Sean Hannity defends horrific Tasering of senior citizen

[Cowpunk]

Media Matters has posted a video of Sean Hannity and his "great American panel" defending the repeated Tasering by Marin County sheriffs of a 64-year old man with a heart condition, for the crime of telling a paramedic that he was in so much pain he wanted to die after falling down the stairs.(See video of the Taser torture at the link below) According to Sean, the guy may have experienced some pain, but hey, he was resisting and at least he's still alive.

Here is the story from North Bay News (H/T digby):

MARIN COUNTY, CA (KGO) -- A Marin County man has filed suit against the Marin County Sheriff's Department for an incident in which he says law enforcement officers went too far. Peter McFarland was Tased inside his own home as his wife watched, begging officers to stop.

On June 29, 2009 McFarland and his wife Pearl were returning home from a charity fundraiser just before midnight. McFarland injured himself as he stumbled and fell down the long steps to his front door...

"All of a sudden, they just showed up, they came in here like there was a fire going on, like a gunfight was going on," McFarland said.

What happened in the following minutes was captured on a camera mounted on the deputy's Taser.

The deputy tells McFarland he is going to take him to the hospital because he may be suicidal.

"We want to take you to the hospital for an evaluation, you said if you had a gun, you'd shoot yourself in the head," the deputy can be heard saying.

McFarland says it was just hyperbole. He was tired and in pain.

The deputy orders him numerous times to get up or else.

"Stand up, put your hands behind your back or you're going to be Tased," the deputy says.

McFarland keeps refusing.

The exchange goes on for about five minutes; his wife keeps pleading with the deputies not to Tase him, saying he has a heart condition.

Then, McFarland tells the deputies in no uncertain terms to leave.

As he gets up to go to bed, McFarland is Tased. Not once, but three times.

Says digby:

Keep in mind that Hannity is the same fellow who wrote a book called "Let Freedom Ring."

These are people who will fight to the death against the federal government's right levy taxes to pay for roads and bridges yet have no problem with armed police bursting into your home without a warrant, announcing they are checking you into a hospital against your will and then shooting you repeatedly with electricity when you refuse. I think it clears up just what "liberty" means to these people, don't you?

[Dawson Leery]

1. The government is only bad and abusive to conservatives

when they do things that they do not like.
Laura Ingraham refers to Randy (KKK) Weaver as a 'patriot'. :wtf: :puke:

[booley]

2. It's the authoritarian attitude

The guy was 'resisting" so it's ok to do this.

In fact I am sure the people tasering him all thought they were helping him. And if he had died then that would have been an unavoidable tragedy but in no way indicative that the police did anything wrong. (which I am sure a police investigation will "prove")

It probably also doesn't help that many people still don't grok that tasers can be lethal. There's this perception that tasers are like phasers from star trek.

[Dawson Leery]

4. But Randy Weaver and the Montana Freemen, that was different.

because they were explicit right wing anti-government kooks.

[Cowpunk]

5. Gee, I wonder where they got that idea from?

Maybe the media's continual use of the term "stun gun" to describe extremely painful, potentially lethal electroshock weapons?

[felinetta]

9. Hannity, you are a Brown Shirt. FU asshat.

[sakabatou]

3. Motherfucker...

[Ignis]

23. +1. Sometimes, nothing but profanity can encompass the profane.

[Archae]

6. Don't forget this is Sean Hannity.

Same guy who bragged about letting himself be waterboarded to show how "harmless" it is, then chickened out.

Also same former "shock jock" at WOR radio who liked making "jokes" about Abner Louima getting injured from "rough gay sex," instead of being tortured by cops like he was.

[felinetta]

8. That was my first thought. When will he get waterboarded. He is a vile demon. The coldness from

Faux people is chilling.

[gophates]

17. People?

Really?

[pnorman]

12. I don't recall that about Hannity.

Can you fill me in?

