Post by WaTcHeR on May 7, 2006 13:55:04 GMT -5
05/07/2006 - As he drove home from work late one night in October 2004, Eric Howell didn't notice that an Orlando police officer was following him through his Parramore neighborhood.
When Howell turned his headlights off before pulling into his driveway, the officer suspected he was a criminal trying to hide. At gunpoint, the officer ordered the young black man out of the car and onto the ground.
When he didn't immediately comply and turned away, a second officer, James Parker, shot Howell with a Taser, sending 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through his body.
"I couldn't stop screaming," said Howell, now 23. "I'm thinking like, 'What's going on? What did they do to me?' "
Howell was charged with resisting an officer without violence -- a misdemeanor -- and spent a night in jail before the charges were ultimately dropped. In many respects, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis, his case illustrates how Orlando police have used the controversial Tasers during the past three years.
The analysis found that Orlando police have used Tasers against 1,243 people, sometimes to halt carjackers, control mentally ill people and stop angry individuals from beating their spouses.
But it also found that police are as likely to use the stun guns after traffic stops for minor offenses in Parramore and on angry drunks downtown and at Universal's CityWalk.
The computer-assisted analysis, which also tracked 765 Taser cases through the criminal courts, showed that:
More than half of the people tased were neither violent nor suspected of committing felonies. Instead, they were charged only with minor misdemeanors, almost always including resisting without violence, which can mean as little as refusing to immediately obey a police officer's order.
Charges in one in five cases either were dropped or resulted in acquittals. A similar percentage resulted in convictions without a formal finding of guilt, indicating the judge or sentencing guidelines didn't consider the charges to be serious.
Just one in three was sentenced to jail time in addition to the time it took to post bond after the arrest. In most cases, defendants bonded out in a day or two.
More than half of the department's tasings occurred in just four areas: Parramore and the surrounding low-income neighborhoods west of Interstate 4; outside of bars in downtown Orlando; at the Universal CityWalk entertainment area; and in the State Road 436/408 area, home to numerous Hispanic nightclubs. Slightly more than half of those tased were black, a percentage about double the city's black population but roughly comparable to the arrest rate.
In virtually every case -- whether the Taser was fired at a fleeing felon, a surly drunk or a driver pulled over for a minor traffic violation -- the use of force was routinely approved as being within department guidelines. In the past three years, Taser use has been disapproved only five times -- and the only punishment handed down was a letter of censure to one cop.
These findings underscore an ongoing debate between police who say Tasers are efficient tools to subdue unruly suspects and some civil-rights groups who call them torture weapons.
"I think Tasers are barbaric," said Tamecka Pierce of Orlando, state chairwoman for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "They should be used only when the officer feels threatened."
Police say that's precisely when Tasers are used -- when a cop fears a situation may turn violent or out of control -- and that alternatives are worse.
"We could use the [metal] batons," said Orlando Deputy Chief Val Demings, head of the patrol division. "It's barbaric. . . . Or we could use the Taser, and it's over in five seconds."
But lawyers who have filed Taser-related lawsuits say the issue is more complex. They note that police must comply with strict standards that govern when to use deadly force such as a gun.
But Tasers come with fewer restrictions, and some officers see them as a swift -- if painful -- way to get control of a situation.
"It's just become an easy tool for law enforcement to use," said Howard Marks, a Winter Park attorney who has sued Orlando police and the Orange County Sheriff's Office. "And it seems like they're going and using that tool before they use other tactics that they've used for years."
Quickly controversial
In 2003 -- two years after the Orange County Sheriff's Office became the first Central Florida law-enforcement agency to employ Tasers -- Orlando spent $213,000 for 300 Tasers; the totals are now up to $510,000 for 730 stun guns. Chief Mike McCoy's reason: to protect officers and suspects from injuries.
Tasers quickly became controversial. At least five local suspects have died after being tased by Orange County law enforcement -- four by deputies and one by an Orlando officer -- though each death was ruled due to drug intoxication. In late 2005, after widely publicized incidents involving a lawsuit filed by a University of Central Florida student shocked outside the Florida Citrus Bowl in 2003 and a drug suspect who was zapped while handcuffed and strapped to a gurney, the Sentinel decided to look at who was being tased -- and what crimes they were subsequently charged with.
The Sentinel requested data from both the Sheriff's Office -- which has had 2,160 tasing incidents through 2005 -- and Orlando police. However, for a variety of technical reasons, the Sheriff's Office was unable to produce complete data in a usable format.
