. While he was lying on the ground, she wonders why Ozark police used an electric stun gun on him up to 19 times.

“I'm not an officer, but i don't see the reason for ‘Tasering’ somebody laying there with a broken back. I don't consider that a threat,”


http://www.ky3.com/home/video/25829234.html

[sasquatch]

7. There needs to be some felonious assault charges filed

[Th1onein]

18. Here's the cop shop's phone number: [phone]

Give 'em a ring and ask 'em why the fuck they taser injured people.

[MicaelS]

8. Tasers are being used as a tool of forcing compliance

That's basically the whole thing in a nutshell. The fact that people die is simply viewed as collateral damage. If your do not comply with the cops demands, they're going to taser you. Just another case in point: http://www.ky3.com/home/video/25829234.html

“He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he's also making statements such as, ‘Shoot cops, kill cops,’ things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers,” said Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset.

Notice I am NOT defending the police, I'm just explaining what I perceive as their mindset.

[Pavulon]

11. Old School Compliance

home of the hairline skull fracture and spiral fracture of the arm..

[ohio2007]

13. Any toxicology report released yet ? nt

[kitty1]

15. Yes, according to the toxicology report there was no intoxicants..

in his system. This according to the autopsy and toxicology report released to the Winnipeg Free Press. (Reported in today's paper here)

[ohio2007]

16. Crack head et el are super humans they say.

They are immune to certain levels of shock.
dunno why that is.

[BlueIris]

25. The use of these evil things must stop.

How are they better than guns, truly?

[scrinmaster]

28. Yeah, beating people with batons is much, much safer.

Maybe the kid shouldn't have threatened the cops with a knife.

[Robb]

29. Shh, don't remind anyone how deadly batons are

It's no fun getting riled up about batons. :eyes:

[Codeine]

30. Tons better.

People get tasered all the damn time. Injury and death is incredibly rare, and often disputable.

Guns? That's pretty much guaranteed death.