I walked by a Irving paper today and notice this picture.
A couple of weeks ago, I walked into the office of the New Brunswick Police Commission voicing my concern of the way the Police Force in Saint John and Fredericton are forcing the poor people on the ground before placing the handcuff on.
During the trial, a Police officer spoke proudly of their new way of forcing people on the ground.
This degrading act must stop!!!
I was told the Commission couldn't do anything until my inquiry is done.
This degrading act will continue for another 40 days!!!
I will make a prediction right here!!!
I predict the first person to die from these tasers weapon will be a poor person.
Stay tuned!!!!
23 comments:
Everyone is treated the same way, not just poor people. You're making this story up.
I am????
Actually, if you want to look at statistics, most people who are arrested are among the poorest 5th of the country, most people who are charged with offenses are among the poorest 5th of the country, most people who are imprisoned are among the poorest 5th of the country.
These statistics are publicly available on government websites; so expect them to be skewed slightly as well.
I know one thing, the first activist to get tazered in Fredericton will be a martyr.
Activists are being killed for no reason all over this continent because of these stupid guns. Most activists are poor.
We are turning into a fascist regime and we need to stop it before it gets worse.
These are weapons that cause death.
We simply cannot allow police officers to have or use them as a way to bring people to the ground. There is no demonstrable need for these weapons .. it is physical repression of activism and free speech.
Tazer the tazer holders.
guns cause death. the taser is a non-lethal alternative. they rarely cause death. please provide us with a list of 'activists' who have been killed by tasers or even tasered. by the way, have you ever heard of criminals? becuase i'm pretty sure the taser is aimed at criminals, not poor people. you think everything is a conspiracy. if you actually knew any cops, you would know they are decent hard working people and are not the public face of a far reaching conspiracy against poor people. it's all in your head.
Just to be fair? Every officer who has a tazer are indeed tazed so they can feel what a tazer does to a body.
But if I was in the shoes of the Police Force? I would be very careful with these tazers because their record on the way they handle the poor or protesters is not that great.
Guns cause more death than tasers. Which would you prefer to have used on you if you were caught in a situation where the police officer had no choice?
Yes, Charles, you are makin a story out of nothing. You're insinuating that the police are going to use the tasers exclusively on poor people. Police officers don't check bank accounts of people before responding and they aren't mindreaders like you seem to think they are. What are you envisioning - that every day people are going to get tazered? Ha! They will very rarely get used, just like the guns.
6:31 might be right about the poor are the ones being arrested the most but are thye being arrested because they're poor? No, they're being arrested because they're suspected in a crime. Lots of poor people are not arrested too. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to be involved in criminal activities.
...and before my good friend says well hey look at Charles who was falsely arrested. Fair enough and while we can agree Charles was falsely arrested he was also in a bad spot at a bad time. He's the exception to the rule, hardly the norm.
Hey Spinks???
Parks told the court he noticed LeBlanc coming at him from behind with a camera and, since he appeared scruffy and wasn't wearing business clothes like the other members of the media, assumed LeBlanc was part of the protest.
Poor people ARE considered criminals just for being poor.
You don't see J.D Irving put in jail for starving half his workings, or for polluting the poor in Saint John to death.
The rich are never held accountable.
Tazer's might not be bad compared to guns, but equally canada might not be bad compared to the United States. Compare it to something worse and you will always win your argument. I'll compare the tazer to the baton.
I'll paste a LOCAL example just to demonstrate my point:
--
nquest date set in death of Taser victim
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 | 10:31 AM AT
CBC News
New Brunswick's Chief Coroner Dianne Kelly has set a date for an inquest into the death of Kevin Geldart, 34, who died after Moncton police used a Taser gun on him.
The inquest will open Feb. 21, 2007.
Police used a Taser to subdue Geldart outside a bar on May 5, 2005. They said he matched the description of a man who was reported missing from a local hospital ward earlier in the day.
Police said the six-foot-six-inch, 300-pound man was being "combative and violent," so they used a Taser to control him.
