Taser Murders Continue in Louisiana and North Carolina

[DJ RBG]

Taser death ignites racial tensions

Not far from Jena, La., suspicions of a cover-up mount

By Howard Witt
WINNFIELD, La.

At 1:28 p.m. last Jan. 17, Baron "Scooter" Pikes was a healthy
21-year-old man. By 2:07 p.m., he was dead.

What happened in the 39 minutes in between--during which Pikes was
handcuffed by local police and shocked nine times with a Taser device,
while reportedly pleading for mercy--is now spawning fears of a
political cover-up in this backwoods Louisiana lumber town infamous for
backroom dealings.

Even more ominously, because Pikes was black and the officer who
repeatedly Tasered him is white, racial tensions over the case are
mounting in a place that's just 40 miles from Jena, La. Jena is the site
of the racially explosive prosecution of six black teenagers charged
with beating a white youth that last year triggered one of the largest
American civil rights demonstrations in decades. And in a bizarre
coincidence, Pikes turns out to have been a first cousin of Mychal Bell,
the lead defendant in the Jena 6 case.

No novelist could have invented Winnfield, a place so steeped in
corruption that they built a local museum to try to sanitize it all.

Here in the birthplace of two of Louisiana's most colorful and
notorious governors--Huey and Earl Long--the police chief committed
suicide three years ago after losing a close election marred by
allegations of fraud and vote-buying.

Just four months later, the district attorney killed himself after
allegedly skimming $200,000 from his office budget and extorting
payments from criminal defendants to make their cases go away.

The current police chief is a convicted drug offender who got a pardon
from Edwin Edwards, the former Louisiana governor who is serving time in
federal prison for corruption convictions.

All of that tangled history is now wrapped up in the Pikes case, because
Scott Nugent, the officer who Tasered him, is the well-connected son of
the former police chief who killed himself--and the protégé of the
current chief, who hired him onto the force.

"A lot happens in this town and it just gets swept under the rug," said
Kayshon Collins, Pikes' stepmother, who has participated in several
local protests over the case. "What the police did to Scooter just isn't
right. They would never have Tasered a white kid like that." The
official police version of what happened to Pikes on that brisk January
afternoon reads like a sad but familiar story in Winnfield's local
newspaper.

Nugent spotted Pikes walking along the street and attempted to arrest
him on an outstanding warrant for drug possession, according to Police
Chief Johnny Ray Carpenter. Pikes took off running, but another officer
cornered him outside a nearby grocery store. Pikes resisted arrest and
Nugent subdued him with a shock from a Taser.

Then on the way to the police station, Carpenter related to the
newspaper, Pikes fell ill and told the officers he suffered from asthma
and was high on crack cocaine and PCP. The officers called for an
ambulance, but Pikes later died at the hospital.

Six months later, the Winnfield police are standing by that story.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana State Police are investigating the case, and no
charges have been filed against Nugent or two other Winnfield police
officers who assisted him in arresting Pikes, although the City Council
did decide to fire Nugent from the force in May.

Winn Parish District Atty. Chris Nevils says he expects to present the
case to a grand jury after he receives the results of the state police
investigation.

But there is already abundant evidence contradicting the official police
version of the incident.

An autopsy determined there were no drugs in Pikes' system and that he
did not have asthma, according to Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish
coroner.

Moreover, Pikes did not resist arrest, and he was handcuffed while lying
on the ground, according to Nugent's police report of the incident. It
was only after Pikes refused Nugent's command to stand up that the
officer applied the first Taser shock in the middle of his back, Nugent
wrote.

Several more Taser shocks followed quickly, Nugent stated, because Pikes
kept falling down and refusing to get back up. Grocery shoppers who
witnessed the incident later told Pikes' family that he had pleaded with
Nugent: "Please, you all got me. Please don't Tase me again."

Williams said police records showed Nugent administered nine Taser
shocks to Pikes over a 14-minute period. The last two jolts, delivered
as police pulled Pikes from a patrol car at the police station, elicited
no physical reaction because the suspect was unconscious, Williams said.

Only after Pikes was carried into the police station and slumped into a
chair did police call for an ambulance. He was pronounced dead soon
afterward at the local hospital.