[Archae]

25. Here you go.

"On his WABC show, as with his earlier radio shows, "the left" and its various constituencies were blamed for the nation's problems; and crime, affirmative action, welfare and "illegitimacy," all talk radio staples, were discussed ceaselessly. But Hannity really distinguished himself with his crusading efforts to defend the police against charges of brutality. When Haitian immigrant Abner Louima accused New York City police officers of sodomizing and badly injuring him with a wooden rod in 1997, Hannity used his WABC show for a vicious counter-offensive targeting the victim."

"The father of chief defendant Justin Volpe, an NYPD police officer, regularly appeared on show during the 1999 trial. And Hannity and various guests repeated rumors that Louima's injuries resulted from a "gay sex act" and not from police brutality. Playing on the homosexual rumor and inconsistencies in Louima's story, Hannity and his producer sang a parody of Lionel Richie's song "Three Times a Lady," changing the words to "you're once, twice, three times a liar." Hannity stopped referring to the victim as "Lying Louima" only after Volpe confessed to sodomizing Louima with the help of another officer (OnePeoplesProject.com)."

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1158

[AnArmyVeteran]

26. Conservatives constantly try to further victimize the victims.

They always support the abusers and the powerful over the victims and the weak, ALWAYS! . It's in their DNA. But that doesn't stop them from claiming to be Christians. I haven't met a christian in my life who wasn't a hypocrite, and the more right wing a christian is, the bigger hypocrite they are.

[gophates]

31. Republicans only go after people who can't fight back.

That's why we have to fight for them.

[Cowpunk]

28. Thanks, I'd never heard about that affair

Hannity gives pond scum a bad name

[Curmudgeoness]

7. I call a double standard. No doubt in my mind....

Hannity would not be so pleasant if cops came into his house and would not leave and tasered him when he told them to get out. Probably not a lawsuit, just the cops would now be working as rent-a-cops at the mall.

[Cowpunk]

20. Hannity should have had Justice Clarence Thomas on for his perspective.N/T

[rhett o rick]

10. Sean's right. These days the guy is lucky to be alive with all the trigger happy police out there

killing citizens. "He was aiming his car at me so I killed him".

[USArmyParatrooper]

11. They were both wrong

- Using the taser was excessive on the police officer's part.

- The guy should have complied with the officers. The police can detain you against your will if they have reason to believe you are suicidal.

[northernlights]

16. sorry, but you shouldn't have to so censor your speech IN YOUR OWN HOME

that you can't express pain in ways unacceptable to intruders.

For fucks sake -- are they going to start tasering women in childbirth for expressing pain in ways they consider unacceptable?!?!

This is nothing less than a fucking outrage. I was detained by cops 9 years ago thanks to a moronic bon-again fruitcake while out walking and minding my own business. I took a short break from work, which was a hellish job with a hellish boss, walking down a normally dead quiet, dead end road with 2 businesses on it. I picked up a stick and was banging in mindlessly on the guardrail. Fruitcake drives up and asks if she can help me. I, sarcastically, say, "sure, just shoot me and put me out of my misery."

I continued along minding my own business, unaware that fruitcake used that as an excuse to call the cops on me. I dropped the stick and sat on the grass looking out at the creek. Suddenly fruitcake comes up behind me, sticks a little cardboard picture of Jebus on the Cross in my face -- so in my face that it stuck me in the nostril, making one of my eyes water from the irritation. She crouched there babbling stupidity at me while I'm wondering who the fuck this nutcase is and why the fuck she's following me around. Suddenly the cops show up, she takes off and I was very nearly taken to jail!!!! :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

Luckily, I was able to convince the cop I was being sarcastic, that I was taking a short break from my job -- right over at that building over there -- and was due back.

I could have lost my job which, shitty as it was, was the only one I had at the time. What a bunch of fucktards. I guess I should be grateful that tasers weren't the "in thing" back then, or I might have gotten to know the joys of electro-shock treatment.

So now I don't talk to strangers. Ever. If some fruitcake starts pushing Jebus at me, I threaten *them* with the cops and run for my life. Unless, of course, the come trespassing on my property and start pushing Jebus. Then I am extremely rude when I tell the to get off my property and leave me alone.

What the fuck has this stoopid, pathetic country come to?!?!

[USArmyParatrooper]

32. Who said he doesn't have free speech?

I didn't. I said he should have complied with the officer. He can say anything he wants in the process.

