Dispatch from Torture Nation
by digby
When her son with Down syndrome grew enraged in April, Ana V. Ramirez called 911 for help, but with a warning for police: Do not use a Taser on the young man. But an officer did use a stun gun, prompting Ramirez and another adult son to frantically try to pull the electrified prongs from Christian Pagan, 25, who suffers from a delicate heart condition. Now, the mother and brother face trial on a charge of resisting arrest without violence. Prosecutors had dropped Ramirez’s case last month, but refiled the charges Thursday after police complained, according to her defense attorney, Ricardo P. Hermida, who said the state was “browbeaten into a bogus refile.” “In this case, the young prosecutor absolutely did the right thing and dumped the case” initially, Hermida said. Ramirez, 57, a former Circuit City manager, cares for her son full-time at their West Kendall house. Christian Pagan, a graduate of G. Holmes Braddock Senior High School, was born with a hole in his heart. On April 22, Pagan had a violent outburst, storming around the house and cutting his hand as he thrashed about. Ramirez dialed 911, but warned the dispatcher against using the Taser, according to a recording of the call. “He’s a handicap kid. I don’t want them to shoot him with a Taser,” she told the dispatcher. In an interview Friday, she said: “His heart is not like mine or yours. It’s weak.” Miami-Dade police Officer Idania Felipe wrote in a report that Pagan, “visibly agitated and in a fit of rage . . . violently charged at me” outside the house. Felipe said she fired the Taser because she feared “for my safety.” Ramirez and her other son, Hernando Yunis, 21, hurled themselves over Pagan, pleading with police to stop. Ramirez said officers shot Pagan with the Taser six times, and herself once. But Felipe wrote that the mother and son refused to obey commands and “continued to obstruct and resist my efforts to perform my lawful duties.” Ramirez and Yunis were charged with resisting arrest without violence, a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 364 days in jail. Pagan was not charged. “The officers were acting in good faith,” Miami-Dade police spokesman Javier Baez said of the episode.
The police insisted that the prosecutor refile this case. I guess they truly believe that the mom and her other son deserve to be jailed for “interfering” even though they had warned the cops that the kid had a heart condition.
This should serve as a warning to anyone in the country. Do not call the police into any domestic situation in which someone involved has a heart condition or is otherwise in poor health. They might just get electrocuted regardless of your warnings about their health condition. (If someone’s on drugs you might as well put them in a bathtub and throw a live toaster in with them — they WILL be tasered and if they die nobody on earth will care.)
BTW: tasers are very, very dangerous to anyone with an underlying heart condition. Unfortunately, not everyone knows that they have any underlying heart condition so they might think it’s safe to exercise their constitutional rights. Probably best to just not do that.
h/t to BG
.