Using Orlando police data and Orange County Clerk of Courts' electronic records, the Sentinel was able to track the outcomes of 765 Taser cases. Of the remaining 478, some disappeared from the public record because they involved juveniles, or mentally ill adults who were committed under the state's Baker Act. Others are awaiting prosecution. Still more fell out for myriad reasons, including police, jail and court data-entry errors.
The most surprising finding was that so many of those tased were charged with only minor offenses. That's not what the public expects, said George Crossley, president of the American Civil Liberties Union's Central Florida chapter.
"We think that the general public is being told, 'We're using Tasers on somebody that is either a felon or a potential felon,' " he said. "This turns out to be not true at all."
Orlando curbed use
When Orlando police were first issued Tasers in 2003, they could stun someone for verbally refusing orders to do things such as sit down, move or leave the area. They used their stun guns on 473 people that year.
But in September 2004, McCoy made the Taser policy more restrictive, requiring that a person must physically pose a threat to harm someone or to flee from an officer.
"Just because a person says no, I didn't want an officer to Taser them," McCoy said. "I just frankly thought that was inappropriate."
Since then, usage has dropped by nearly a third.
Still, the decision to tase boils down to an officer's judgment and whether he or she feels threatened. Some officers acknowledge another element: a desire to avoid the possibility of physical contact.
Officer Nahoum Daniel, whose 35 tasings rank him second in the agency according to the Sentinel analysis, acknowledges that he prefers his Taser to wrestling with a resisting suspect.
"I avoid going hands-on with suspects," Daniel said in an e-mail. "Often times, going hands-on leads to injuries to the suspect and or myself."
For example, Daniel chased a suspected drug dealer in Parramore in April 2005, tracking and finding him under a house on West Jackson Street. When the man refused to come out, Daniel tased him. The suspect quickly surrendered -- and Daniel found a plastic bag nearby filled with crack cocaine.
But not all Taser cases are so clear-cut.
Early one morning in October 2004, a resident of an apartment complex off South Semoran Boulevard called the police about someone banging on his apartment door.
When two officers arrived, they found Dennys Mero, then 22, fumbling at the door and ordered him to the ground. He did not comply. They spotted something shiny in Mero's left hand -- which they thought might be his keys -- and also were concerned he was reaching for a weapon in his pants pocket, reports said.
Rookie Officer Chester Culley then shot Mero with his Taser. Afterward, he found that Mero, after a night of drinking, had mistakenly tried to enter the apartment across the hall from his own. Nonetheless, Mero was charged with resisting without violence, pleaded no contest and paid $210 in court costs.
Mero said he entered the plea because he had no witnesses to explain his story. He said the police were too quick to use the Taser.
"They were covering themselves," Mero said. "They had to charge me with something."
Later that same month at Universal Studios, reserve OPD Officer Creed McClelland -- working an off-duty security detail -- saw a man hand a beer to his girlfriend, who turned out to be 19, and told him he was being charged with giving alcohol to a minor and escorted out of the park.
Police said the man's burly, 250-pound father, Christopher Traub Sr., then 45, angrily confronted the officer and repeatedly complained in an "aggressive manner" before being warned and then tased. He was charged with resisting without violence and disorderly conduct.
A prosecutor dropped charges, in part, because he determined Traub did not interfere with the officer's duties; charges against the son were dropped when McClelland failed to appear for a deposition. Last year, Traub, of Pasco County, filed a negligence suit against the officer and Universal. It is pending.
Then there was the January 2005 case of Houston Stimphont, who ordered two $1 apple pies at a south Orlando McDonald's drive-through but was charged for four on his debit card. He asked the cashier for a refund to his card but was told he could get the $2.13 only in cash because the store was not set up for debit refunds.
Police said Stimphont became enraged, cursed at employees and a manager and refused to leave -- even after officers arrived. He refused to be handcuffed, struggled with police and was tased by Officer Christopher Seggi. He was charged with resisting without violence, trespass after warning and disorderly conduct.
In August, Assistant State Attorney Jason Bankowitz dropped charges, noting that Stimphont "was overcharged for meal; I would have raised hell also," state-attorney files show. He said Stimphont displayed poor, but not criminal, behavior.
5 incidents disapproved
All three of these tasings were routinely approved. Indeed, since February 2003, OPD reviewers have disapproved only five -- and punishment has been minimal. One officer received a written censure; another was excused for lack of experience; a third was exonerated; and two others are pending.