The shock from the Taser knocked Geldart unconscious, and he was later pronounced dead at the Moncton Hospital.
A Taser can deliver up to 50,000 volts of electricity, causing muscle tissue to contract, immobilizing the victim.
Continue Article
Click here to find out more!
Tasers are supposed to allow police officers to subdue violent individuals without killing them, or without worrying that a stray bullet might kill or injure an innocent bystander.
The company that makes Tasers says there are no drawbacks to their use. But critics argue that there hasn't been enough research into the safety of the "stun guns." They point to the deaths since 2001 of more than 50 people in North America after suffering Taser shocks.
Hee hee, I bet they'll recognize you now, eh?
However you weren't just grabbed off the side of the street and arrested because you were poor. You were arrested at a protest that was getting out of control and mistaken for someone breaking a law. I can understand the arrest but I don't get why your pictures were deleted and why you were ever charged. However that's neither here nor there. I'd still rather get tasered than ventilated with a 9mm. It is a better option for the police to have.
When your poor you quite often have to break the laws that were made by the rich so that you can survive; the laws are a mechanism of control, they suppress dissent. They keep poor people poor, and if they try to protest .. they'll do everything include kill him.
Spinks:
Guns are used for more serious "offenses" than tasers.
Now they have a weapon that covers a whole new spectrum of "offenses"
One issue is cetain? The Police Force in New brunswick < Not R.C.M.P. > are proud in their style of forcing poor people on the ground.
I am very concern about this issue.
The reason I decided to blog this issue is if something happens with those tazers?
I predicted it in this blog.
Question?
I never seen the Police put a white collar or millionaire on the ground?
I am very concern about this one but the pratice will continue for another 40 days.
Charles, it's telling that sometimes the most disadvantaged are also the most compassionate, sensitive, humane, people.
Thanks for making this story somewhat of an issue on your blog. This issue really disturbs me. Quite frankly, it scares the crap out of me.
8:48pm: I had to wait a minute to stop laughing at your post before I could respond.
When your poor you quite often have to break the laws that were made by the rich so that you can survive;
Oh please, indulge us. What "rich man" laws do you personally feel you should be able to break because you're not a millionaire?
If it's freezing cold outside, and I'm homeless, I should be able to ask that man in the business suit if he could spare a few pennies without the fear of an $80 fine from the police.
Please don't indulge us by your ignorance.
Me thinks my friend is suggetsing a little anarchy and revolution on the streets of Canada. Whether you're rich or poor gives you no excuse for breaking the law. That's ridiculous. I can see it now. "Well your Honour, I robbed the lady because I didn't have as much money as her and she looked better off so I think you should let me go." Yeah, that won't cause any problems.
Chances are that man in the business suit works 12-14 hour days to have that spare $80 in his pocket... why does the homeless person who contributes nothing to society (yet takes plenty) deserve it exactly?
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs, dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate like him are cold and starving.
CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.
Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer while others have plenty. The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing, "We Shall Overcome."
Exiled Svend Robinson rants in an interview with Pamela Wallin that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to the U.S. and starts a successful agribiz company.
The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food though Spring is still months away, while the Government house he is in (which just happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, and Roy Romanow is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000. The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, and the Toronto Star blames it on obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders who are praised by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity. The spiders promptly terrorize the community.
Tasers scare me. There have been too many deaths caused by Tasers and despite what the company says about their effectiveness and lack of danger, I still worry about them. What I want to know is what ever happened to police officers taking people down with sheer physical force? If my memory is correct, both the police in England and Ireland do not carry firearms and we hear very seldom about their officers being injured or killed in the line of duty. Maybe it's because they're trained differently?
Check out this link about a homeless man being tasered: http://www.geocities.com/ericsquire/g8calgary.htm#tasers
tasers
The explanation always seems to be the same ... "oh it was something other than the taser that caused the man to fall and split his head open on the ground" or something similar. Taser is a lethal weapon and we have to acknowlege that.
The police need to know that just because the tazer isn't lethal, doesn't mean they shouldn't show some restraint before they decide to use it.
