From the Nanaimo Daily News:

Judge says Mountie created confrontation

26 May 2008

A Nanaimo provincial court judge, in dropping a charge against a local man of assaulting police, instead blamed a Nanaimo Mountie for creating the violent confrontation.

The decision was handed by Judge Allan Gould on Monday in staying charges of assault police and uttering threats against Shane Owen, 48.

RCMP in riot gear, courtesy of Rob Maguire @ flickr

On Nov. 25, 2005, Owen was walking down the street when the officer, who told the court that Owen had committed no offence but didn’t look right, decided to question him.

Owen told the officer to leave him alone, gave a Nazi salute and swore at him. Gould said that a more experienced officer would have “spoken in kind” to Owen and gone on his way. A Supreme Court of Canada decision states that only when there is reasonable suspicion of a crime can police force someone to comply with their requests.

Gould said the officer then “hounded” Owen into the behaviour that led to the charges. The officer’s actions were “akin to Chinese water torture” and his actions escalated the situation, said Gould, though he also said that Owen’s actions in part brought the unwanted attention on himself. Other officers attended what became a brawl and Owen was subdued with a Taser, batons and pepper spray.

Owen was then held in custody, “to which he should not have been subjected in my opinion,” said Gould.

The editors of the Daily News chimed in with a ponies-and-kittens puff piece on behalf of the cops, which after stating “The constant focus on the death of Dziekanski, tragic as it was, distracts the police from doing their jobs.”, concludes with appropriate obeisance and genuflections:

But the cops are such an easy scapegoat that many people forget to check their facts.

Of course there are the few misguided and even criminal police officers, similar to workers any profession.

But these are the vast minority.

In reality, keeping everyone safe is a tough job.

The least we can do is show these people some respect.

Well Mr. Owen’s own personal stormtroopers didn’t seem too distracted now, did they?“Sieg Heil!” isn’t respectful enough, I suppose.

From The Mississippi Press:

Taser incident being probed

23 May 2008

Otis Ashford in his hospital bed

MOSS POINT — The Moss Point Police Department is investigating an incident in which a Moss Point police officer allegedly subdued Otis Ashford in the home of his sister last month with volts of electricity from a Taser gun, Interim Police Chief Frederick Gaston confirmed Thursday.

[...]

Ashford was arrested for interfering with police duties and resisting arrest on April 18. He said his court date has been set for June 10.

[...]

Curley Clark, president of the Jackson County chapter of the NAACP, said the organization is conducting its own investigation.

[...]

According to Ashford, he was watching television with his sister Dell Jones at her house on Westpine Street when they heard a disturbance in the front yard.

“We went out to see what was going on and this man started yelling to get back in the house,” Ashford explained. “At that point, I was just on the screened-in porch. So, we were really still in the house.”

Ashford said he and his sister were concerned their younger brother was being attacked and started calling his name.

“The man on top of the other man never said he was a police officer,” Jones said. “We didn’t know that until he picked the other guy up and took him away. When he stepped into the light, we could see he was an officer. He then started screaming he was coming back to get us.”

Ashford said as the officer disappeared into the night and they thought the incident was over.

“Then he came back, he busted through the screen door and just came at us,” Ashford said. “He was like a mad man. We never even left the porch. He kept saying he was getting me for interfering, but I never got off the porch. How could we interfere?”

Ashford said the officer, who he identified as Johnny Vaughn, pushed him against the wall and doused him and Jones with pepper spray.

“It was everywhere,” Jones said “All over us and all in the house. There was no sense in it.”

According to Ashford, another Moss Point officer arrived and Vaughn ordered him to use the Taser gun.

“He hit me with it probably eight times,” Ashford said as he raised his shirt and showed scars from the Taser’s barbs.

“And that right there,” Jones said as she pointed to a large white scar about the size of a half-dollar on her brother’s back, “that was where they held it on him.”

Ashford and Jones claimed the officer took a barb that wasn’t attached to Ashford and held it in one spot for several seconds, shocking him until he was unconscious.

“I don’t remember nothing after that,” Ashford said.

Jones said she called the police to come and direct the “out-of-control officers.”

“They were killing him,” Jones said, “and they would not stop.”

Their mother, Lillie Ashford, entered the house and watched her son being subdued by police and her daughter passing out.

Lillie Ashford said her son was dragged out of the house by the officers and thrown into a patrol car.

“There was an ambulance right there,” she said. “I begged them to take him to the hospital. I thought they had killed him.”

Lillie Ashford said the officers refused and took her son to jail.

Otis Ashford’s wife, Rosa, said it was at least three hours before her husband received medical treatment.

“When they finally let me see him, he was on a stretcher in the police station,” she said. “They said his heart rate was 179 and his pupils were dilated. They kept asking me what he was on and I told them he doesn’t do drugs.”

Otis Ashford said that when he awoke hospital technicians performed a drug screen test on him and it came back clean. He said he bonded out from the hospital after being kept for two days.

Otis Ashford said FBI Agent Robert Lambert told him the FBI has launched an investigation, but Gaston could not confirm his comments.

See also the SunHerald story.

Hat tip: The Spook at The Brown Watch