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A man died in Seat Pleasant, Md. on Saturday afternoon after he was subdued by officers during a confrontation, handcuffed, and then tasered after he was already restrained. The Post has more details on the story of how Marcus D. Skinner, 22, received two Taser shocks, one from each of two officers on the scene, a Fairmount Heights officer and a Prince George's County officer. Skinner had been combative with the officers even after he was handcuffed, reportedly spitting on the officers and perhaps trying to kick them.
Skinner's sister, Jamala Smith, 30, accuses the officers involved of endangering Skinner's life by using the Taser."They could have used pepper spray, a baton, anything but a Taser," she told the Post. Prince George's police and officials with the state's attorney's office are investigating the circumstances around the death.
Recently, a federal judge acquitted the police chief of Colonial Beach, Va. and one of his sergeants on civil rights charges stemming from the alleged unnecessary use of an electronic stun gun on two men. The U.S. Department of Justice is currently launching an investigation into Taser-related fatalities. Close to 200 people have died after being Tasered in the United States since they were first made available.
Image from Taser.com
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this is horrible. i work in seat pleasant and it's so sad to hear tragedies like this happening all the time around here.
Problem with pepper spray is that it doesn't incapacitate. It'll make you gag, maybe vomit, and make you struggle to breathe, but you can still run, kick, and do a lot of damage. And there have been a few allergic reactions to Mace and pepper spray. As for the baton, the reason cops started using sprays and Tazers to begin with was that they had a nasty habit of resorting to the baton in the first place, particularly that choke hold that claimed quite a few lives.
On it's face, I can't see how spitting at a cop merits a Tazering, but what about the woman he was beating up to the point that an ambulance was called for her? Doesn't seem like he was just minding his own business when the cops start using him for Tazer practice.
Tasers are just as dangerous as guns and probably even more abused. The growing number of deaths from the, sometimes warranted and sometimes not, use of Taser is just unacceptable. Just because it does not cause a pool of blood should not make the act of killing any less acceptable.
I hate to nitpick, but the headline really ought to be "Use of Tasers on Bound Suspect Questioned," or something like that, because their use, not the tasers themselves, is what is under scrutiny here. Right?
www.seatpleasantfire.com for a more candid description of events if you scroll down.
I truly hope that some of you read this....
I am Marcus's sister and there are so many things that, as his sister, I along with my family question. People are so quick to judge and make pre-assumptions without knowing or re-evaluating the facts at hand. Let me say this "BRIEFLY"...my brother was a HEALTHY 22 year old man. He was NOT PERFECT and no one is, he made mistakes and probably some that you have made yourself. He had a 4 year old son that asked why is daddy sleeping in there (referring to the casket) when the casket was closed. He doesn't understand at all and as his family we have to explain to him.
Know this...what the NEWS and no one else mentioned, my brother was wet, he got out of the pool and they put electricity through his body, he was handcuffed and on the ground at the time he was tasered and his feet were possible bound also. What could he have done to harm the police? NOTHING!!!!
These police officers transported my brother to the hospital in a cruiser not a ambulance, WHY? There was one there. If he was having that many problems and the police felt threatened, they could have had him retrained in a ambulance.
This whole situation is bullshit and my family and I are angry. To be real...I hope that this sparks your thoughts, your heart, and your mind and you get on board to help us remove these tasers from the hands of the police officers because they are killing innocent people.
If you want to reach out....see me on myspace under the email in.memory.of.marcus@hotmail.com or just simply email me.
My brother died today and he wasn't the first, in fact he was about the 180th person in the USA, and he won't be the last.....HELP US!!!
Quitman-Brooks County Georgia Taser Death of a 20-year-old Veteran... Will a taser reach your child soon?
The journal entry was updated.
Submitted by gbrhynes007-2 on Tue, 2007-10-09 20:18. Taser Death at the hands of Law Enforcement?
Another American Veteran Dead at the hands of Law Enforcement for whatever reasons. (Samuel Baker, age 20). Will one of your family members be next?
What really happened? We the people may never know. Where were the Chief of Police and other elected officials during the meeting on October 9, 2007? They had promised to be there to provide answers. Is it because our Republic is quickly becoming a Police State?
A state, Wherein the news media refuse to report the truth, and where investigative reporting has become a thing of the past—in the so-called land of the free, and the home of too many graves?
News Media Whiteout machines, and Law Enforcement reports are all similar. This death of a 20-year-old American Veterans is no different from hundreds of others by the hands of Law Enforcement for whatever reasons.
