ATLANTA (AP) — Two deputies yell “Stop fighting!” and “He’s got my Taser!” as they repeatedly stun a handcuffed man in the back of a vehicle, commanding him to relax even as he insists “I’m dead,” shortly before he stops breathing, body-camera video from the incident shows.
The video shows the Nov. 20 incident in the back of an SUV in Coweta County, outside Atlanta. Chase Sherman, 32, of Destin, Florida, was pronounced dead at a hospital later that day.
The deputies responded after Sherman’s mother called 911. She told the dispatcher she was in a car with her husband, her son and the son’s girlfriend on southbound Interstate 85. She said her son was “freaking out” and had taken a synthetic drug known as spice.
The deputies approach the vehicle and start struggling with Sherman, with someone yelling “Tase him!” and “Hit him!” as he cries out and his mother begs them to stop, as shown in the video, obtained Friday by The Associated Press from the family’s attorney and first posted by The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/1TuBsvG ).
“What’s your problem, buddy?” one deputy says. “That’s a good way to get shot right there. I tell you right now, you grab my Taser again, it’s gonna be on.”
The deputies insist that his mother and girlfriend in the front seat get away from the area.
“You’re not gonna shot him, you hear me?” Sherman’s mother says.
The deputies say Sherman also broke their radio as they try to call for help, and they tell the family they’re subduing Sherman for their own protection. Once they have a working radio, the deputies request help from 911 and continue to tell Sherman to “just relax, stop resisting.” They stun him again, and he cries out, eventually saying “I’m dead.”
The deputies realize Sherman has stopped breathing and move him out of the vehicle. The family wails off camera, and a deputy says, “Get the family back.”
“He ain’t breathing,” someone says.
One deputy later says “Look at my cuffs,” showing his mangled handcuffs from the incident. He tells his colleagues that he knows he’ll be fired over the incident, but one insists he won’t.
Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Peter Skandalakis said in a statement Friday that his office has not finished reviewing the case and the investigation is ongoing.
Both deputies are still employed with the department, according to Col. James Yarbrough with Coweta County Sheriff’s Office. They’re identified in incident reports as J.D. Sepanski and S. Smith.
Coweta County Sheriff’s Office records from Sherman’s death show that one deputy’s stun gun was used nine times in a 2-½-minute span for a total of 47 seconds, including one use that lasted 17 seconds. The other deputy’s stun gun was used six times in just over four minutes for a total of 29 seconds.
The family’s attorney, Chris Stewart, has said the records show that the deputies used the stun guns too many times on a handcuffed man.
Sherman’s death certificate lists his death as a homicide and lists the cause as “sudden death during an altercation with law enforcement with several trigger pulls of an electronic control device, prone positioning on the floor of a motor vehicle and compression of the torso by the body weight of another individual.”
They’re heroes. Funny thing is, my heroes were never scared rabbits. A policeman can kill you for simply “feeling” scared.
Wip , are you deaf ? They only warned him about 20 times. Meathead.
Stop resisting, stop resisting. That’s all that’s needed to be said.
Or how about this…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3600283/Police-officer-charged-shocking-video-shows-smash-woman-s-cellphone-PUNCH-face-traffic-stop-failing-signal-right-turn.html#v-135000007442711630
Ever notice that police unions are “fraternal”? This should tell you something. The “thin-blue-line” is a gang, little different than street gangs–at least when it comes to “covering-up” questionable behavior by police.
In today’s day and age, “officer safety” trumps de-escalation of force. This, in part, is due to the militarization of the police along with training in Israeli police tactics. This becomes a problem, with the “us vs. them” attitude that is fosters, along with the fact that Israel is a very different place, being on a constant “war footing”, and by necessity, its police tactics are very different.
There are too many instances of police being “given a pass”, even when incontrovertible video and audio evidence is presented. Grand juries, guided by police-friendly prosecutors, quite often refuse to charge those police officers who abuse their authority.
