MOBERLY, Mo., June 28, 2009
Family Seeks Justice In Taser Death
Death Of Missouri Man Again Raises Questions About Whether Tasers Are A Safe Law Enforcement Tool
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Play CBS Video Video Deadly Police Tasers A Missouri family has settled a wrongful death suit following a fatal Taser gun shooting by police. The incident is raising questions about police training on the use of Tasers. Jeff Glor reports.
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(AP / CBS)
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"I never imagined that when I walked out that door that would be the last time I saw my son alive," Bachtel told CBS News this week, after settling her lawsuit stemming from her son's death.
Her 23-year-old son, Stanley Harlan, was the youngest of her three children. Easy going and sports loving, Harlan had recently become the father of a baby boy.
Driving home from work at a local restaurant that August night, Harlan was pulled over by a patrolman in their hometown of Moberly, Missouri, 40 miles north of Columbia. Police would later say he'd been speeding -- driving 38 miles an hour in a 25 mph zone.
Harlan immediately got out of his vehicle wanting to know why he was stopped, as video from the cameras mounted on police cars show. Patrol Officer Gary Breyfogle called for backup and checked Harlan's driver's license and vehicle registration.
Officers Shane Newbrough and Jeremy Baird quickly arrived on the scene. None of the officers administered any sobriety tests. They later said Harlan wasn't threatening but refused to cooperate.
Bachtel, in her bathrobe, was on the street looking on in confusion as the incident rapidly deteriorated.
"Baird just grabbed him, put his hands on him, and Stanley was just trying to get away," she said. In the police car video it appears as though the officers may have been trying to handcuff or arrest Harlan. He squirmed, they pushed.
"They never said he was under arrest," Bachtel says. "He was actually over there in the grass facing them with his hands up in the air saying, 'I'm not resisting." That's when they tased him."
Following an order by Officer Newbrough, Officer Baird deployed his X26 Taser gun -- firing its 50,000 volts of electricity three times in a row for a total of 31-seconds, which is six times longer than recommended in typical police training sessions.
"I will never forget the horrible scream my son let out," Bachtel says.
Harlan fell to the ground, knocked unconscious, and went into cardiac arrest. For 14 minutes, as seen on the videotape, the officers gave him no medical attention but did search his car. By the time paramedics arrived, it was too late.
The city of Moberly and its police department declined our interview requests but in a written statement called Harlan's death "unanticipated and unintentional."
City Manager Andy Morris wrote, "In the dynamic world of law enforcement, police officers must often make split-second decisions in tense, rapidly-evolving situations. Unfortunately, not all confrontations in which police officers are involved have safe endings."
The tragic incident in Moberly is again putting the safety of Taser devices under scrutiny.
"It's a less lethal weapon. That doesn't mean it can't be lethal," says Police Chief Ken Burton, in nearby Columbia, Missouri, were all 156 of his patrol officers are equipped with the X26, which has a firing range of 35 feet.
But Burton has restricted their use, for example, prohibiting officers from Tasering a fleeing suspect, such as the recent case of a shoplifter who was hit with a Taser while running away with a pair of tennis sneakers.
"I changed the policy, so our officers understand they need to feel like they were personally in danger or a third person was in danger," Burton says.
In eight hour training course, Columbia officers are taught that if it's necessary to fire the Taser, five seconds should be enough, and if that doesn't work to subdue a suspect, try some other use of force.
The Harlan death in Missouri comes as the popularity of Tasers with U.S. law enforcement agencies has soared in the past decade -- from 500 agencies adopting Tasers in 2000 to 14,201 agencies using them today, according to Arizona-based Taser International, the leading supplier of electronic control devices. That's eighty percent of the nation's law enforcement agencies.
Chief Burton says, "I think anything we can put in an officer's tool box that is less lethal is a positive. If it's something they can use that's not likely to kill the suspect, that's my preference."
But as of two years ago, the Bureau of Justice Statistics had already counted three dozen "Taser-related" deaths at the hands of police between 2003 and 2005, while in a 2008 report Amnesty International cited more than 50 cases where medical examiners found a Taser shock contributed to death.
Taser International disputes those findings as lacking scientific proof.
Peter Holran, the company's vice president for public relations and government affairs, told CBS News, "The electrical output of a Taser device is incapable of causing death."
He cited studies such as the work of Dr. William Bozeman at Wake Forest University, who examined 1,200 cases of Taser use by police and found serious injuries occurred less than one percent of the time.
Taser International sees its responsibility to "train the trainers" who show fellow officers how to properly use the devices. "The policy of when they can be used is up to the local community and the local agency," Holran said.
Moberly Police have suspended their use of Tasers indefinitely, as result of Batchel's wrongful death lawsuit, and will now deploy defibrillators in some patrol cars.
Outside her home, she has erected a shrine to her son, which lists the number of deaths reportedly attributed to Taser use by police.
Her settlement with Moberly also resulted in a $2.4 million payout, the maximum that could be obtained under the city's insurance policies. The primary beneficiary will be Harlan's son, who just turned one.
After a probe by the Missouri Highway Patrol, neither local nor state prosecutors brought criminal charges against the officers involved in Harlan's death. His family and their attorneys are appealing to the Justice Department to review the case in the hopes that prosecutors would consider bringing federal civil rights charges against them.
