New News -- Cincannitti Police Officers Killed an Attacker

[Dis]

it's incredible that people think people can attack police with no repercussions

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Ned
On Greta van Susteren show last night, Jeff Vigers (sp?), former Democrat candidate for governor of Michigan and well know defense attorney, was literally apopletic about the incident. He minced no words. This was, in his highly experienced opinion because he had tried numerous such cases, excessive police force.

He ended with the observation that the man was peaceful and had not attacked anyone else until the police arrived, and then "he suddenly attacks the police?"

Let is say this. The jury is out on this issue.

The actions by the police while seemingly quite brutal were also necessary. The suspect was 350 LB and he was on PCP and cocaine. He was also very aggressive and initiated the conflict. In the struggle the officers suffered numerous injuries although not critical. Anyone on PCP is completely oblivious to pain. Even after being struck repeatedly by the officers baton, the suspect still resisted. this is not the same as the Rodney King incident when they beat him well after the point in which he resisted arrest.

[Dis]

I don't see what the problem is. The video clearly shows he attacked first. The officer almost got himself in a very bad situation- the guy almost had the officer in a headlock. When they were beating him, he was trying to get up, and he actually did get up again. You could see they were trying to handcuff him. Now if you couldn't see they were attempting to handcuff him- then it would clearly be police brutality. but they are trained to apply enough force to subdue a suspect in order to get him cuffed.

Although what isn't clear is what set the guy off. Allegedly he called the cop a white redneck and then lunged at the cop. But sadly people think police can't defend themselves and should just let themselves be killed.

[Dis]

what I don't understand is why people take PCP. You hear the horror stories of people on PCP, yet it still remains a fun drug for some people. Beats me.

[Berzerker]

Diagram it for me because you haven't made your point. The statement is ambiguous.

"my hasty emotional reaction"

was 2 things

1) the white cops were racist ;

2) they killed him for being a n*gger;

If you read it literally, it's unclear whether the author of the statement is using that "n" term as a personal judgement to refer to "him", the suspect, or whether the author means the cops view "him", the suspect, as a 'n*gger'.

Quite clear to me, assumption #2 derives from assumption #1, i.e., in #2 MrFun adopts the mindset of the cops who are, according to assumption #1, racist. Therefore a black man to a white racist is a n*gger, not to the one making hasty assumptions about the incident.

I just saw the unedited tape on Greta's show - conclusion: I don't know that the cops used excessive force, if a big guy like that is resisting arrest and he clearly was, you damn well better make sure he's under control asap. What surprised me was after the cops finally handcuffed him somehow, no one knew or didn't apply CPR. Hell, I know CPR! At one point, after they noticed he wasn't breathing, one of the cops said the guy has a heartbeat.

Uh oh, that wasn't cardiac arrest folks. I'm not a doctor but I play one at Apolyton. That was a breathing problem like apnea. You can't pin the arms of a guy like that behind his back without increasing the risk of causing apnea, It's like death by crucifixion. And big people like that are very prone to apnea, it doesn't take much to trigger it. The cops just stood around as the guy died, no one applied CPR even after they saw he had stopped breathing. Correction, one of the cops did lean over him and start pushing up and down on his chest a few times. But that's what you do to keep the heart pumping blood, not to assist breathing. Obviously if he had a heartbeat, you don't need to manually pump blood, you need to breathe into his lungs.

Playing Brett Favre for a minute, once they noticed he stopped breathing they should have uncuffed him and applied CPR until the paramedics arrived. Oh well, the idiot shouldn't have picked a fight with cops. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happened before the tape started rolling, but I understand the cops were called after paramedics were called to aid the guy who supposedly had "narcolepsy" (chronic fatigue is a side-effect of apnea) and was unconscience or asleep lying on the grass. The guy woke up and the cops were called for some reason and a fight broke out. But from the tape it was clear the guy had a dislike for white people by the way he addressed the cop before taking a swing at him.

[Dis]

I agree they should have applied mouth to mouth- as disgusting as that might be.

But can you fault a cop for not performing CPR? Actually I think there have been cases where people were sued for incorrect CPR. If the cop was certified for CPR and did not perform it- is that a libability?

Also someone mentioned earlier that even though he was 350 pounds (not 400) most of the weight was in the gut not the upper body and this guy posed little threat. That is false. Many fat people are surprisingly strong- they have to be to lift their own weight. Many fat women are stronger than I am- something I hate to admit , but I am a small guy unfortunately. What I'm trying to say, even though this guy was a tub of lard, he was still very strong compared to the cop who was of average build at best. If he had got the cop in a head-lock the cop could have died.

[Mad Bomber]

I'm not 350, but I weigh a few pounds myself and I suffer from Apnea. Its supprising how quick it can happen. First you black out , I don't mean fall asleep. I mean BLACK OUT. Then sometimes if you are asleep, your breathing pathway can become obstructed or restricted (this can be caused by your own body fat in the wrong position) usually if this happens you just roll over and start to breathe again. However with three or four cops sitting on him and restricting his movement, it could have easilty been the cause of his death.