One pending case involves Officer Peter Linnenkamp, who last year tased Antonio Wheeler, a hospitalized drug suspect who refused to give a urine sample or consent to a catheter. At the time, Wheeler's arms and legs were tied to a hospital gurney. (Jurors split 5-1 in April on whether to convict Linnenkamp of battery with the Taser and acquitted him of a second battery count. He will be retried in June.)
Linnenkamp's Taser use had been approved by his supervising sergeant. Higher-ups disapproved after the Sentinel wrote about the case -- an article Linnenkamp blames for the reversal.
"Sometimes our managers make decisions based on their media perceptions," he said.
McCoy and Demings say they are not surprised at the 99 percent-plus Taser approval rate. The department's training, supervisors and a thorough defensive-tactics review system ensure police act responsibly with the weapons, they said.
In any case involving use of force or a Taser, sergeants interview arrestees, officers and witnesses immediately after the incident. That report is subsequently reviewed by five training and patrol supervisors before being sent to internal affairs.
Defense attorneys, however, question whether an officer's sergeant can be objective -- and why police can't resolve more minor disputes through negotiation instead of violence.
"They are being used so officers can be lazy," said defense attorney Thomas Luka, who has filed two Taser lawsuits against Orlando police. ". . . Now immediately, they use Tasers."
Randy Means, head of investigations for the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, said his office has not specifically analyzed Taser cases. But he said the department's acquisition of Tasers hasn't resulted in more complaints about use of force. "We don't see anything different now than we did over the past 10 or 15 years," Means said.
Street cops, who routinely complain about prosecutors and judges dismissing or reducing charges or meting out light sentences, say such disappointments are a reality of a clogged court system. More cases are dropped because some arrests -- based on the police standard of "probable cause" -- do not meet the prosecutors' higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"We have no control over what the courts do," Demings said. She expressed confidence that her officers' use of Tasers is necessary and appropriate.
But Eric Howell and others who contend they spent an unwarranted night in jail after being tased wish Orlando police would exercise more restraint before firing a weapon their targets won't soon forget.
"I don't too much care for the police. I try to avoid them," Howell said. ". . . Maybe one day I really might need them for something. I know they're doing their job. But at the same time, it's like they need to probably think a little more before they do things."
When Howell turned his headlights off before pulling into his driveway, the officer suspected he was a criminal trying to hide. At gunpoint, the officer ordered the young black man out of the car and onto the ground.
When he didn't immediately comply and turned away, a second officer, James Parker, shot Howell with a Taser, sending 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through his body.
"I couldn't stop screaming," said Howell, now 23. "I'm thinking like, 'What's going on? What did they do to me?' "
Howell was charged with resisting an officer without violence -- a misdemeanor -- and spent a night in jail before the charges were ultimately dropped. In many respects, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis, his case illustrates how Orlando police have used the controversial Tasers during the past three years.
The analysis found that Orlando police have used Tasers against 1,243 people, sometimes to halt carjackers, control mentally ill people and stop angry individuals from beating their spouses.
But it also found that police are as likely to use the stun guns after traffic stops for minor offenses in Parramore and on angry drunks downtown and at Universal's CityWalk.
The computer-assisted analysis, which also tracked 765 Taser cases through the criminal courts, showed that:
More than half of the people tased were neither violent nor suspected of committing felonies. Instead, they were charged only with minor misdemeanors, almost always including resisting without violence, which can mean as little as refusing to immediately obey a police officer's order.
Charges in one in five cases either were dropped or resulted in acquittals. A similar percentage resulted in convictions without a formal finding of guilt, indicating the judge or sentencing guidelines didn't consider the charges to be serious.
Just one in three was sentenced to jail time in addition to the time it took to post bond after the arrest. In most cases, defendants bonded out in a day or two.
More than half of the department's tasings occurred in just four areas: Parramore and the surrounding low-income neighborhoods west of Interstate 4; outside of bars in downtown Orlando; at the Universal CityWalk entertainment area; and in the State Road 436/408 area, home to numerous Hispanic nightclubs. Slightly more than half of those tased were black, a percentage about double the city's black population but roughly comparable to the arrest rate.
In virtually every case -- whether the Taser was fired at a fleeing felon, a surly drunk or a driver pulled over for a minor traffic violation -- the use of force was routinely approved as being within department guidelines. In the past three years, Taser use has been disapproved only five times -- and the only punishment handed down was a letter of censure to one cop.
