Virginia cop resigns after using Taser, pepper spray on possible stroke victim
BY Jason Molinet
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Saturday, May 23, 2015, 1:14 AM
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A Virginia police officer resigned amid claims of excessive force when he used a Taser and pepper-sprayed a man who was suffering from a medical emergency, according to police accounts and newly released body cam video.
Fredericksburg Police Officer Shaun Jergens stepped down May 14, 10 days after he confronted wrong-way driver David Washington, 34, in a suspected hit-and-run crash.
But Washington had actually suffered a stroke, an unnamed source told WTOP.
While Jergens has denied any wrongdoing, Capt. Rick Pennock admitted Friday the officer used excessive force.
Body camera footage shows Fredericksburg Police Cpl. Matt Deschenes (l.) holster his weapon as Officer Shaun Jurgens prepares to pepper-spray driver David Washington.
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Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens prepares to pepper-spray driver David Washington, who has had a stroke and an accident, in this footage from his body camera. Cpl. Matt Deschenes is seen in the foreground. Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens pepper-sprays driver David Washington, who has had a stroke and an accident, in this footage from his body camera. Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens (arm seen in foreground) prepares to Taser driver David Washington, who has had a stroke and an accident, in this footage from his body camera. Cpl. Matt Deschenes is seen in the background. Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens is about to cuff driver David Washington (PICTURED), 34, who may have had a stroke and an accident, and put him on the ground after Tasering and pepper-spraying him in this footage from fellow officer Cpl. Matt Deschene's body camera.
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WTOP News via YouTube
Body camera footage shows Fredericksburg Police Cpl. Matt Deschenes (l.) holster his weapon as Officer Shaun Jurgens prepares to pepper-spray driver David Washington.
"The use of force demonstrated in the incident involving Mr. Washington was not in compliance with department policy or training," Pennock said in a statement. "We take matters such as these very seriously and require that officers at all times exercise appropriate restraint and good judgment in their dealings with citizens."
Police body-cameras promote transparency
The showdown took place earlier this month when Washington plowed through a city road sign, drove over a median and eventually struck another car before his Hyundai came to a stop in the middle of an intersection near the campus of the University of Mary Washington.
Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jergens resigned last week. Fredericksburg Police Department
Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jergens resigned last week.
Police responded to reports of a hit-and-run and found Washington still in his car. He refused to comply with officers' demands to show his hands, police said.
That's when Jergens, the last of three cops to arrive at the scene, promptly took control.
"It was dispatched via the radio that citizens reported that the suspect was moving around a lot inside of his vehicle," Jergens said in a statement to the Free Lance-Star. "I believed that the suspect may be looking for a weapon or looking to conceal a weapon based on this information and the fact that he was believed to be fleeing a felony (hit and run of an occupied vehicle)."
He approached the driver's side and shot Washington with a Taser through the open window, according to dramatic police footage.
Department policy doesn't permit officers to use stun guns on people passively resisting or still in control of a vehicle in motion, WTVR reported.
When his Taser didn't properly connect, video shows Jergens moved in close and doused Washington in the face with a stream of pepper spray as Cpl. Matt Deschenes opened the door and yanked an unresponsive Washington to the pavement.
Police, who found beer in the back seat of the Hyundai, believed Washington was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to WTOP.
Washington received medical attention at the scene and was hospitalized.
He still faces charges for driving with a suspended license, reckless driving and hit-and-run.
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Virginia cop resigns after using Taser, pepper spray on possible stroke victim
BY Jason Molinet
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Saturday, May 23, 2015, 1:14
A Virginia police officer resigned amid claims of excessive force when he used a Taser and pepper-sprayed a man who was suffering from a medical emergency, according to police accounts and newly released body cam video.
Fredericksburg Police Officer Shaun Jergens stepped down May 14, 10 days after he confronted wrong-way driver David Washington, 34, in a suspected hit-and-run crash.
But Washington had actually suffered a stroke, an unnamed source told WTOP.
While Jergens has denied any wrongdoing, Capt. Rick Pennock admitted Friday the officer used excessive force.