After consulting about the case with Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally
prominent forensic pathologist, Williams ruled last month that
Pikes'death was a homicide. On the death certificate, he listed the
cause of death as "cardiac arrest following nine 50,000-volt
electroshock applications from a conductive electrical weapon."

Baden said the case "could be considered to be torture."

"God did not just call this young man home," said Williams, who has
served as parish coroner for the past 33 years.

"Fourteen minutes elapsed between the first shock and the last. If
somebody can tell me anything else that killed this otherwise perfectly
healthy young man in 14 minutes, I'd like to know it."

Williams is no stranger to controversy in Winnfield. Back in 2004, his
garage was firebombed--he suspects the attack was ordered by the former
district attorney--and he says he's been shot at 19 times by people
upset with the independence of his investigations. He wears a gun
holstered at his waist even while sitting safely at his desk.

"This case may be the most unnecessary death I have ever had to
investigate," Williams said. "[Pikes] put up no fuss, no fighting, no
physical aggression. The Taser was not used to take him into custody. He
just didn't respond quickly enough to the officer's commands."

Nugent, 21, declined to be interviewed for this story. But his
attorney, Phillip Terrell, said that Nugent "acted within the ambit of
his training and Winnfield Police Department policies"--an opinion
seconded by police spokesman Lt. Charles Curry.

Yet the official Winnfield Police Department Taser policy appears to
prohibit the weapon's use against a nonviolent suspect who has already
been handcuffed.

"The Taser shall only be deployed in circumstances where it is deemed
reasonably necessary to control a dangerous or violent subject," the
policy states. It also requires that a suspect who has been Tasered
should immediately be checked out at a hospital, which did not happen in
Pikes' case.

What's more, safety guidelines issued by Taser International Inc., the
manufacturer of the device that is now used by more than 12,700 law
enforcement and military agencies worldwide, warn officers to "minimize
repeated, continuous, and/or simultaneous exposures."

Company officials, citing dozens of medical studies, insist Tasers are
safe when used properly. But few of those studies examined the effect of
multiple Taser applications over a short period of time. The U.S.
Department of Justice, in a study released in June, concluded that "the
medical risks of repeated or continuous [Taser] exposure are unknown."

In less than two years on Winnfield's 20-officer police force, police
records show, Nugent ranked as the department's most aggressive Taser
user. Among the recipients were a 15-year-old African-American runaway
who was not charged with any crime and Pikes' father, currently serving
a prison sentence for a drug offense, who was Tasered by Nugent last
year, according to Kayshon Collins.

Joe Heard said his 15-year-old son was Tasered twice by Nugent last
August, after Heard reported the youth as a runaway and asked the police
to help find him.

"He snuck out of the house to be with a girl," Heard said. "I asked the
police to bring him home, and they did, but in pieces--he was all
scraped up and bruised. They told me the next time he runs, 'You know
we're going to shoot him.' "

hwitt@tribune.com


Charlotte-Mecklenburg NC - Officer suspended over Taser death

Thu, Jul. 17, 2008

Officer suspended over Taser death

Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

A Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer has been suspended for violating
policy when he shocked a teen with a Taser gun for about 37 seconds,
contributing to the teen's death.
Police announced Wednesday that Officer Jerry Dawson Jr. held the Taser
trigger until 17-year-old Darryl Turner fell to the floor during a
confrontation at a north Charlotte grocery store. The officer later
shocked Turner a second time for five seconds.

Turner, who worked at the grocery store, died from cardiac arrest. The
autopsy showed the teenager's heart was pumping so fast and chaotically
from the stress of the confrontation and the Taser shot that it stopped
pumping blood properly.

"We have deep regret and sympathy for that family. Officer Dawson also
is in a great deal of pain," said Deputy Chief Ken Miller, who oversees
training. "Nobody feels good about the outcome."

Prosecutors announced last week they would not charge Dawson, and found
his use of force appropriate under N.C. law.

But police suspended Dawson, a 15-year veteran, for five days without
pay. They released a surveillance video from the store Wednesday and
more details about the March 20 confrontation.

Dawson, 39, will receive additional training on the proper use of a
Taser.

His suspension follows an internal affairs investigation and a private
hearing Tuesday before a review board of his supervisors, internal
affairs investigators and a civilian.

