CINCINNATI — Everette Howard, a student from Cincinnati was killed at the University Of Cincinati by campus police who used a taser on him after a confrontation.

WLWT Cincinnati reports:

Everette Howard, 18, died early Saturday morning. Friends said Howard was trying to break up a fight in front of Turner Hall when campus police responded.

Police said Howard appeared angry and didn’t follow orders. Witnesses said Howard collapsed after a UC officer stunned him with a Taser.

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KABC reports:

“They kept beating him and Tasering him. I could hear zapping, and he wasn’t even moving,” said Turgeon. “He had one arm in front of him like this, he wasn’t resisting. And they kept telling him, ‘He’s resisting, quit resisting,’ and he wasn’t resisting.”

Police say they won’t talk about what force was used since it’s under investigation, but they say at least six officers were involved and two officers suffered broken bones in the fight.

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RICHLAND, Ga. – One officer was fired and another quit after a rural Georgia woman who called police to complain of a prowler was zapped repeatedly with a stun gun.

Ryan Smith of the Lumpkin Police Department has resigned and Tim Murphy, of Richland Police Department, was fired for using pepper spray on the woman, Janice Wells.

Wells, 57, says she feared a prowler was outside her Richland house. A minute-long dashboard video from Smith’s patrol car shows the officer pulling up to assist another officer.

What happens is largely hidden by an open police cruiser door, but Wells can be heard screaming “Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” as a stun gun is heard repeatedly zapping.

Authorities say the April 26 struggle began when Wells wouldn’t tell police the name of an acquaintance who had been at her house. Lumpkin Police Chief Steven Ogle says the video is shocking.

Well has hired an attorney.

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The mayor of a small Arkansas town wants an independent investigation on whether it was appropriate for a police officer to use a Taser on an unruly 10-year-old girl who kicked him in the groin.

Mayor Vernon McDaniel says he wants Arkansas State Police or the FBI to look into whether the use of the Taser was proper. The girl, who hasn’t been identified, wasn’t hurt and is now at the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil.

Ozark police were called to the home Nov. 11 after the girl’s mother couldn’t get the child to take a shower.

Ozark Police Chief Jim Noggle, who has defended the officer’s action, didn’t immediately return a call for comment Wednesday morning.

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From North West Florida Daily News

The Pensacola Police Department will review its rules on the use of Tasers in the wake of a fatal chase in which an officer fired a stun gun from his moving car.

“There is not an exact prohibition from that in the policy,” Police Chief John Mathis said. “Any … time that we are involved in something, everything will come under review. It does not say that you will not fire from a moving vehicle.”

Officer Jerald Ard fired his Taser as he chased a man who was fleeing on a bicycle Saturday morning in Brownsville.
The unidentified man fell off the bike. The car Ard was driving then ran over the man, Pensacola police said.

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Police in Mobile, Alabama used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf, mentally disabled man who they said wouldn’t leave a store’s bathroom.

The family of 37-year-old Antonio Love has filed a formal complaint over the incident on Friday.

Police tell the Press-Register of Mobile that officers shot pepper spray under the bathroom door after knocking several times. After forcing the door open, they used the stun gun on Love.

Police spokesman Christopher Levy says police didn’t realize Love had a hearing impairment until after he was out of the bathroom. The officers’ conduct is under investigation.

The newspaper says the officers attempted to book Love on charges including disorderly conduct, but a magistrate on duty wouldn’t accept the charges.

Boise police officers used excessive force when they taunted and threatened a handcuffed man and then Tasered him in the buttocks, a report from the city’s police ombudsman said.

The actions of one of the involved officers — called Officer No. 3 in the report — were “not appropriate, not condoned and not professional,” Boise Police Chief Michael Masterson said in reaction to the release of the report on Wednesday.

The February incident was captured by an audio recording made by one of the police officers at the unidentified man’s home.

“If you move again, I’m going to stick this Taser up your (expletive) and pull the trigger,” one of the officers said. “Now, do you feel this in your (expletive)? — I’m going to Tase your (expletive) if you move again.”

Police violated the department’s use-of-force policy when the officers Tasered the man once in the back before he was handcuffed, and then in the buttocks after he was handcuffed, Boise Community Ombudsman Pierce Murphy concluded in the report, which was based partly on the audio recording.

“Officer No. 3 punctuated his offensive speech language by pushing the Taser between the complainant’s buttocks and against his anal and genital areas,” Murphy wrote. “Such speech combined with these actions was especially offensive.”

The ombudsman, established by the city council in 1999, carries out independent reviews and investigates complaints made against the police department.

Eight officers responded to the home in February on what police said was a potentially violent situation, with the safety of a woman and child thought to be at risk. When officers pounded on the door the man inside shouted profanity back at them, then pushed against the door to keep police out, police said.

Murphy wrote in the report that police didn’t identify themselves, and that the man feared that a friend of the woman had arrived to beat him up. But once police came through the door, the subject quickly went down on the floor, Murphy wrote.