Body camera footage shows Fredericksburg Police Cpl. Matt Deschenes (l.) holster his weapon as Officer Shaun Jurgens prepares to pepper-spray driver David Washington.
Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens prepares to pepper-spray driver David Washington, who has had a stroke and an accident, in this footage from his body camera. Cpl. Matt Deschenes is seen in the foreground. Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens pepper-sprays driver David Washington, who has had a stroke and an accident, in this footage from his body camera. Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens (arm seen in foreground) prepares to Taser driver David Washington, who has had a stroke and an accident, in this footage from his body camera. Cpl. Matt Deschenes is seen in the background. Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jurgens is about to cuff driver David Washington (PICTURED), 34, who may have had a stroke and an accident, and put him on the ground after Tasering and pepper-spraying him in this footage from fellow officer Cpl. Matt Deschene's body camera.
Enlarge
WTOP News via YouTube
Body camera footage shows Fredericksburg Police Cpl. Matt Deschenes (l.) holster his weapon as Officer Shaun Jurgens prepares to pepper-spray driver David Washington.
"The use of force demonstrated in the incident involving Mr. Washington was not in compliance with department policy or training," Pennock said in a statement. "We take matters such as these very seriously and require that officers at all times exercise appropriate restraint and good judgment in their dealings with citizens."
Police body-cameras promote transparency
The showdown took place earlier this month when Washington plowed through a city road sign, drove over a median and eventually struck another car before his Hyundai came to a stop in the middle of an intersection near the campus of the University of Mary Washington.
Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jergens resigned last week. Fredericksburg Police Department
Fredericksburg Police Department Officer Shaun Jergens resigned last week.
Police responded to reports of a hit-and-run and found Washington still in his car. He refused to comply with officers' demands to show his hands, police said.
That's when Jergens, the last of three cops to arrive at the scene, promptly took control.
"It was dispatched via the radio that citizens reported that the suspect was moving around a lot inside of his vehicle," Jergens said in a statement to the Free Lance-Star. "I believed that the suspect may be looking for a weapon or looking to conceal a weapon based on this information and the fact that he was believed to be fleeing a felony (hit and run of an occupied vehicle)."
He approached the driver's side and shot Washington with a Taser through the open window, according to dramatic police footage.
Department policy doesn't permit officers to use stun guns on people passively resisting or still in control of a vehicle in motion, WTVR reported.
When his Taser didn't properly connect, video shows Jergens moved in close and doused Washington in the face with a stream of pepper spray as Cpl. Matt Deschenes opened the door and yanked an unresponsive Washington to the pavement.
Police, who found beer in the back seat of the Hyundai, believed Washington was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to WTOP.
Washington received medical attention at the scene and was hospitalized.
He still faces charges for driving with a suspended license, reckless driving and hit-and-run.
Follow on Twitter @jmolinet
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE FIRST VIDEO HERE. WATCH THE SECOND VIDEO HERE. WATCH THE THIRD VIDEO HERE.
Group says U.S. police killed at least 1,152 people this year
Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Police in the United States killed at least 1,152 people in the United States this year through Dec. 15, with the 60 largest police departments disproportionately killing black people, according to data compiled by activists who run the Mapping Police Violence project.
The group said most police departments did not provide numbers on officer-involved fatalities, so its data comes from three crowdsourced databases: FatalEncounters.org, the U.S. Police Shootings Database and KilledbyPolice.net as well as research through media, social media, obituaries, police reports and other sources.
Forty percent of people killed by police in the country's 60 biggest police departments were black, while the African-American population in those jurisdictions was 20 percent, the report said.
The group, formed by data scientist Samuel Sinyangwe and activists Johnetta Elzie and DeRay Mckesson, said the 2015 figure compares with 1,172 last year and 1,140 in 2013. The group says it believes its database reflects 90-98 percent of police killings since 2013.
Adding Up the Broken Souls
December 21, 2015
Adding Up the Broken Souls
by Robert Koehler
“The question now is how to change our institutions so that they promote human values rather than destroy them.”
Philip Zimbardo, who posed this question in the wake of the famous — or infamous — Stanford Prison Experiment 44 years ago, might have added: If we fail to do so, we guarantee our own social collapse.