[northernlights]

33. the cops were there because of what he said

which was an expression of pain. The cops had no business being there, no business ordering him to stand and put his hands behind his back and NO FUCKING BUSINESS TASERING HIM.

He was an elderly injured man in severe pain. For fuck's sake what the fuck is wrong with our fucking society?!?!

[USArmyParatrooper]

34. There's a couple points to make.

The police have a right to detain you if they have reasonable cause to believe you'll attempt to kill yourself.

The fact that we have freedom of speech doesn't negate the ability to make that determination based on what someone says. In fact, verbal warnings are one of the main warning signs that someone is suicidal.

You do NOT have the option to decide for yourself whether or not an arrest is valid. If you disagree with an arrest then take it up with the courts.

[Dawson Leery]

36. No friend of police or law enforcement here (me).

Only an ally to justice.
The Law Enforcement community must make a choice to be an ally to justice too. So far, collectively, they have not made that choice.

[MrScorpio]

13. Hannity can just go fuck himself nt

[opihimoimoi]

14. Hannity is void of Sanity...I wish I could bury him in the ground with his head exposed to use as a

bowling pin for rocky bowling balls....he is a sick animal

[gophates]

15. I am in favor of the horrific tasering Sean Hannity.

:thumbsup:

[AnArmyVeteran]

18. Conservatives LOVE govt when it kills, tortures, wiretaps, imprison, taser, go to war and destroy.

But they HATE government when it helps people. And they call themselves Christians. What hypocrites they are!

[gophates]

19. Christian...hypocrite --> Redundant nt

[AnArmyVeteran]

22. Amen to that!

I've never met one Christian who wasn't a hypocrite, not one. It's a prerequisite. The more right wing a Christian is the more of a hypocrite they are.

[Raschel]

21. Never tell the cops anything. Never call the cops for a suicide or for the mentally ill.

[AnArmyVeteran]

24. All cops aren't bad, but there are more sadistic cops than in the general population.

I had a dear friend and mentor who fought the Japanese during WWII as a Marine. He was a psychologist. He performed a study where he tested the psychological profiles of hundreds of cops in the Houston police department and hundreds of inmates in the Huntsville prison just north of Houston. He used tests like MMPI and other psychological tests and he discovered the profiles of the cops and criminals were virtually identical. Scary isn't it? I NEVER stop for any cop on dark roads where no person is present. I continue to drive just under the speed limit until I find a place where there are people who can witness everything. It's entirely within the law to do so and it could save your life. A cop can 'legally' kill you and get away with it.

In a related story: A woman was abducted and raped on the side of I-45 between Houston and Huntsville and the rapist beat her up and left her 100 yards from the side of the highway. When she regained consciousness she crawled to the highway where a deputy sheriff stopped to presumably help her. She thought she was rescued, but the deputy took her back out to where she was assaulted and raped her again.

DONT ever trust a cop in a secluded area!

[Pavulon]

35. Not sure how sound that is.. Not sure if is is legal to stand by and do nothing if a person

takes steps to kill themselves. It may be legal but is not ethical.

[AnArmyVeteran]

27. The cowardly Hannity needs to be tasered while being waterboarded.

Hannity believes neither are harmful and he also believes cops are always right. It's amazing how Hannity constantly attacks the government but supports government when it kills, tasers, tortures, spies, wiretaps, incarcerates, detains without charges, indefinite detention, goes to war, destroys entire countries and murders hundreds of thousands of innocent people in wars, but conservatives like Hannity HATE the government if it does anything to help anyone in need or who is poor. And the fake Hannity claims to be a christian and his moronic followers believe everything he says.

How can anyone believe Hannity? How can conservatives be that stupid?

[JoeyT]

29. Hannity defending it shouldn't come as much of a shock.

Hell, the authoritarians HERE are perfectly willing to defend it.
Then they'll act all insulted when you hint their jackboots are showing.

[Hannah Bell]

30. because he's a fascist.

[Orsino]

37. There is no sin so execrable that Hannity wouldn't take money to defend it. n/t