Tuesday, December 04, 2007

I've seen better taze

When a cook at a country club was fired, he decided he wasn't leaving. The head chef explained his employment was terminated but the stubborn cook kept saying, "I'm not leaving -I'm going to work today." The chef called police and I arrived a few minutes later along with a female officer on my squad.

We walked into the kitchen and saw a young man wearing a chef's coat standing in a narrow aisle of stainless steel tables and a wall of industrial sized ovens. In his had was a large butcher knife and a few other long knives. I told him it was time to leave but asked him to first set his knives down on the table (we officers don't make it a habit of walking next to disgruntled ex-employees with deadly weapons in their hand.) The cook signalled his refusal by shaking his head.

I commanded in a louder and more stern voice to set the knives down on the table. Again, he refused. My third attempt to get him to comply was done with two tasers pointed at his chest. The cook looked down at the two red laser dots on his chest beaming from my partner and my tasers.

"OK", he snapped angrily and tossed his knives on the table.

We holstered our Tasers and I told him, "Now step away from the table and we'll all walk out of her together.

"NO!"

"Yes, it's time for you to leave."

Since the knives were within his reach my partner stepped forward and positioned herself between him and the knives.

I stepped forward to make sure he was going to leave peacefully.

He responded by slapping and pushing my hands away from him. His active aggression and non-compliance dictated a swift response. My partner and I attempted to grab onto him and he started flailing his arms and trying to shove us aside. I could feel the heat emanating from the large ovens next to me and didn't want anyone to get burned so we took him down to the rubber mat covering the floor.

He tried to break free from us and kept yelling, "NO! Get away!". We repeated told him to stop resisting and to put his hands behind his back. He refused to put his hands behind his back and kicked me and my partner in the legs. I took out my Taser, removed the cartridge containing the metal barbs and applied the contacts to his hip. "Stop fighting or I'm going to Tase you!", I commanded. "NO!", he refused.

Usually, a "full ride" of 5 seconds is applied from the Taser but I tried my best to get him to stop resisting and only gave him a 2-second charge. "OKAY!" he shouted and started to put his hands behind his back. He then got up attempting to shake me and my partner off of him. She fell backwards and he started to charge down the aisle but I was able to coax him back to the ground with a longer charge of the Taser applied to the Trapezoid muscle on top of his shoulder. This was enough to convince him it was time to stop fighting.

We lead him out of the kitchen and into the back of a patrol car. He escalated his misdemeanor trespassing charge into 1 count of resisting arrest and 2 counts of aggravated assault on a peace officer.

Later, an employee mentioned to us he was ex-military and said after being fired, "I have M-16 training and you'll be sorry." I think he'll be the sorry one after learning the consequences of fighting the police.

5 Comments:

At December 13, 2007 1:27 AM, Blogger Telebush said...

My boss tells me to leave and I'm gone before he can finish the sentence... granted it's the end of the day and I'm not being fired. Do all officers in your department carry Tasers?

 
At December 13, 2007 8:43 AM, Blogger Redroach said...

Good work.
Despite what people think, Tazers save lives.
Especially good folks like you.

My friend with HPD volunteered to be tazed during his recent training.

Needless, he is a tough person, but even he wouldn't have wanted two doses of the old electric motivator.

I didn't realize you could remove the cartridge and use it like that.

 
At December 18, 2007 2:26 PM, Blogger 5150Wife said...

He didn't really think he was getting paid for that day, did he?

Glad you guys made it out of there relatively unscathed...and without being plastered all over the 5 o'clock news (seems to be the norm these days with tazings)

 
At January 05, 2010 7:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

if a man has a knife you don't take out your taser!!!! You take out your firearm. What if that man charged you and your taser didn't not deploy? You're dead!!!! That situation gives you justification for deadly force. That was stupid.

 
At May 26, 2010 12:08 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Or... how about one officer take the taser our and the other take out a gun.

 

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