These findings underscore an ongoing debate between police who say Tasers are efficient tools to subdue unruly suspects and some civil-rights groups who call them torture weapons.
"I think Tasers are barbaric," said Tamecka Pierce of Orlando, state chairwoman for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "They should be used only when the officer feels threatened."
Police say that's precisely when Tasers are used -- when a cop fears a situation may turn violent or out of control -- and that alternatives are worse.
"We could use the [metal] batons," said Orlando Deputy Chief Val Demings, head of the patrol division. "It's barbaric. . . . Or we could use the Taser, and it's over in five seconds."
But lawyers who have filed Taser-related lawsuits say the issue is more complex. They note that police must comply with strict standards that govern when to use deadly force such as a gun.
But Tasers come with fewer restrictions, and some officers see them as a swift -- if painful -- way to get control of a situation.
"It's just become an easy tool for law enforcement to use," said Howard Marks, a Winter Park attorney who has sued Orlando police and the Orange County Sheriff's Office. "And it seems like they're going and using that tool before they use other tactics that they've used for years."
Quickly controversial
In 2003 -- two years after the Orange County Sheriff's Office became the first Central Florida law-enforcement agency to employ Tasers -- Orlando spent $213,000 for 300 Tasers; the totals are now up to $510,000 for 730 stun guns. Chief Mike McCoy's reason: to protect officers and suspects from injuries.
Tasers quickly became controversial. At least five local suspects have died after being tased by Orange County law enforcement -- four by deputies and one by an Orlando officer -- though each death was ruled due to drug intoxication. In late 2005, after widely publicized incidents involving a lawsuit filed by a University of Central Florida student shocked outside the Florida Citrus Bowl in 2003 and a drug suspect who was zapped while handcuffed and strapped to a gurney, the Sentinel decided to look at who was being tased -- and what crimes they were subsequently charged with.
The Sentinel requested data from both the Sheriff's Office -- which has had 2,160 tasing incidents through 2005 -- and Orlando police. However, for a variety of technical reasons, the Sheriff's Office was unable to produce complete data in a usable format.
Using Orlando police data and Orange County Clerk of Courts' electronic records, the Sentinel was able to track the outcomes of 765 Taser cases. Of the remaining 478, some disappeared from the public record because they involved juveniles, or mentally ill adults who were committed under the state's Baker Act. Others are awaiting prosecution. Still more fell out for myriad reasons, including police, jail and court data-entry errors.
The most surprising finding was that so many of those tased were charged with only minor offenses. That's not what the public expects, said George Crossley, president of the American Civil Liberties Union's Central Florida chapter.
"We think that the general public is being told, 'We're using Tasers on somebody that is either a felon or a potential felon,' " he said. "This turns out to be not true at all."
Orlando curbed use
When Orlando police were first issued Tasers in 2003, they could stun someone for verbally refusing orders to do things such as sit down, move or leave the area. They used their stun guns on 473 people that year.
But in September 2004, McCoy made the Taser policy more restrictive, requiring that a person must physically pose a threat to harm someone or to flee from an officer.
"Just because a person says no, I didn't want an officer to Taser them," McCoy said. "I just frankly thought that was inappropriate."
Since then, usage has dropped by nearly a third.
Still, the decision to tase boils down to an officer's judgment and whether he or she feels threatened. Some officers acknowledge another element: a desire to avoid the possibility of physical contact.
Officer Nahoum Daniel, whose 35 tasings rank him second in the agency according to the Sentinel analysis, acknowledges that he prefers his Taser to wrestling with a resisting suspect.
"I avoid going hands-on with suspects," Daniel said in an e-mail. "Often times, going hands-on leads to injuries to the suspect and or myself."
For example, Daniel chased a suspected drug dealer in Parramore in April 2005, tracking and finding him under a house on West Jackson Street. When the man refused to come out, Daniel tased him. The suspect quickly surrendered -- and Daniel found a plastic bag nearby filled with crack cocaine.
But not all Taser cases are so clear-cut.
Early one morning in October 2004, a resident of an apartment complex off South Semoran Boulevard called the police about someone banging on his apartment door.
When two officers arrived, they found Dennys Mero, then 22, fumbling at the door and ordered him to the ground. He did not comply. They spotted something shiny in Mero's left hand -- which they thought might be his keys -- and also were concerned he was reaching for a weapon in his pants pocket, reports said.