Police officials said an officer and supervisor have been disciplined, although they wouldn’t say how, citing state law on personnel matters. The names of the officer and supervisor haven’t been released, and they are identified only as Officer No. 3 and Officer No. 10 in the ombudsman’s report.

Officer 3′s behavior is the exception, not the rule for the department, Masterson said.

“This was the first time either employee had been before the discipline board,” he said. “They have not been involved in serious policy violations throughout their career.”

The supervisor, an 18-year veteran, also erased an audio recording of an interview with the suspect at the jail and neglected to write a report on the use of force in the arrest, according to the ombudsman.

Ron Coulter, an attorney in nearby Eagle, said he was retained by the man earlier this year and plans to file a lawsuit against the police department.

A federal civil rights lawsuit alleges a southern Illinois sheriff’s deputy used a stun gun on three children at an emergency shelter while a fellow deputy mistreated a fourth child.

The children’s guardian is suing the Jefferson County deputies, the county and Sheriff Roger Mulch.

According to the lawsuit filed July 1, the deputies responded to the shelter near Mount Vernon last summer to help control two 12-year-olds and an 11-year-old. But the three children who were allegedly shocked with the stun gun and another child who was forced into a closet after trying to intervene weren’t the youths who prompted the call.

No criminal charges have been filed. And Mulch says investigations, including one by Illinois State Police, found that the deputies acted appropriately.

From The St. Louis Gazette

The suit says that without any physical provocation, Bowers used a Taser on one boy multiple times, including at least once on his neck. Bowers pushed another boy down on his bunk and threatened to sodomize him before shocking him multiple times and causing him to urinate and defecate, the suit says.
Lawler then handcuffed another boy before Bowers shocked him multiple times with the Taser. A 17-year-old girl who was pleading with the deputies to stop was then handcuffed by Lawler, choked and threatened by Bowers and then tossed into a closet, the suit says.

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WEBSTER, Texas – Police used a Taser on a pastor and pepper spray to disperse his congregants Wednesday after the pastor allegedly interfered with a traffic stop in the church parking lot.

Congregants say they were in the Iglesia Profetica Peniel church for an early morning prayer when pastor Jose Elias Moran went to assist the stopped driver, a church member, by asking the police what had happened.

An incident report on the Webster police department’s Web site said Officer Raymond Berryman tried to calm Moran and arrest him. But police say he pushed the officer, went inside the church and returned with 40 other congregants.

The congregants say Moran fled into the church when the officer grew angry and began to yell, and Moran’s family disputes that the pastor touched the officer.

Moran’s son Miguel said 30 witnesses saw the officer turn aggressive and repeatedly kick the church door. Several members were hit with pepper spray and children were present, Miguel Moran said.

“They treated him as if he were a drug dealer or murderer, but he is a pastor that tries to help the community,” Moran said. “The police always want to be right but they are not.”

Moran’s wife, Maria, said she tried to help her husband after he was hit with the Taser but police threatened to arrest her.

“My husband has a heart condition and with electrocution who knows what could’ve happened,” Maria Moran said, referring to the Taser’s electrical shock.

“A pastor has to tend to his flock,” she said. “That is all he was doing.”

Speaking from a hospital bed Wednesday night, Moran told The Associated Press he planned to hire an attorney to file charges against the officer. He was being held at the hospital overnight for additional tests.

Police did not immediately return calls seeking comment and more details of the incident. Police Sgt. James Lovel did not specify Moran’s status, except to say he was in custody and negotiations for bail were taking place Wednesday night.

Webster is a suburb southeast of Houston.

She dared a deputy constable to shock her with a Taser.

So, he did.

Video released by a Travis County Constable’s Office shows Deputy Chris Bieze confronting 72-year-old Kathryn Winkfein after stopping her for speeding on May 11 just outside Austin.

Video from a camera mounted in the deputy’s car shows Winkfein cursing and challenging the deputy and even daring him to use the Taser on her.

“You’re going to shove me? You’re going to shove a 72-year-old woman?” she yelled.

Winkfein told KTBC-TV in Austin that she did nothing to provoke the use of the Taser.

But Precinct 3 Sgt. Maj. Gary Griffin said Bieze used the Taser only after Winkfein became combative.

There was no immediate comment from Winkfein on Wednesday. A call to her home was answered by a fax machine.

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Police in Michigan say a 15-year-old boy has died after being Tasered by officers who were trying to break up a fight.

Police didn’t release his name and say state police are investigating.

A Bay City police news release says officers answered a report of an early morning fight on Sunday. The statement says two males were arguing in an apartment, and one of them “attempted to fight the officers.”
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Police say officers Tasered him, and his reaction led them to immediately call for emergency medical help. He was pronounced dead at Bay Regional Medical Center.

An Amnesty Internationalreport claims that more than 300 people have been killed after being Tasered since 2001 in the US.

