The Videos released this week of a teacher who died after being shot at least six times with a taser by LAPD on a Venice street raise serious concerns about officers’ tactics.said police experts consulted by the Los Angeles Times newspaper who reviewed the tapes.
The LAPD’s actions have raised alarm bells from community activists, as well as Mayor Karen Bass, and are now the subject of an internal investigation.
“It’s going to be hard to convince any judge that these officers were using reasonable force.”said Ed Obayashi, a Northern California sheriff and the state’s top adviser on police tactics.
“From the visual aspect, it appears that the detainee is not fighting back; he is not threatening the officers. He is saying that he is not resisting and what could be considered resistance is an automatic reflex of the body to the pain application of the Taser”.
in the videos, Keenan Anderson, 31, becomes distraught and yells for help as several officers hold him down.
The incident began on January 3 at 3:30 p.m. with a motorcycle officer arriving at what Los Angeles police characterized as a “hit and run” car accident at Venice and Lincoln boulevards.
Police said Anderson was in the middle of the street and said, “Please help me.”
LAPD Chief Michel Moore alleged this week that another driver reported that Anderson had tried to “get into another car without his permission.”
The officer ordered Anderson to get on the sidewalk, according to the video. The officer yelled, “Get up against the wall.”
Anderson then raised his hands. “It was not my intention. Sorry”. Anderson sat down on the sidewalk.
After a pause of several minutes, Anderson declared, “I want people to see me” and “you’re putting something on me.”
That’s when Anderson got up and ran back to the street, the video shows. As Anderson pulls over, an officer says, “Turn face down.”
A swarm of officers approached, and Anderson yelled at onlookers, “Please help me,” saying the officers are “trying to kill me.”
Later, the officers try to immobilize him. One can be seen in the video placing his elbow on Anderson’s neck while he is lying on his back.
The officer standing above him yells: “Turn around or I’m going to electrocute you”.
Later, the officer fired the darts from the stun gun into Anderson’s back and pulled the trigger, attempting to discharge the electrical pulse that constricts the muscles.
He discharges the taser twice, then applies the weapon in stun mode directly to Anderson’s back at least four times.
Moore said the data from the taser showed that “there were six separate activations over 42 seconds. The first two (were) in test mode. We believe that the darts were ineffective. Then four activations for 33 seconds” in the stun mode in which the pulse was applied directly to the skin.
Walter Katz, a former independent auditor for police in California and Chicago, said it’s up to the coroner to determine the role of the Taser in Anderson’s death, but that still doesn’t mean the officer’s actions were appropriate.
Katz said the incident begins to escalate when the officer with the Taser motions for Anderson to turn around and stop resisting.
“The first application of the Taser is in such a way that if it is effective, it contracts the muscles so that the person cannot move and cannot comply with that order,” he said.
Then, Katz said, the officer fired the taser into Anderson’s body repeatedly without giving the man a chance to recover.
Katz said it should have been clear at the time that Anderson’s behavior suggested he was affected in some way.
“Giving him more electric shocks was a bad decision,” he said.
According to LAPD policy, “there is no set limit to the number of times a Taser can be used in a particular situation; however, officers should generally avoid repeated or simultaneous activations to avoid potential injury,” Moore said.
The chief claimed that Anderson was in an altered state and resisted efforts by officers to apprehend him. His blood work showed the presence of cocaine and cannabis in his system, Moore said.
Moore said an officer’s “elbow appears to be along the clavicle and may or may not have touched the neck.” The chief said there’s no evidence that Anderson’s airway is compromised.
Timothy T. Williams, a use-of-force expert and former supervisor of the LAPD’s elite robbery-homicide division, said he was also concerned about the tactics.
Police had enough officers, Williams said, “to turn him around, handcuff him and sit him down.” He said the first motorcycle officer did the right thing by calling for backup.
Carl Douglas, a well-known civil rights attorney who represents some members of Anderson’s family, said officers failed to consider Anderson’s state of mind and did not follow appropriate tactics and policies.
Anderson was a 10th grade English teacher at a public charter school in Washington, DC, with a 5-year-old son. He was in Los Angeles visiting his family and moving his belongings to the nation’s capital, Douglas said.
Anderson is the cousin of a Black Lives Matter co-founder, Patrisse Cullors.
“While watching the video, what became clear to me is that my cousin, Keenan, was actually very scared and was repeatedly calling for help, and unfortunately, that was not what he got from the LAPD,” Cullors said.
Before viewing the body camera footage, Cullors told the Los Angeles Times that she and her family were still trying to piece together what happened.
“What we do know is that Keenan was alive before his experience with the police and then he died. But we don’t want to continue with the narrative of what the police were saying because we don’t know if that’s true,” he said.
The LAPD uses the Taser, a brand of stun gun produced by Axon Enterprise, formerly known as Taser International. The name Taser has become synonymous with a stun gun. The department has long used this and other so-called less-lethal weapons.
After the footage was released with the other two videos showing LAPD officers fatally shooting two men, newly elected Mayor Karen Bass said she had “serious concerns about the deeply disturbing tapes.” “Full investigations are underway and I promise that the City’s investigations into these deaths will be transparent and reflect Los Angeles values,” she said in the statement. “I will make sure that the city’s investigations lead only to the truth and accountability. In addition, the officers involved must be placed on immediate leave.”
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