How Many Shocks Does It Take?

It took 7 to kill 21 year old Scooter Pikes. They actually tasered him nine times in fourteen minutes, but he was unconscious during the last two shocks. It is my opinion that he was already dead by the time the last two shocks were given.

The police spotted Pikes and went to arrest him on an outstanding drug warrant. He took off and was pursued. A second officer cornered him when the first officer (Nugent) came by. Pikes resisted arrest so Nugent gave him the first taser blast.

According to the Police Chief-who was not there at this incident-Pikes fell ill, said he was on drugs and had asthma. An ambulance was called and Pikes died at the hospital.

The autopsy shows us something different-there were no drugs in his system, nor did he have asthma. Knowing all the trouble one can get into if one was on drugs, why would a sober Pikes even say that to the arresting officers?

“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.”

We now have proof that the police chief is lying. Pikes kept being shocked because he was not responding to orders quickly enough. Let us ponder this for a moment. What does a taser do? It paralyzes your body so you cannot move. If you’ve been tasered, it stands to reason that you might need a few minutes before you can move again or in Pikes case, get up.

Nugent did not think about this though so he kept tasering Pikes, thereby decreasing Pikes’ mobility further, and in Nugent’s mind giving him more reason to continue paralyzing Pikes.

The ambulance was not called while Pikes was in the car. It was called after they carried an unconscious Pikes into the station and he was already dead slumped over in his chair.

The official cause of death:

“...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.”

The coroner has been doing this for 33 years and is known for his independent investigations. Due to his penchant for truth, he has been shot at 19 times and once his garage was firebombed. I guess he can look forward to more of the same from this case.

The taser use by Nugent was against his own department’s policy:

“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.”

The manufacturer of the taser says that repeated, continuous or simultaneous exposures should be minimized, and our own Justice Department says no one knows the medical risks of repeated taser exposure.

Nugent has been fired from his job.

Technorati Tags: civil liberties, homicide, tasers

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