The collapse is underway, one broken soul at a time.
“But the basic story the men told was the same: (Leonard) Strickland was pushed down a flight of stairs, and then beaten nearly to death by a large group of guards.”
This is from a recent New York Times investigative piece about inmate abuse at Clinton Correctional Facility, in upstate New York — a particularly boiling caldron of racism in America’s prison-industrial complex. Almost all of the nearly 1,000 guards who work at the rural prison are white; the inmates, mostly from New York City, are black. Not surprisingly, the prisoners say “they face a constant barrage of racial slurs.”
My my as more black people are coming into unfriendly contact with police in large cities it is hardly surprising that more black citizens are being killed by police.
When was the last time that there was a major riot made up of mainly whites for example.
College kids acting out after a sportng event is the only thing that come to mind at the moment.
Yeah, because the punishment for "acting up" and being "uppety" is death in the streets like a dog and all other sorts of extra-judicial punishment meted out in the streets by cops acting like one man martial law. Screw the Constitution, screw the Bill of Rights, screw prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment, screw due process, legal representation, facing one's accusers .... why do you hate the United States and the freedom to pursue happiness so much?????????????????
Yes indeed of course the fact that the police was being shot at during some of those riots by the peaceful protesters is beside the point not to mention firebombs and bricks being thrown and so on.
You right there is no reason other then police racism to explain why they are shot and or kill more by the police then other groups.
Once again, using an isolated anecdote to paint all murdered black males with the same false brush. You're either purposely pushing a false narrative or have reading comprehension worsened by a disconnect with information your eyes can see but not understand.
Defend this cop. Where's the brick?
0 Replies
bobsal u1553115
2
Wed 23 Dec, 2015 03:49 pm
Hey Bill, explain this one:
Border Patrol Officer Viciously Beats Elderly Couple for Helping an Injured Woman
An elderly couple was nearly killed by an out of control border patrol agent.
Out of nowhere, the off-duty public servant rushes in on the Good Samaritans and begins brutally beating this elderly couple. The LaDues were nearly killed by this out of control maniac.
Photo Credit: c/o The Free Thought Project
Brasher, NY — On the night of December 4, Carol LaDue and her husband Richard were travelling along County Route 37 near Massena, when they saw an injured woman lying in the road.
The woman was 33-year-old Ashley McDonald, who’d just been hit by a car and was dying.
As the couple got out of their vehicle to render aid to McDonald, they were savagely attacked by McDonald’s husband, Bryan, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Out of nowhere, the off-duty public servant rushes in on the Good Samaritans and begins brutally beating this elderly couple. The LaDues were nearly killed by this out of control maniac.
“I think he would have beat her to death, I really do, because there was no stopping the man. He was just out of control and very, very aggressive,” said Richard.
____
That night, Bryan McDonald was arrested and charged with two counts of felony assault. He was almost immediately released under probation supervision and faced no other charges, in spite of the fact that authorities still have no idea why his wife was lying in the road that night.
Border Patrol Officer Viciously Beats Elderly Couple for Helping an Injured Woman
An elderly couple was nearly killed by an out of control border patrol agent.
Out of nowhere, the off-duty public servant rushes in on the Good Samaritans and begins brutally beating this elderly couple. The LaDues were nearly killed by this out of control maniac.
Photo Credit: c/o The Free Thought Project
Brasher, NY — On the night of December 4, Carol LaDue and her husband Richard were travelling along County Route 37 near Massena, when they saw an injured woman lying in the road.
The woman was 33-year-old Ashley McDonald, who’d just been hit by a car and was dying.
As the couple got out of their vehicle to render aid to McDonald, they were savagely attacked by McDonald’s husband, Bryan, a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Out of nowhere, the off-duty public servant rushes in on the Good Samaritans and begins brutally beating this elderly couple. The LaDues were nearly killed by this out of control maniac.
“I think he would have beat her to death, I really do, because there was no stopping the man. He was just out of control and very, very aggressive,” said Richard.