Police officers, who want to do the right thing, are quite often marginalized and put into harms way, by their own brethren…When a police officer is beating on someone that is already restrained while yelling, “stop resisting” THAT is but one reason police have a “bad name” in many instances…
Here are changes that can help reduce the police-induced violence:
1. Get rid of police unions. Police unions (fraternities) protect the guilty, and are responsible for the massive whitewashing of questionable police behavior that is presently being committed.
2. Eliminate both “absolute” and “qualified” immunity for all public officials. This includes, prosecutors and judges, police and firefighters, code enforcement and child protective services officials, and others who deal with the citizenry. The threat of being sued personally would encourage them to behave themselves. Require police officers to be “bonded” by an insurance company, with their own funds. No bond= no job.
3. Any public funds disbursed to citizens as a result of police misconduct should come out of police pension funds–NOT from the taxpayers.
4. Regular drug-testing of police officers as well as incident-based drug testing should take place whenever an officer is involved in a violent situation with a citizen–no exceptions.
5. Testing for steroid use should be a part of the drug testing program. You know damn well, many police officers “bulk up” with the “help” of steroids. Steroids also affect users mentally as well, making them more aggressive. The potential for abuse of citizens increases greatly with steroid use.
6. Internal affairs should only be used for disagreements between individual officers–NOT for investigations involving citizen abuse. State-level investigations should be mandatory for all suspected abuses involving citizens.
7. Prosecutors should be charged with malfeasance IF any evidence implicating police officer misconduct is not presented to the grand jury.
8. A national or state-by-state database of abusive individuals who should NEVER be allowed to perform police work should be established–a “blacklist” of abusive (former) police officers.
9. Most people are unaware that police have special “rules” that prohibit them from being questioned for 48 hours. This allows them to “get their stories straight” and makes it easier to “cover up” bad police behavior. Police must be subject to the same laws as civilians.
10. All police should be required to wear bodycams and utilize dashcams that cannot be turned off. Any police officers who causes a dash or body cam to be turned off should be summarily fired–no excuses. Today’s body and dash cams are reliable enough to withstand harsh treatment. Body and dashcam footage should be uploaded to a public channel “on the cloud” for public perusal.
11. All interrogations must be video and audio recorded. Police should be prohibited from lying or fabricating stories in order to get suspects to confess. False confessions ARE a problem in many departments. Unknown to most people, police can lie with impunity while civilians can be charged with lying to police…fair? I think not…
12. Any legislation passed that restricts the rights of ordinary citizens, such as firearms magazine capacity limits, types of weapons allowed, or restrictive concealed-carry laws should apply equally to police. No special exemptions to be given to police. Laws must be equally applied.
Police work is not inherently dangerous…there are many other professions that are much more dangerous.
A little “Andy Taylor” could go a long way in allaying fears that citizens have of police.
That being said, I have no problem with police officers who do their job in a fair, conscientious manner…however, it is time to call to task those police officers who only “protect and serve” themselves.
Really? Takes a real genius to find fault with those cops. That’s about as professional as it gets. Junkie died. Guess what? That’s what junkies do. Those cops were the picture of restraint. I’d have put a bullet in him.
Anarchyst – you really need to get a new record, because you have worn that one out. How many times are you going to post the same exact shit? Dumbass.
Serve and protect? It seems like i keep reading stuff like this.People call for help and then people end up dead. Do you want the cops showing up at your house? Just imagine telling them that they can’t come inside. Do you see any winning situation there?
Eye for an eye Only solution
When a violent black criminal gets finished by the police the black community makes him into a hero and lauds for the banger’s sainthood……..
When a white violent, junkie criminal becomes a danger to society and is eliminated, most often the white community says “good riddance”…there are a few exceptions it seems, who always side with the violent, drug-addled, psychotic degenerates over those who attempt to protect the innocent–no matter what, every time.
All the maroons that want to legalize drugs need to back down on the cop thing, because situations like this will become much more common. The two go hand in hand.