Rookie Officer Chester Culley then shot Mero with his Taser. Afterward, he found that Mero, after a night of drinking, had mistakenly tried to enter the apartment across the hall from his own. Nonetheless, Mero was charged with resisting without violence, pleaded no contest and paid $210 in court costs.
Mero said he entered the plea because he had no witnesses to explain his story. He said the police were too quick to use the Taser.
"They were covering themselves," Mero said. "They had to charge me with something."
Later that same month at Universal Studios, reserve OPD Officer Creed McClelland -- working an off-duty security detail -- saw a man hand a beer to his girlfriend, who turned out to be 19, and told him he was being charged with giving alcohol to a minor and escorted out of the park.
Police said the man's burly, 250-pound father, Christopher Traub Sr., then 45, angrily confronted the officer and repeatedly complained in an "aggressive manner" before being warned and then tased. He was charged with resisting without violence and disorderly conduct.
A prosecutor dropped charges, in part, because he determined Traub did not interfere with the officer's duties; charges against the son were dropped when McClelland failed to appear for a deposition. Last year, Traub, of Pasco County, filed a negligence suit against the officer and Universal. It is pending.
Then there was the January 2005 case of Houston Stimphont, who ordered two $1 apple pies at a south Orlando McDonald's drive-through but was charged for four on his debit card. He asked the cashier for a refund to his card but was told he could get the $2.13 only in cash because the store was not set up for debit refunds.
Police said Stimphont became enraged, cursed at employees and a manager and refused to leave -- even after officers arrived. He refused to be handcuffed, struggled with police and was tased by Officer Christopher Seggi. He was charged with resisting without violence, trespass after warning and disorderly conduct.
In August, Assistant State Attorney Jason Bankowitz dropped charges, noting that Stimphont "was overcharged for meal; I would have raised hell also," state-attorney files show. He said Stimphont displayed poor, but not criminal, behavior.
5 incidents disapproved
All three of these tasings were routinely approved. Indeed, since February 2003, OPD reviewers have disapproved only five -- and punishment has been minimal. One officer received a written censure; another was excused for lack of experience; a third was exonerated; and two others are pending.
One pending case involves Officer Peter Linnenkamp, who last year tased Antonio Wheeler, a hospitalized drug suspect who refused to give a urine sample or consent to a catheter. At the time, Wheeler's arms and legs were tied to a hospital gurney. (Jurors split 5-1 in April on whether to convict Linnenkamp of battery with the Taser and acquitted him of a second battery count. He will be retried in June.)
Linnenkamp's Taser use had been approved by his supervising sergeant. Higher-ups disapproved after the Sentinel wrote about the case -- an article Linnenkamp blames for the reversal.
"Sometimes our managers make decisions based on their media perceptions," he said.
McCoy and Demings say they are not surprised at the 99 percent-plus Taser approval rate. The department's training, supervisors and a thorough defensive-tactics review system ensure police act responsibly with the weapons, they said.
In any case involving use of force or a Taser, sergeants interview arrestees, officers and witnesses immediately after the incident. That report is subsequently reviewed by five training and patrol supervisors before being sent to internal affairs.
Defense attorneys, however, question whether an officer's sergeant can be objective -- and why police can't resolve more minor disputes through negotiation instead of violence.
"They are being used so officers can be lazy," said defense attorney Thomas Luka, who has filed two Taser lawsuits against Orlando police. ". . . Now immediately, they use Tasers."
Randy Means, head of investigations for the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, said his office has not specifically analyzed Taser cases. But he said the department's acquisition of Tasers hasn't resulted in more complaints about use of force. "We don't see anything different now than we did over the past 10 or 15 years," Means said.
Street cops, who routinely complain about prosecutors and judges dismissing or reducing charges or meting out light sentences, say such disappointments are a reality of a clogged court system. More cases are dropped because some arrests -- based on the police standard of "probable cause" -- do not meet the prosecutors' higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"We have no control over what the courts do," Demings said. She expressed confidence that her officers' use of Tasers is necessary and appropriate.
But Eric Howell and others who contend they spent an unwarranted night in jail after being tased wish Orlando police would exercise more restraint before firing a weapon their targets won't soon forget.
"I don't too much care for the police. I try to avoid them," Howell said. ". . . Maybe one day I really might need them for something. I know they're doing their job. But at the same time, it's like they need to probably think a little more before they do things."