____
That night, Bryan McDonald was arrested and charged with two counts of felony assault. He was almost immediately released under probation supervision and faced no other charges, in spite of the fact that authorities still have no idea why his wife was lying in the road that night.
Bobsal, I'm sure you know by now that Bill is NEVER going to concede that there is ANY instance that cops are brutal and unjust , OR that they are more often brutal and unjust toward folks of color. He's NEVER going to admit it. People like him CAN'T acknowledge murderous and brutal and racist police activity. It would be too much to handle. If they admit to being wrong about defending the indefensible as they always do, I seriously think it could cause some sort of psychic collapse - their whole fucked up white male superior house of cards would be threatened.
I KNOW you know that. So my question is, why do you keep beating your head against that particular wall?
I guess I'm demonstrating how useless it is to Robert to try to engage Bill in civil conversation and honest debate.
0 Replies
edgarblythe
1
Wed 23 Dec, 2015 07:42 pm
Big demonstration going on tonight.
0 Replies
BillRM
-1
Thu 24 Dec, 2015 12:01 am
@snood,
Quote:
Bobsal, I'm sure you know by now that Bill is NEVER going to concede that there is ANY instance that cops are brutal and unjust ,
Bullshit with a million men and women wearing the blue of course there are going to be bad apples but as a class they are out protectors.
I also been in too many cites in my life spanning decades where I had smell myself the smoke of cities blocks after being set afire by young black men not to understand the very special problems law enforcement have with this group.
Let see the first time was in the 1960s when I was working as a railroad ticket agent at Asbury Park NJ. To my joy the police and the rioters decided to use the railroad track near my station as the dividing line between the two groups.
The next happening was Miami in the 1980s where I needed to drive downtown arm to the teeth to picked up a girlfriend from her job. The burning good year tire store was very impressed indeed.
Next was a threaten riot that never happen when it was announce that the unhappy blacks was going this time to march on the white and Cuban communities.
Of course everyone was then arm to the teeth in the town waiting for this march on our homes and businesses.
My placed of employment a few blocks from a large black community had so many firearms that day taken into work we could had taken over a small south american nation ourselves..
No riot occur and one "black leader" declare afterward that god know what kind of weapons the Cubans was waiting for us with.
A few years before the US coast guard had stop a boat on the Miami River with a recoilless rifle mounted on it bow in an open manner.
When this group of Cubans was brought before the court for having such a weapon they was able to proved that the CIA had given them the weapon a decade or so before.. The case was drop but I guess the idea that there was heavy weapons in the Cuban communities was remember.
0 Replies
bobsal u1553115
2
Sat 26 Dec, 2015 07:22 am
Hero Security Guard Diffuses Hostage Situation Only to Be Fatally Shot by Late Arriving Cops
In familiar fashion, law enforcement officials insist that the victim of this police shooting – at least the 960th to occur in 2015 – was to blame.
By William N. Grigg / The Free Thought Project
December 24, 2015
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Just seconds later, Bobby Daniels was fatally shot – not by his mentally ill son, but by the sheriff’s deputies who had arrived on the scene.
Douglas County, GA — Bobby Daniels was a peace officer by trade – a private security guard employed at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta. When he learned that his emotionally troubled 25-year-old son Bias had suffered a breakdown and was holding a fellow security guard at gunpoint in a mobile home part in Douglasville, Bobby raced to the scene. Using the skills of persuasion and patient de-escalation upon which a private peace officer must rely, Bobby persuaded his son to relinquish his handgun and place it on the hood of a car.
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Just seconds later, Daniels was fatally shot – not by his mentally ill son, but by the sheriff’s deputies who had arrived on the scene.
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In familiar fashion, law enforcement officials insist that the victim of this police shooting – at least the 960th to occur in 2015 – was to blame, and they have provided contradictory accounts as to how it happened.
“I think that he could have been trying to help the situation instead of hurting it, but when he pointed the gun at the officers, he was shot,” asserted Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller in remarks to reports at the scene shortly after the December 21 incident.
A different official account provided by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation claims that as Bobby and Bias struggled over control of the gun, deputies attempted to incapacitate the younger man with a taser.