"After a thorough review of the evidence, the board determined that the
initial decision to discharge the Taser was within our procedures, but
the prolonged use of the Taser was not," police said.

A Taser is a weapon that typically uses compressed nitrogen to shoot two
tethered needle-like probes that penetrate skin and deliver an electric
shock. It's designed to temporarily subdue a person.

CMPD teaches officers to pull and immediately release the Taser trigger
to deliver a five-second shock. Officers may repeatedly pull the trigger
in extreme circumstances when necessary to control a suspect. Holding
down the trigger violates department policy.

Police said they're reviewing their Taser policies.

In 2005, after reports raised questions about Taser safety, CMPD
prohibited prolonged shocks because they appeared to increase the risk
for respiratory failure, Miller said.

Unlike some police departments, CMPD does not limit how many times an
officer can shock a suspect, although it encourages officers to minimize
their use of force.

Officer Dawson told investigators that he held down the trigger because
the shock did not subdue Turner. Despite commands to stop, police said,
Turner stepped toward the officer then walked past him.

"He didn't think he was getting the full energy so he held it," Miller
said. "He was afraid if he undid it, Turner would be violent and
possibly harm the store manager or himself."

Turner's death was the first Taser-related fatality in the CMPD's
history. It happened during a three-month period earlier this year when
police also shot five suspects with firearms - killing one and wounding
four. Not since the fall of 1998 had police used deadly force as
frequently.

Officers used Tasers about 100 times in both 2005 and 2006.

Surveillance video from the Food Lion shows Turner at the customer
service desk, knocking over a display, then throwing an umbrella. Turner
then moves closer to a store manager and employee, at one point raising
his arm and pointing at the manager. A customer at the desk pushes her
child away from the confrontation.

Officer Dawson is shown walking through the front door, and seconds
later, carrying what appears to be his Taser. Dawson approaches Turner
with the Taser pointed at him. Turner takes a step toward the officer,
then continues to walk past him. It's unclear from the video when Turner
is shocked, but police say it happened as Turner stepped toward the
officer.

Turner then walks toward the front door, followed closely by Dawson,
whose Taser remains attached to Turner.

Both then walk out of the camera's view.

Mecklenburg District Attorney Peter Gilchrist said Wednesday his office
made the right decision in not prosecuting Dawson.

"The fact that the police department has decided he violated policies
does not make the actions of the officer a criminal offense," Gilchrist
said.

Turner family attorney Ken Harris disputes prosecutors' claim that the
use of force was appropriate. Harris said Wednesday he's had concerns
about how long Turner was shocked.

"We're happy that this information, including the videotape, has been
released to the public," said Harris, who is considering a lawsuit over
the death. "We look forward to a jury interpreting the videotape."

Turner's mother says her son came home for lunch on March 20 and told
her he'd stolen a couple of Hot Pockets from the store. Tammy Fontenot
said she told her son to return to the store and admit what he'd done.

Turner returned to work after lunch, and a supervisor told him to remove
a lollipop from his mouth and tuck in his shirt. The teenager began
cursing, prosecutors said.

The supervisor contacted the store manager to inform him what was
happening. She told him she felt threatened and was going to call
police.

Here's what police said happened then:

Dawson responded to a call around 1:15 p.m. about a disturbance at the
Food Lion on Prosperity Church Road.

When Dawson arrived, he saw Turner throwing objects at the store manager
and yelling. The officer also saw Turner walk toward store personnel in
a threatening manner.

Dawson ordered Turner to stop. But Turner turned and started to walk
toward Dawson, police said. That's when Dawson discharged his Taser.

Turner continued to walk while he was being shocked, then grabbed a
small store rack and threw it across the floor.

"Officer Dawson held the trigger of the Taser down until Mr. Turner fell
to the ground," the police statement said. "The continuous duration of
this discharge was approximately 37 seconds."

Police said Dawson then ordered Turner to put his hands behind his back.
When the teen didn't comply, Dawson discharged his Taser again, this
time shocking the teen for five seconds.

Police Chief Rodney Monroe pledged in a statement Wednesday that he will
release as much information as possible about such cases of public
interest, as long as it doesn't interfere with an investigation or
violate personnel laws.