Corruption, racism, incompetence, and official coverup

[PLC1]

This story would make a good novel, if it hadn't actually happened:

Taser death ignites racial tensions



WINNFIELD, La. - At 1:28 p.m. last Jan. 17, Baron "Scooter" Pikes was a healthy 21-year-old man. By 2:07 p.m., he was dead.

What happened in the 39 minutes in between--during which Pikes was handcuffed by local police and shocked nine times with a Taser device, while reportedly pleading for mercy--is now spawning fears of a political cover-up in this backwoods Louisiana lumber town infamous for backroom dealings.

The current police chief is a convicted drug offender who got a pardon from Edwin Edwards, the former Louisiana governor who is serving time in federal prison for corruption convictions.

All of that tangled history is now wrapped up in the Pikes case, because Scott Nugent, the officer who Tasered him, is the well-connected son of the former police chief who killed himself--and the protégé of the current chief, who hired him onto the force.

Then on the way to the police station, Carpenter related to the newspaper, Pikes fell ill and told the officers he suffered from asthma and was high on crack cocaine and PCP. The officers called for an ambulance, but Pikes later died at the hospital.Six months later, the Winnfield police are standing by that story.

An autopsy determined there were no drugs in Pikes' system and that he did not have asthma

Williams said police records showed Nugent administered nine Taser shocks to Pikes over a 14-minute period. The last two jolts, delivered as police pulled Pikes from a patrol car at the police station, elicited no physical reaction because the suspect was unconscious, Williams said.

Only after Pikes was carried into the police station and slumped into a chair did police call for an ambulance. He was pronounced dead soon afterward at the local hospital.

Expect to hear a lot more about this story in the near future.

Read the rest here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-taser_witt-web-jul19,0,2201847.story

 

[GenSeneca]

Disclaimer:

This post is a News Story... What makes it on the news? Things that are not normal, exceptions, extreme examples or otherwise unexpected. If all you know about America comes from our media, you will think stories like this are the NORM, happen all the time, all over the US and they just pick the best ones for airing... and you would be wrong.

Sorry to have interrupted.
We now rejoin our regularly scheduled thread, already in progress:
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I found this interesting...

And in a bizarre coincidence, Pikes turns out to have been a first cousin of Mychal Bell, the lead defendant in the Jena 6 case.

When that case was first picked up by our media, there was a horrible amount of false or misleading information being reported. I'm hoping this story is no different and our media eventually gets around to filling in the blanks, hopefully with accurate information.

There just has to be more to it than whats being reported.... Otherwise not only is the cop who tazed Pikes to death deserving of a similar punishment, but the other cops there, who didn't stop it, are at the very least complicit in Pikes murder as well.

Interested to see how this develops... Thanks PLC.

 

[PLC1]

Let's hope that this story is not the norm.

And, should more information become available that would de sensationalize it, so much the better.

But, it is an interesting story at this point, no?