“As the fight continued between Bias and Bobby, the handgun was pointed at the deputies, at which point one of the deputy [sic] fired, striking and killing Bobby,” according to the GBI.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that my officer thought his life was in danger, and he did what he thought he had to do,” insists Sheriff Miller, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
That the deputy believed himself to be at risk is a certainty, if only because police officers are incessantly catechized about the grossly exaggerated risks of their job and marinated in misinformation about a non-existent “war on police.” That this was a potentially deadly situation was clear, as well. Daniels, who sought a non-lethal solution to the predicament, was willing to place himself at risk. The deputies, on the other hand, behaved in accordance with the “officer safety uber alles” mindset.
Eyewitness Garret Daniels, Bobby’s nephew, says that Bobby “tried to slap the gun off the car,” which may have led the deputies to think “he was trying to grab the gun probably to shoot them, but no he really wasn’t…. He was trying to protect [Bias]. That’s all he was trying to do.”
That version of events might explain why anxious deputies would have shot Bobby, but it contradicts the “official” account in which the father and son struggled over control of the gun. Speaking on behalf of the family, attorney Chris Stewart maintains that “At no point did [Bobby] touch the weapon, but for some reason the officer shot. What they should know is that they killed a victim. Bobby didn’t want anyone to be shot; he was trying to protect his son and the officers.”
Bobby Daniels, a Navy veteran, “would never ever take a gun and point it at an officer,”his grieving wife, Cynthia, insisted during a tearful press conference. “He would never do that.”
“Bobby Daniels is a veteran of the U.S. military,” attorney Stewart points out. “He is a father of five, married, a great man and the last person that would ever point a gun at an officer.” According to a press release issued by Stewart, the round that killed Bobby was “fired at a distance from an AR-15.”
Police officers, the public is told, are never off duty. The same principle applies to private peace officers, whose occupation is substantially more dangerous than that of government-employed police officers. Rick McCann, founder and CEO of Private Peace Officer International, observes that a far larger number of private security officers die in the line of duty than their public sector counterparts. Furthermore, while the overwhelming majority of on-duty police deaths happen “as a result of traffic accidents, or issues arising from training and physical conditioning,” more than eighty percent of the on-duty fatalities involving private security officers are “a result of traumatic, confrontational injury” inflicted by someone committing an act of criminal violence.
Unlike police officers, who are protected by “qualified immunity” and have no legally enforceable duty to protect an individual citizen, private security guards are fully accountable, both in civil and criminal terms, for any injury they inflict on innocent people – including liabilities that would be involved in failure to carry out their contractual obligation of protection.
Bobby Daniels was the first responder on the scene of the hostage situation, and he defused it without violence – only to be killed by government employees whose only tool is violence, and who almost certainly will not be held accountable for killing a private peace officer in the performance of his duty.
The police spokesman pointed out they had little choice but to kill Bobby Daniels - after all Daniels was black and "almost" in possession of a firearm. That it was a legal "near" possession could not be ascertained until after the black person in possession of the weapon had been "secured".
Just read this one and its just another example of wanton disregard for black lives in Chicago. No one needed to die. No one had to die. One cop ruins the lives of two families.
When are Bill's good cops finally going to step away from all these bad apples and STOP the killing???????
0 Replies
bobsal u1553115
5
Tue 29 Dec, 2015 06:24 am
Racism doesn't usually look like someone shouting slurs, it looks like people eagerly looking for a reason why a black kid deserved to die. - Lou Schumacher
Racism doesn't usually look like someone shouting slurs, it looks like people eagerly looking for a reason why a black kid deserved to die. - Lou Schumacher
Like pointing what could not be told from a real gun at a cop?
Racism doesn't usually look like someone shouting slurs, it looks like people eagerly looking for a reason why a black kid deserved to die. - Lou Schumacher
Like pointing what could not be told from a real gun at a cop?
Like conveniently not noticing that the cops could have confronted the boy verbally from a distance instead of bum rushing him and shooting him with no warning in a span of two seconds.Like not admitting that there is no way on God's green earth that cop would have been so quick to kill had this been a little 12 year old white boy .
