American Police Put in Another Sterling Performance

Here's an interesting article in the Daily Mail out of the UK:

'Don't taze my granny!' American police accused of using a Taser on an 86-year-old, bed-ridden grandmother

American police have been accused of tasering an 86-year-old bed-ridden grandmother.

Lonnie Tinsley called the emergency services to his home in El Reno, Oklahoma, when he became concerned that his grandma Lona Vernon had failed to take her medication.

But instead of a medical technician, he claims at least a dozen armed police officers answered his call.

When Mrs Vernon ordered the police from her house, officer Thomas Duran allegedly decided she was being 'aggressive' and gave the order: 'Taser her.'

Her alarmed garndson, is then said to have replied: 'Don't taze my granny!'
According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Tinsley’s 'obstructive' behaviour prompted the police to threaten him with their tasers.

He was then was assaulted, removed from the room, thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and detained in a police car.

At this point, the heroes in blue turned their attention to Lona.
According to officer Duran’s official report, Mrs Vernon had taken an 'aggressive posture' in her hospital bed.

In order to ensure 'officer safety', one of his men 'stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation'.

Another of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn’t solid.

A second fired his taser, 'striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain', and unconsciousness.

Lona was then handcuffed with sufficient ruthlessness to tear the soft flesh of her forearms, causing her to bleed.

After her wounds were treated at a local hospital, Lona was confined for six days in the psychiatric ward at the insistence of the El Reno Police Department.

Gosh... talk about disproportionate force. I bet every kid in America, after hearing that tale, will never refuse a spoonful of medicine. We can retire Mary Poppins with her song A Spoonful of Sugar [Makes the Medicine go Down] and just use this story to ensure that little kids don't balk at taking their medicine!

I'm going to have to put this story up there with the Seattle police tasering a pregnant woman for not signing a speeding ticket and the Vancouver RCMP tasering and killing a Polish immigrant lost and frustrated in the "secure" area of the Vancouver airport.

Ah... but the US of A is the land of tasering. Here's the classic tasering event of a student trying to ask John Kerry a question and gets tasered for "taking too long" to ask the question...



What bugs me as much as the police brutality is the stupidity of John Kerry of blathering on and not stopping this ridiculous instance of police violence:

Police [in background]: "Get down!"
Senator Kerry: "Hey officers ... could we ... Hey folks ... I think that if everybody just..."

Police: "Do it now!"

Senator Kerry: "... calms down this situation would calm down. [unintelligible] ...I'll answer his question. Unfortunately, he is not available to come up here and swear me in as President."

Andrew Meyer: "Why are they arresting me? Did someone do something here? Are they arresting?"

Senator Kerry: "Let me just say, because it is a very important question."

I'm sure glad Kerry didn't win the Presidency because he proved by his idiotic response to this incident that he was completely incapable of taking charge in a situation and resolving a minor problem before it became a major tragedy.