Deputy Chief Thomas Pletzke tells WNEM-TV police placed one officer on administrative leave.

Houston police officers have used Tasers more on black suspects than any other group of individuals, according to a city study released Monday.

Of 1,417 Taser deployments by officers between December 2004 and June 2007, nearly 67 percent were used on black suspects, according to an audit conducted for the city by a team of criminology, statistics and mathematics experts. About 25 percent of Houston’s population is black.

The audit was requested by Houston Mayor Bill White in 2006, after several high-profile incidents. That year, Houston Texans offensive lineman Fred Weary was shocked during a traffic stop, and an officer called to quiet a noisy music club shocked musicians and concertgoers. The latter incident was videotaped and widely viewed on YouTube.

Minister Robert Muhammad, with the southwest regional headquarters for The Nation of Islam, said the study shows that police are more apt to use the weapons on black suspects than suspects of other races.

“Can we say it’s racism? Yes, and some people would argue no,” said Muhammad. “The greater argument is abuse of authority. We give them authority to protect us. But instead of using that authority to protect us, they abuse us with it.”

Houston police said their use of Tasers was not tied to race, but to a person’s behavior.

“It’s not a racial issue. A Taser device is no different from a radar gun. It’s race neutral,” Executive Assistant Police Chief Charles McClelland said after the Houston City Council meeting during which the report was released.

The study found that black officers were less likely than white or Hispanic officers to use Tasers on a black suspect.

“We have to spend more time in determining why these racial and ethnic differences exist,” said City Controller Annise Parker, whose office oversaw the audit. “Simply ignoring them or saying they are not significant is not going to make them go away.”

McClelland said Houston police arrest more than 100,000 people each year, and less than one-half of 1 percent of those individuals are ever involved in a Taser event.

“It is so rare,” he said.

The report did not give a breakdown of arrests by minorities.

The city spent .7 million on Tasers in 2004. The Tasers were introduced a year after the shootings of two unarmed teens. But the audit found that Tasers, which were touted as an alternative to the use of deadly force, did not reduce the number of officer-involved shootings.

The audit also found that no policy exists as to how many times a Taser may be used on an individual.

About 11,500 law enforcement agencies across the country use Tasers, according to the National Institute of Justice.

Tasers, which deliver a 50,000-volt jolt through two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing, are manufactured by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International.

A former police officer accused of repeatedly jolting a handcuffed man with a Taser before he died pleaded not guilty Thursday to a manslaughter charge.

Scott Nugent, 21, also pleaded not guilty to a charge of malfeasance in office during his arraignment in court. The former Winnfield police officer was freed on $45,000 bond last week after a grand jury indicted him on both charges in connection with the death of Baron Pikes, 21.

Nugent faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted of the charges. Fired in May, he is appealing his dismissal.

Nugent allegedly shocked Pikes nine times with a 50,000-volt Taser while arresting the handcuffed man on a drug possession warrant Jan. 17, according to authorities.

Winn Parish coroner Randolph Williams ruled Pikes’ death was a homicide.

George Higgins, one of Nugent’s attorneys, called it “nonsense” for the coroner to conclude that the Taser jolts caused Pikes’ death.

“It’s not supported by science,” Higgins said in a telephone interview after the arraignment.

A study released in June by the National Institute of Justice didn’t find any “conclusive medical evidence” that exposure to so-called conducted energy devices, including Tasers, carries a high risk of serious injury or death.

Taser International Inc. spokesman Steve Tuttle said he couldn’t discuss the Winnfield case because it involves an “ongoing legal matter.”

“However, it should be noted that there are facts in this case that are disputed, including the findings of the medical examiner, and urge that judgment be withheld until the legal proceedings are complete,” Tuttle said in a statement.

Taser International says it has sold more than 365,000 of its devices to more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies.

Amnesty International has identified 332 cases in the U.S. since 2001 in which people died after police struck them with a Taser, Amnesty researcher Angela Wright said Thursday.

Autopsy reports in more than 40 of those cases cited the Taser as a contributing factor in the death, but medical examiners usually attributed the cause of death to other factors, such as drug intoxication, Wright said.

“It’s very rare that officers are charged” with a crime in connection with a Taser death, she added.

Nugent is scheduled to return to court Oct. 23 for a hearing on motions in the case. A tentative date for his jury trial is also expected to be set then, authorities said.

Last week, the mother of Pikes’ 4-year-old son filed a wrongful death suit in federal court against city officials, Nugent and Taser International.

Taser International says it has a nearly perfect record in product liability lawsuits, with all but one of those 73 cases resulting in a dismissal or a verdict favoring the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company.

In June, a federal jury in San Jose, Calif., held Taser International partially liable for the death of a man who had a Taser used on him during an arrest. The company was ordered to pay $1 million in compensatory damages and $5.2 million in punitive damages.

Watch CNN Cover the Tasering Death of Baron Pikes