He had a knife, when asked to stop, person walks past the officer, turned around and lifted his shirt, revealing a knife strapped to his waist after several verbal commands, which were not followed by the individual, victim became unresponsive and during the scuffle, the officer used a Taser to subdue him, taser was unsuccessful and the situation led to a physical altercation between the man and the officer, Baker was reported to be still responsive after the taser had been used on him, transported to Brooks County Hospital, and later pronounced dead. He died of a heart attack according to reports.
http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/breakingnews/local_story_275140138.html
http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/homepage/local_story_276001248.html
But the American People need to view the video footage we saw at a meeting held at 7:00 PM (October 9, 2007), at a meeting at a local church in Quitman, Georgia. There were over 300 people in attendance. All expecting the Quitman Chief of Police, and other elected officials to attend the meeting to provide answers to the Baker family about this veteran’s death. However we were gravely disappointed because they failed to show up and speak on the veteran’s death.
We can only say to the bereaved family. That this not the proper way to treat an American Citizen during an expected death by a taser in America. But this is nothing new when we look down the history of deaths that has taken place in Quitman-Brooks County Georgia, for whatever reasons.
Brooks County Citizens are still asking for justice concerning other deaths that have occurred in Brooks County for decades. Not to mention a week of terror in 1918, when twelve-Blacks were murdered for whatever reason. This period has become known as a week of terror in Brooks County Georgia.
Below are a few deaths that were brought to my attention at this October 9, 2007 meeting last night in Quitman, Georgia.
Henry Ford, Sammy Baker, Willie Stephens, Earl Evans (Heba), Ed Denson, William Wooten, Joyce Stuart, James Damps, Curtis Johnson, Myron Denson, and several others citizens are researching other deaths but could not remember their names at the Tuesday night meeting.
The fire in the minds of the citizens in attendance were of a nature. That Quitman elected officials are not concerned about their deceased family member. The brother of the deceased American Veterans said that there is little to no sympathy directed towards his family in the matter.
My heart goes out to the bereaved family and the paining community of Quitman-Brooks County Georgia. Moreover, I pray that justice will be rendered in this and the other cases that have gone unresolved in their community for over 100 years. Peace, and God bless everybody.
GBRhynes
Retired United States Armed Forces (Vietnam Era Veteran)
A concerned citizen and brother of humanity
There are two ways to kill a person using a Taser. One way is what happened to Marcus Skinner: shock a person with a Taser AFTER he has been handcuffed. To date (Oct. 18, 2007) there have been at least 290 "Taser-related in-custody deaths" in the USA and Canada since late September, 1999, and a substantial proportion of them have been caused by a law enforcement officer using a Taser on the person AFTER he or she had been handcuffed.
In most cases (except possibly in some jails) the person using the Taser had no idea he could kill someone with the Taser, because he had been taught in his training course that the Taser is perfectly safe, and incapable of killing a person.
So a lethal weapon has been sold to law enforcement agencies by the manufacturer, by falsely representing it as a nonlethal weapon incapable of killing people. The training given to the officers who use it wrongly assumes it is incapable of killing people. So the officers are taught to use it in ways that are both lethal and nonlethal.
Law enforcement communities all over North America have been "snookered" by the manufacturers of "stun guns" because they are told that these devices are nonlethal, when in fact they can kill rather easily, and in two different ways.
Here is how Marcus died. The Taser shock forced his biceps muscles (in his upper arms) to contract but because his hands were cuffed behind him, his arms could NOT bend at the elbow in response to the contraction of his biceps.
When a muscle contracts it shortens in length; that is how it moves the bones that its ends are connected to. But when the ends of the muscle are pinned in place because the bones that the ends of the muscle are attached to can't move in response to the muscle contraction, then what happens is that the muscle tissue tears. In a light-skinned person, this would be expected to leave visible marks like bruises on the skin. Such discoloration might not be noticed if the person is very dark-skinned, especially if the person doing the autopsy is white, as is often the case.
The tearing of the muscle tissue releases the contents of the injured muscle cells into the bloodstream, and some of these are toxic. One of these toxic elements is potassium. If the muscle cell damage is bad enough, the blood can be flooded with potassium, which can then stop the heart from beating.
Medical Examiners can check this out if they know enough to do a blood potassium measurement, but most don't know this much.
And the inadequate training of law enforcement personnel hasn't yet been widely recognized, so the Taser-related in-custody deaths continue.