And Don’t You Scream or Make a Shout

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The city of Barre used Federal stimulus money to buy six new handguns, 21 Taser guns, and five new shotguns, including one nonlethal version that shoots bean bags.  

The Tasers have been used twice since their purchase was approved in August. Each case involved disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Both of the people tasered were women and it was the same policeman in both incidents.  

From the Times Argus here is the play by play in the latest incident starting from after the first Taser shot was fired.

…Osborn [a 58-year-old homeless woman] responded to this by laughing and saying “you got me,” bending forward and continuing to laugh, police said in a news release.  Duhaime then used the “drive stun capabilities” of the Taser, which required him to place the Taser directly on Osborn’s body as opposed to shooting the probes, Bombardier said.  

This method worked after several attempts, Bombardier said, but the officer and Osborn ended up on the ground, and Osborn took a swing at Duhaime and missed, leading to the citation for attempted assault.

   

The Barre leaders responded to reporter’s questions about the tasering  

–City Manager John Craig said Osborn's stubborn refusal to place her hands behind her back as Duhaime allegedly requested and her decision to cross her arms to make it more difficult for him to place her in handcuffs amounted to the sort of active resistance contemplated in the policy.  

–Mayor Lauzon said he isn't interested in quibbling over the difference between "active" and "passive" resistance, suggesting that as soon as someone is informed they are under arrest – as police say Osborn was – any resistance is active.  

-Protestors who lock arms to make it difficult for officers to arrest them could be fairly viewed as actively resistant, chief of Police Bombardier said.

20 thoughts on “And Don’t You Scream or Make a Shout”

  1. The Times Argus has a readers poll in the side column of its main online pages asking the question: “Do you think the Barre police officer was justified in Tasing a 58-year-old homeless woman?”

    Thus far the yeas have been out weighing the nays.

  2. So the Barre PD are taking the Eric Cartman approach?  Beat down everyone that doesn’t ‘respect ma’ authoritai’, no matter what they are doing?

    So now Barre PD can run around tasering whoever they want and all they have to do is claim ‘active resistance’ when those zapped have done absolutely nothing at all?

    This is the problem with tasers, they are lethal weapons being marketed to PDs as if they were non-lethal, and they are ordered to go out and use them wantonly for the most meager provocation the officer can dream up?

    This story is exactly why Vermonters are against tasers: being used when clearly not appropriate and then having the PD and town officials back up the officers no matter how unnecessary it’s use.

    This is exactly what leads to videos of police tasering non-violent people dozens of times for ‘resisting’ when what is actually happening is they are reacting to being pointlessly shocked.

    Tasers are deadly weapons and shouldn’t be handed out to anyone that wants one.  They should be issued only to Sergeants and be used only as a last resort, right before using firearms.  Any rules other than that and tasers become the first choice of officers that want revenge on anyone that dares to ‘disrespect their authority’.

  3. Good to know that nonviolent protesters can now be readily tasered for staging, say, a sit-in.  I thought there were some missing steps between us and a police state, but I see there were fewer than I’d hoped.

  5. This will be the first response to the inevitable unrest as that segment of the population that is disenfranchised by their poverty continues to grow.  Under-trained and over-equipped the police will react as if under siege, without thinking twice.  Tasers have been marketed to fill the “hesitation” gap, and unfortunately they have been extremely successful with that message.

  6. is our great Democratic “leadership” in curtailing this use of a torture device?

    Hey … Leahy … see any need to protect us from the police?

    Didn’t think so.

    Weasel Welch the ACORN slayer? Nope … AWOL on real day to day human rights.

    Bernie “The Democratic Senator” Sanders? Hello?

    How about you Shumlin or Racine or Markowitz or Dunn or any of the others?

    Police routinely brutalize us. They shoot and kill us just on suspicion we might be dangerous. They use deadly force in the form of torture accessory tasers because WE CROSS OUR ARMS AND NON-VIOLENTLY REFUSE TO COMPLY!

    Oh, that’s right … it’s the guvmint … and after all we are a torture nation nowadays.

  7. This from last nights Barre City council meeting which discussed the incident report involving multiple taserings of a 58 woman  

    The officer didn’t shout taser, taser, taser!


    Sgt. Miller could see Duhaime’s marked SUV, but not Duhaime or Ann Osborn, the woman he was attempting to take into custody.

    According to reports, Miller responded to the scene when he heard Osborn’s screams after having been tased.

    “… I could see that this was not getting any results so I pulled out the cartridge and went for a drive stun to Osborn’s left thigh,” Duhaime wrote in the report that was presented to the council. “This did have some affect and she screamed a little bit and went down on her buttocks, in the shrub area, next to the store at which time the Taser slipped off her thigh.”

    According to Duhaime’s account that is when Osborn, who was struggling to get up, “took a swing” at his knee and missed.

    “… Before Osborn could get up I was able to apply a second drive stun to her right thigh,” he wrote. “This again kept her down and she began to scream. I advised her to roll over and place her hands behind her back, which she did and the Taser came off her leg losing contact again.

    “Now Osborn was still screaming without the Taser being on her, and would still not put her hands behind her back,” he continued. “I again applied the drive stun to the back of her left thigh. Osborn finally complied, put her hands behind her back at which time I was able to get the handcuffs on her and take her into custody.”

    http://www.timesargus.com/arti…

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