Check out this video of a UCLA student being tazered repeatedly for not having his ID on him, and not leaving the building right away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGlvEcPmug
anybody who even gets mouthy with a police officer i think should be tazed
when questioned by a police officer, the things that come out of your mouth is yes sir no sir or yes ma'm or no officer
too mnay of you waeazel whiners just complain because you don't want to have to follow the laws of the land.
zappppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
Police with Tasers in North America have become the real pscyhopaths - trying to prophecy and predict who "might" commit a crime or who will become a martyr. The issues around the production, distribution and use of Tasers are not rocket science. It's about government prohibitions and restrictions on civil liberties and using high-tech weapons to fight the "war on drugs". People who just voluntarily use "mind altering" drugs are not necessarily hurting anyone except themselves, and not necessarily holding anyone responsible for what harm or benefit the drugs they take do to themselves.
Particularly in the US, many illicit drug users do so because they can't afford health care, or don't know any better where they can apply for health care and social assistance to get a place to live or a job.
On the other hand, those that make and sell drugs, and profit from it, without responsibility for the health risks to their victims - ARE irresponsible and criminal - but that crime of "right to profit" without "responsibility for harm" is being committed to a much greater extent by the US government as a whole with the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies that mass-market legalized drugs and employ doctors to experiment using them - even on children and mentally handicapped or learning disabled people who are incapable of expressing their own wishes and unable to assert their rights and needs.
The issues are not really about race or cultural differences, as much as about inequities in health care, education, and poverty caused by excessive government protection of corporate and capitalist interests at the expense of individuals and families.
That said, obviously, any homeless person who is not provided a decent education, occupation, and safe home in which to sleep, should be regarded as a sort of “activist” even if all they can do as an "act" of protest is sit on the street begging. Any one of them who is confronted by a police officer for any reason, has a right to be informed as to how the officer intends to provide safe transportation to safe accommodation, any needed health care and social services or legal assistance, in the event that criminal charges are pressed. The lack of sufficient resources to provide for all those needs, or even information known to the officer, to justify an arrest, does not justify using force of any kind to take a suspect into custody – even if he or she is evidently homeless or on the run from something or someone.
So when extremely debilitating force like a Taser is used - which does in fact attack the central nervous system and pose an immediately heightened risk of a massive heart attack, particularly under conditions of emotional stress like being exhausted, malnourished, and arrested, no one should be surprised that innocent people die, or at best, suffer extreme and unnecessary neurological trauma.
The psychotic owners of Taser International know that - and they simply don't care how many innocent people die, or if they are actually harmed more than helped, as long as they keep profiting.
One such mistake made by police officers happened three years ago to my son, when they responded to a 911 call looking for drugs, instead of merely treating the complaint for what it was - a merely loud voice heard from a cell phone suggestive of a domestic argument.
My son wasn’t drugged, armed or threatening anyone. Four officers arrived together and confronted him, after his argumentative companions had left his house. He was alone, and happened to be naked because he intended to get some sleep in his bed. Without any warrant, nor even giving any explanation, the officers went in and took offence merely because my son expressed surprise at their rude invasion, with sarcasm. They all kept staring at him and wouldn’t get out of his bedroom even long enough for him to get up and get dressed.
They grabbed him off his bed, forced him to the floor, and Tasered him five times, then left him at a hospital without any ID and without telling the doctors what they had done to traumatize him. In fact, they made the doctors believe that he was suffering some kind of drug reaction – even though there was no toxicology found.
I know that my son almost died of the shocks and that if I hadn't been told about this he would never have recovered. He suffered tachycardia, panic reactions, and high blood pressure for more than a year afterward and still has PTSD. Though he was in excellent health, and very strong and athletic, it may now be that he can expect his life-span to be shorter, or to develop MS or some other nervous system illness in later life.
He has recovered as well as possible, and has filed a civil suit, but no amount of money can ever make up for the damages he and we have all suffered as a loss of confidence in police, health care, and our Canadian Government as a whole.
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