A sixty-four-year-old California resident named Peter McFarland fell and injured his leg on his way into his home. His wife called paramedics, who arrived, treated him and left. He happened to jokingly remark to them that he was in so much pain that if he had a gun he would just shoot himself. Shortly afterward Marin County Sheriffs arrived and entered his home uninvited.
Although he explained that he was in pain and the remark was hyperbole, the sheriffs attempted to force him to go to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. McFarland and his wife can be seen in the disturbing seven-minute video (filmed by a deputy) repeatedly asking them to leave. Totally fed-up and angry, he finally tried to leave his living room and was tasered three times.
He is now suing the county.
The Sheriff's department defended their actions stating, "the decision to resort to the use of force is never taken lightly."
Vermont is not immune to taser incidents: in March of this year a homeless person was tasered in Barre in an incident that is ‘under investigation.’
And in 2009 the State of Vermont paid an out of court settlement of $40,000.00 for a State Police tasing incident that took place in 2006.
A recent “welfare check” of a man in Barre resulted in a tasering incident. That man also lived through his ordeal, and a charge of disorderly conduct against him was later tossed by the judge despite the States Attorney repeatedly lobbying for the charge to stick. The motive for an argument to make the charge stick hasn’t been made an issue; but it’s obvious why law enforcement would want their victim to become their criminal; a future self defense in a lawsuit against their act of a “legal assault”. What isn’t as obvious is why any State’s Attorney would want to participate in helping build some future scenario in this situation or others like it. Can’t use the word “conspiracy”? It’s a complete absence of logic at play.
The first step to correcting these trigger happy situations would be legislate some law for law enforcement, including prison guards, probation and parole officers, and even State Attorney’s. Part of the problem is the immunity this population of people have, that effectively shields them from any serious consequence, even when they kill someone, for their failure (and I’m claiming it is often deliberate failure) to use simple logic. They may need some protections from prosecutions of various sort, but what they have now is carte blanche with the taser , seemingly on the grounds that it’s considered a “non-lethal” weapon.
Add to the fray the fact that there seems to be a law against everything these days, and the mindset of nearly every State’s Attorney in Vermont that no charge will be dropped. Thank goodness for the judge in Barre; but the cross will come to bear for him at some point for having done the right thing and throw the charges out. This “community” of correctional employees will insist that everyone involved in the industry, including the courts, play with the same ball. In the meantime, any victim advocate ought to be rallying behind people like this man in Barre but as long as “legal assaults” like these are considered to be “all in a day’s work” they’ll continue to happen.
RawStory link here. Analysis is based on thisreport from Amnesty International.