Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Salem man dies after police shoot him with a Taser

Salem man dies after police shoot him with a Taser

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/salem_man_dies_after_police_sh.html#preview

If you don’t want people (including the Police) to think you are doing something, don’t engage in activities that tend to draw the conclusion that you may be indeed doing that given ‘thing’. I.e., If you don’t want people to think you are a drunk, don’t come staggering out of a bar every night at 2:30.

If you don’t want people to think you are trespassing, don’t go snooping around their property without their permission.

This is a set of circumstances that can be Monday Morning Quarterbacked to death. While its true the Police are supposed to be trained professionals, placed in a “him or me” situation I believe a person or group of people trained or not are capable of instinctively using survival level (deemed ‘excessive’ by some) force.

There are several factors at work here not the least of which is Gregory Rold’s general health / physical condition. If when confronted by Police, Gregory Rold had stopped and talked to the Police and answered their questions, it is likely that not only would he be alive today, but freely walking the streets after receiving a warning not to go rummaging for pop cans in the trash without permission from the property owner or manager.

As soon as Mr. Rold made the choice to give the Police a reason to arrest him, then subsequently began to resist arrest, the entire dynamic changed. Now, not only do the Police have to take this guy into custody, they have to do it without getting hurt themselves, they must control their instinctual urges while constantly assessing and reassessing the situation, try and do as little harm to the suspect as reasonably possible given the circumstances all within a few seconds.

With all that is happening in those few short moments, the Police need to also send the message that guilty or innocent, your full cooperation is the best way to avoid any problems. Once it is determined that a suspect is resisting, the word “unpleasant” will take on a whole new meaning as it should.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am deeply struck by this as Mr. Rold's aunt is my mother's neighbor, they are also good friends as well.

I visit my mom whenever I get the chance and one person that always stuck out to me everytime with his personality was Mr. Rold as he was never shy to yell across the street "How is your day going" or " How are you doing". A bit odd at times but nothing out of the ordinary for a man who is a skitsofrenick.

So when I heard this story and read the articles about it I needed to hear it from a person that was close to him or was there. What I came to learn was that indeed Greg was trespassing but that he was doing so to get a fresh pair of clothe changing. So in other words a man's life was taken over something so stupid.

I spoke to his mother who was present while all this happened she told me that he had wanted to stop by her apartment to get a changing of clothes and head back to his aunt's where he had been staying as he did not have a place of his own. Something that would have taken 20 minutes at most. Within those 20 minutes police officers arrived on a call of trespassing. Mr. Rold was forced to the ground and arrested.. By 4 police officers as you can see above. His mother then told me that while on the ground a police officer shot Greg with a taser and kept sending a series of electric shocks to him that lasted about 5 minutes while others beat him with a baton. While he was completely man-handled, was not going any where, and was of ABSOLUTE NO THREAT.

For those that don't know the power of a taser; someone struck by a Taser experiences stimulation of his or her sensory nerves and motor nerves resulting in strong involuntary muscle contractions. In other words you go down within seconds of being hit by one... I did a little studying.

As she teared up she told me that her son's last words to her were "Mom, help. They are killing me". After that Greg was dragged outside where the officers realized that somehow he was unconcious after being shot with a taser and beat with a baton for several minutes. You don't say?!?! How the heck does that happen? Morons. He later died at the hospital.

My question is why did four officers have to use a taser to subdue a man with no weapon???? Were they not all man enough to take a 5'9" 240 pound man down??

Greg said...

Hello Anonymous,

Nobody is saying this isn't sad or even tragic, it is.

Police have micro moments to make a decision based on very little information. Going in, all they know is someone is doing something they probably shouldn’t be doing and it is the job of the Police to investigate if that is in fact what is happening. If in the course of that investigation the suspect makes any adversarial moves, the Police are going to act swiftly and aggressively as a matter of their own survival.

In that instance, they don’t have time to psychoanalyze or perform a physical assessment of the suspect. Their first priority is to control the situation by whatever means their limited information tells them is necessary. The majority of time it is a positive outcome for both the suspect and the Police in that nobody ends up seriously injured or dead. It is a rare occasion when a suspect or Police Officer ends up seriously injured or dead, but it is tragic nonetheless when it does happen.

If there were multiple cases of these same officers having similar results within a fairly short time span, I would definitely want an investigation into this incident, but that’s not the case here.

I am sorry for Gregory Rold’s Aunt’s loss as well as anyone else that cared about him and I am certain that the Police involved are also saddened by this unfortunate outcome – This is never the result anyone wants.

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