..this time in Vancouver Canada.
The media is saying that the Vancouver case involved a passenger who couldn't communicate with personnel at the airport because he spoke a different language. He was frantically looking for information about his elderly mother from airport personnel. No interpreter was provided. The passenger became more and more agitated, throwing objects. 50,000 volts of electricity were sent into the Vancouver passenger who was taken to the floor where an officer used his body to pin him at his neck according to a nearby passenger.
These airport cases always raise the possibility of mental health issues. It reminded me of the case of Troy Rigby, who died in February 2006 after he was tasered on an airport tarmac. Rigby had bipolar disease and schizophrenia.
"Rigby had boarded Continental Airlines Flight 408 bound for Newark, New Jersey, where family members live and where he said he planned to get treatment for his mental illnesses.
Witnesses later told reporters that, as the plane was delayed near the runway for about 30 minutes, Rigby told fellow passengers he was claustrophobic. Then he suddenly got up and ran toward the front of the plane, yelling "Let me go. Let me go. Let me out of here."
Rigby repeatedly slammed his body against the cockpit door, saying he needed to get out of the plane. At least four passengers and one flight attendant tried to restrain Rigby, who bit the hand of one of the passengers.
Rigby then opened a passenger door and dropped 10 feet from the moving plane to the tarmac. As Rigby headed toward the terminal, sheriff's deputies approached and tried to arrest him. When he resisted, one deputy shot him at least four times with a Taser stun gun before they finally subdued him.
Family members later said he had stopped taking his medications." via inclusiondaily.com
It's not clear in the Vancouver incident if this passenger had any mental health issues.
I watched the video in the Vancouver incident. The image of four stocky officers approaching the Vancouver passenger is burned in my brain. The Vancouver passenger turned away from them, not understanding their language as they approached him. This wasn't the reaction they wanted, although he was certainly outnumbered at that point and could have been subdued by these burly guys. So they tasered him.
Pundits will argue that he threw objects. He did. They'll argue he acted dangerously. But if you watch the video and check out what happened, right before they tasered him they really had enough personnel there to contain him without tasering him.
My concern in these cases is the use of tasers isn't being policed. A taser was used four times on Troy. I, for one, wouldn't want this tasering decision made on a loved one unless other alternatives were explored and considered. These tasers are strong and cause injuries resulting in death. There are other alternatives. Because tasers haven't always been around.
Protecting bystanders is an important consideration. However, the larger the circle we draw around permissible cases of using a taser, the smaller the group of the others becomes and the larger the group of the tasered become. And even assuming we want to allow that to happen (a fact I'm not willing to concede), shouldn't we at least be asking if there are less injurious alternatives for airport security and officers to use?
3 comments:
The problem is that we often don't notice the loss of liberties until it happens to someone we know or who doesn't fit in a stereotype.
Vancouver has a poor history in regards to treating people who are making a "public disturbance" and may have mental health issues - I believe they moved to tazers after shooting a man who had stopped taking his meds and was running at them with scissors. Yup, running with scissors. Last year, a full SWAT team surrounded, broke into, engaged and tasered a man who was on medication for mental health issues because he had barricaded himself in his apartment ALONE...and he had scissors. I really am not sure what is so horrible here in the lower mainland in our reaction to scissors?
elizabeth - that's outrageous. When I watched the video of the airport scene, I could see how easily the officers could have used an alternative to the taser and one woman bystander who tried to talk to the victim before he was killed said she was never in fear of him. Her interview is interesting to watch.
goldchair: very true. It's too easy to turn people into the 'other'.
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