[Berzerker]

MBomber, that sounds pretty severe. Please, lose weight! Even if you don't suffocate to death, apnea will cause all sorts of problems. And it doesn't take much weight loss to solve the problem. I got up to ~270 lbs and I would wake up in the middle of the night suffocating. I lost ~40 lb and the problem is gone. Smoking just makes it worse, but it's the weight that causes it. I did notice eating before going to sleep brought episodes on easier. And that's one scary feeling... I've heard of guys who've died in handcuffs because of apnea or related breathing problems resulting from the arms being pinned, and this sounds like what happened to this guy. Cops should know that.

Diss, that's a tough one. From what I could see and hear on the tape, the cops actions did result in the guy's death. Of course the guy would be alive had he just followed instructions instead of trying to punch the white boy, but the cops are responsible for the manner of restrainst they chose if that was the cause of death. At least they should be, I remember a few years back how a common tactic of choking suspects with the baton led to a number of deaths, including an elderly man the cops had mistaken for a criminal. The cop used the choke hold and the guy died...after several deaths the tactic was banned...

I don't know if cops (or the jurisdiction) can be sued when cops fail to administer CPR, I doubt it, even when they may have caused the need for CPR. But this was clearly negligent, they saw he wasn't breathing and all they did was start asking each other where the paramedics had gone. At least one cop made a half-assed attempt to help the guy so he wasn't completely oblivious to what had happened, but frankly, that was a pathetic scene. I'm really surprised these cops didn't receive CPR training, it sure looked like they were clueless.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Such things have never stopped you before. Did you get hit in the head by a meteor?

No, I've just never done that before. Sorry.

Also, don't take it so seriously.

[Ned]

Guys, reading this about apnea and how cuffing him and not allowing him to get up may have killed the man changes my view of events somewhat. The cops did kill him, it appears. And it also appears that the death was avoidable.

I wonder whether any of the cops had training on how to deal with cuffed, fat, victims of apnea.

[Berzerker]

Well, it was undoubtedly out of ignorance. But yes, the events following their discovery that the guy had stopped breathing were crucial. The coroner's report said the guy died because of the conflict but there were contributing factors - hypertension, drugs, and obesity. What does that mean? The exertion killed him and these other factors contibuted by increasing the energy he used during the fight? That IMO is a whitewash or ignorance...

Hypertension - is a direct cause of death when something like a vessel in the brain or the heart "literally" explodes because of high blood pressure and/or a weak vessel or something. But do people really stop breathing because of hypertension? Perhaps, but there are more obvious possibilities in this case...

Drugs - I don't know much about PCP or what levels they found, but cocaine has been linked in rare cases to cardiac arrest. But this guy's heart was not the cause of death, suffocation appears to be the cause. I believe PCP is a tranquilizer but you'd have to have a lot of it in you to cause the lungs to stop working (if that's even possible), and given the other circumstances, this guy was not exactly tranquil. His adrenalin certainly would have counter-acted any depressants in his system to some degree.

Obesity - again, not a direct cause of death unless it obstructs breathing similar to apnea. But this certainly appears to be the relevant contributing factor, i.e., indirect cause of death.

I'm sure a coroner can tell if someone died of suffocation and according to the police at the scene, the guy stopped breathing but his heart kept beating during that time. But apnea and similar effects are rather difficult to link to a cause of death because once bodily functions cease, the necks muscles relax so any blockage of the respiratory system can become unblocked on it's own. You can tell if someone suffocated, but the cause can be tougher to find when it's apnea...

For those who think it's absurd a city coroner would want to cover up a cause of death, apparently it's much more common than certainly I'd like to think. Our relative died in a hospital from an overdose administered by hospital staff. The coroner cleared the hospital of wrong doing, but the sister of the guy who died was a nurse and she read the report and the list of actions taken by the hospital, i.e., what drugs were administered and in what amounts. She saw one of the drugs administered, a powerful respiratory suppressor, was 10x the amount usually used. So she paid the ~$2,000 for an independent toxicology report and that showed the cause of death - the overdose. The ******* coroner was most likely
covering for the hospital, hell, she's a nurse and picked up on the clue just from reading the hospital's report. The coroner's toxicology report didn't show the overdose. I'm afraid these people rely on our ignorance and don't expect medical professionals to scrutinise their reports. Not all that surprising given coroners are employees of the city and cities have a vested interest in limiting civil damages from lawsuits. It's like the fox guarding the henhouse...

[Boris Godunov]

The city coroner just ruled the death a homicide. That doesn't mean the officers are criminally responsible for the death, just that his death was caused by other persons.

[Berzerker]

Yes, the coroner is suggesting it was the exertion of the fight. I don't buy it...but it may be possible over-exertion can cause the lungs to stop operating. Maybe Strangelove has some insight into that and this case, but I do know that apnea is common in obese people and easily triggered by body position. Once apnea (usually occurs during sleep) blocks off the throat it becomes imperative to stand up and relax the body and extend the neck, and pinning an obese person's arms behind them as with handcuffing can trigger a lung malfunction similar to crucifixion, the body's ability to support the lung muscles is compromised...

[Guynemer]

His lungs didn't stop operating. His airway was obstructed; it may have already been more constricted than usual due to his drug use. His lungs weren't the problem. The fact that he couldn't get oxygen to his lungs, or carbon dioxide out of them--that was the problem.

[chequita guevara]

Many people take PCP unknowingly, as it is often used to doctor poor quality drugs.