We deal with drugged out patients, totally wasted on alcohol patients, and flat out psychotic patients. There is never a need to taze them, nor do we have them anyway. It’s not hard for trained professionals to restrain them safely. Obviously, most cops are anything but trained professionals, although the pretend to be.
People always call the cops screaming “Do Something!!!!” Typically these sheep, who would quake at the idea of a mere fistfight, have unrealistic ideas of how to cuff a crazy, stop a guy with a knife, etc. Then, once the problem is solved, “Why did you do that???” Its getting to the point where police are doing less and the murder rates reflect it. In this case, called for Mr. Crankster freaking out in the car, I don’t see the need to do anything. Everybody except the junkie is out of the car? No threat to innocents? Fuck it, let him tweak. I can already hear the family screaming over that decision too. The sad thing is that both their and my decisions are correct, but neither are desirable. Welcome to the reality of policing.
General, I work near a major hospital with a 24 hour psych lockdown facility. Those trained professionals often call us for assistance. Heck a nurse got kicked last week and wanted a battery report. i wish I was closer to ya’ll.
General, you”re full of shit. Do explain how you restrain those crazy fucks. I used to work in clubs. Restraining a violent, whacked out individual isn’t child’s play. You’re getting down in the mud with the pigs. Like the saying goes, i was born, but i wasn’t born last night.
Sorry, I take the side of the cops here. When some brain dead man takes a shit load of the equivalent of emotional rat poison, he deserved to get his ticket punched. In fact he punched it himself. How bout the time a volunteer firefighter friend of mine responded to a car wreck where the driver (going 60 in a 15 zone) slammed into a metal fence under construction. His girlfriend in the passenger seat was completely impaled by a piece of steel railing that went thru the fire wall, thru her, and thru the seat she was sitting on. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. Her boyfriend was brain dead drunk and coked to the gills. My friend got there just as he climbed into the back seat and was yelling at his screaming girlfriend to shut the fuck up, he was trying to get some sleep. The girl died screaming. It is beyond belief how they kept themselves from killing that sob. The cop who hand cuffed him was crying in rage. I’m sure there are many cops and fireman out there who can share similar stories. I had to slam a burglar I caught in my basement a few years back. I nearly snapped his arm with the wrist hold I put on him ( I teach self defense). He was so high on smack he barely blinked. Two other times I’ve had to arrest men so high on drugs their faces were twisted into Satan incarnate and felt no pain no matter how hard I applied a wrist hold. Every single day in this country cops respond to a murder scene where some dude on some kind of rat poison drug kills someone and wakes up in a jail cell and doesn’t remember a thing.
In these cases cops have to have some lee-way. Tell me how any cop can stay emotionally ‘separated’ when he is wrestling with some one who is literally acting like Linda Blair in the Exorcist, where she spews green vomit. The one guy I wrestled with was spitting bloody foam.
Now I gonna have trouble sleeping again. I shouldn’t dredge up these bad memories.
Rainman…..
Clearly, the cops should have let this guy continue to do what he was doing. Many of the commenters would have them do nothing. Then they would complain that they just make reports and count bodies.
I’ll admit it is difficult for me to take the side of cops. They lie for each other, act as judge, jury and executioner and some are outright criminals. They even uphold unconstitutional laws.
That being said, not many people like lawyers or cops until they need one. DO NOT CALL A COP ON ANYONE YOU CARE ABOUT UNLESS IT IS LIFE OR DEATH.
You kill it, you eat it. That should be the rule, same as wasting for wildlife. Betcha think twice before killing someone then.
It all comes down to the individual cop. Are they decent people,Or abusive jackasses.
yashure…you are correct, but when the “decent” cop just stands there and does not attempt to rectify the situation, all bets are off.
I do realize that the “thin blue line” has no use for those who want to do the right thing. Those who want to “do the right thing” are quite often shunned bu their “brethren in blue”, so it is a difficult situation.
I hope it does not come to this, but, just maybe a “posse” of honest citizens could “pay a visit” to these “bad cops” at their homes and give them a good talkin’ to”…even to the point of treating them like thei treat us mere “mundane” citizens…