"I made a promise to our son that I would never give up, and I would fight for justice for him," Bachtel says. "You don't watch your child being murdered and feel the same about life."
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Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 54 CommentsOn page 26, the Amnesty report discusses statistics from the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics that about 300 people per year experience sudden arrest-related custody deaths. "While the above report showed no apparent statistical change in the number of deaths nationwide after the introduction of Tasers, research indicates that many deaths in US police custody occur during police restraining procedures. There is longstanding concern that certain types of police restraint can increase the risk of death, including people compromised by drug or alcohol abuse."
Well, duh. Sudden in-custody deaths have happened for decades, and they are typically associated with alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, PCP, LSD, schizophrenia, and bi-polar disease. It hasn't mattered whether the police use chokeholds, hog-ties, pepper spray, dog-piles, or TASERs . . . most people in medical crisis from the above conditions will live, but a relative handful (about 300 per year) will die, regardless of what police tool or tactic is used, and regardless of whether the police are even at the scene.
Capt. Greg Meyer
Los Angeles Police Department (Ret.)
This is a typical and poor argument. The cop who tasered Mr. Harlan to death also had a gun. Everyone agrees that there was no reason to use a gun. As a result, if he didn't have a taser, he wouldn't have used his gun and Harlan would still be alive. Cops don't pick between a gun and a taser, they pick between talking and a taser. That is the problem with the training that is out there.
Having said that, there is a difference between a bad cop and one that makes a mistake. Cops are imperfect people just like everyone else. But, as previously stated, they should be held to a higher standard. We should be able to trust the cops to be fair and just. At least that's how it is in my neighborhood.
Mine does that too, when I watch scary movies, or ride a cool roller coaster.
I have been Tased. It hurts like hell, and it incapacitates you. Tasers, as law enforcement's newest tool, have quickly become the target of liberal media who decry ANY use of force by the "fascist" police.
I have not had any experience with these, other than to see some demonstration films or what not.
I know that they are misused and abused, and used to torture people.
I watched a video of some officers snuff out the life of a African American male in Georgia, with a taser, this was a real snuff film, and it was not allowed at the trial of the officers.
On other non-lethal weapons, have you ever been peppered with Pepperball, while you were sleeping?
Have you ever had the police spray pepper spray under your motel room door, while you were sleeping?
The United States Manufactures more torture devices than any other nation in the world, one would have to assume that they use them the most.
These abuses with these devices, or chemicals, are just fun and games among the police in the U. S.
Fellow Citizens we have a problem with the police, we have a problem with the Federal Government, it is called fascism, Americans have become more and more Authoritarian, and the problems with the economy and America's decline image in the world will make citizens even more Authoritarian.
Could America become a dictatorship? unfortunately yes America is being driven in that direction.
The misuse of these Non-Lethal weapons is a sign or this.
Taser is considered "less lethal" force. Taser is an "intermediate" weapon, which falls between hard empty hand techniques like strikes and kicks , and deadly force. Deadly force can be anything designed or by intended use, causes serious bodily injury or death, but most easily correlates to pistols and shotguns.
Tasers are not designed to cause serious bodily injury or death. Therefore they are not deadly weapons.
What a crazy question. It shows the insanity of the liberal minds who ask it.
Tasers are a better alternative than bullets. More lives have been saved than taken by Taser use.
There will always be problems with improper use, and police training can always be improved, but only self-serving people like Athena Bachtel are foolish enough to think they should be banned. That's just stupid.
Those of you who say that if you don't do anything wrong, you won't get tasered- You are either not paying attention to reality, or you are too stupid to see it, or you're a cop who is trying to convince us and yourself that cops never do anything wrong.
Exactly. The story above says that the guy was pulled over and jumped out of his car.
And while he wasn't threatening, but he was refusing to cooperate.
Why didn't he just pull over, turn on the interior lights, and put both hands on the wheel where the cop could see them when he approached the driver's side door? He'd still be alive if he just simply did what he was supposed to.
Who's fault is that?
As on post don't resist or break the law and it will never be used on you will it?
Exactly. The story above says that the guy was pulled over and jumped out of his car.
And while he wasn't threatening, but he was refusing to cooperate.
Why didn't he just pull over, turn on the interior lights, and put both hands on the wheel where the cop could see them when he approached the driver's side door? He'd still be alive if he just simply did what he was supposed to.
Who's fault is that?
THAT is the "typical shallow thinking" on the part of abusive cops and those who support their abuses! There are NOT just two options, lethal force or tasers. There are MANY options available to a cop in nearly every situation:
1. waiting until the person calms down. (often, this is all that's necessary!)
2. talking to the person, to get him to stop whatever he's doing that the cop thinks is bad.
3. containing the person, (surrounding him, cordoning off the area, etc.) so his actions can't pose a threat to anyone else.
4. physically restraining the person (use the fat, bubba!).
5. hitting the person's arms or legs with a stick.
6. tasering the person.
7. shooting the person with a gun.
Options 4 through 7 should be preceded by a verbal warning if time allows. Many people don't want to be beaten or tasered or shot, and they will comply with whatever the cop wants, just to avoid it.
This is just a partial list. There are likely to be many more options available to any cop who has a brain and the desire to "protect and serve" the people. But it seems that too many cops have neither the intelligence, nor the desire to do the right thing.
Idiot like you, who think being shot is the only other option, aren't helping the situation.
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