Teen Dies in Police Custody

[Kelseecat65]

[Darkest Angel]

Abuse of power.

They couldn't handle a 140 lb 19yo kid??
Someone needs to answer for this.

[Shakey]

Lawsuit.

[30564U]

Ok...let's see if I got this correct. Both this guy and his sister were idiots who used God knows what kind of drugs and committed various petty crimes both together and separately...in other words, the family is known to local law enforcement. The guy, who's 19, gets caught, high as a kite on some kind of smokable sythetic drugs, then runs naked into people's residences screaming bible verses and claiming he's the Son of God (what if he actually was?). He gets caught and arrested without incident and eventually gets booked into the local gray bar hotel and spends ten days as a guest (because he can't raise bail...nice job sister, mom, and dad...that's on you) and on his last day, he gets in a pissy mood (or was he having drug flashbacks?) can't take the jail staff's verbal "abuse" and causes a scene. He more than likely also calls the custody officers naughty names and bangs on his cell door disrupting the whole jail. The jail staff get sick of his shit, pepper spay the fool, conduct a cell extraction, and put him into a full body restraint chair. Due to the pepper spray, he starts basically frothing at the mouth (common if you can't use your hands to wipe your mouth), so, fearing that the little idiot will spit said saliva, the jail staff put a mesh anti-spit hood on him. They put him in a common area and check on him every 15 minutes (standard practice) and at some point he expires. The other jail inmates (who are always trustworthy sorts with no axe at all to grind against the police or jail staff) claim the junior criminal repeatedly stated that he couldn't breath (and of course we all know that if you're talking...then you can breath). Oh...and since the coroner's death certificate ruled that Baby Capone's death was a "homicide" then the family just knows that someone must have murdered him and should be charged. Anything less would be unjust. I think I got everything.

Now, first off, based on what I read in the posted article and on the Internet, it appears that the circumstances surrounding this guy's untimely death are not suspicious nor out of common industry practices. In other words it doesn't look like the jail staff did anything that directly caused this guy's death. I'd love to see the video tape and a post mortem drug screen. Use of drugs while in custody is a distinct possibility as are pre existing medical/psyc conditions.

As far as the coroner's report listing the death as a homicide that's standard operating procedure. The definition of homicide is "the killing of one human being by another human being." The word homicide has no connotation of guilt. It is up to the courts to deceide what type of homicide (criminal homicide, justifiable homicide, or negligent homicide. Just because it has been ruled a homicide doesn't mean that the coroner believes that the idiot was murdered by anyone. It just means that he died of non natural causes. I'm sure this case will be settled out of court (95% are) and I'm sure that a law suit in this case might be warranted. You know when someone dies in custody you're gonna get sued for a wrongful death because government entities know that it's far cheaper to settle than to go forward with a court case. Anything can happen in a jury trial and trials are super expensive and long no matter the outcome.

Everyone seems to want to point blame at the jail staff. They've been cleared by internal affairs, the DA's Office, and the state's watchdogs. There was no criminality/malice involved...get over it. Now as far as civil liability is concerned, that might turn out to be true. Time will tell. As far as I can see in this case, it looks like they did exactly what they were supposed to do. Verbal taunting isn't a criminal or civil issue. Spraying an out of control prisoner with pepper spray and placing him in a full body restraint chair and checking on him every 10 to 15 minutes is also not a criminal/civil issue. Not listening to his alleged "I can't breath" pleas isn't a criminal issue...but, it just might be a civil issue. That doesn't mean it was with malice...they may have just thought he was being a pain in the ass. Again, time will tell.

It always makes me kind of sad, when everyone jumps to the conclusion that the jail staff murdered this guy. Everyone thinks about this emotionally and not logically. Look at this idiots family...nobody gave a crap about this guy for the ten days he was in custody and nobody paid his bail (which wouldn't have been much considering the charges and circumstances). Mom and dad didn't seem to mind abdacating their parenting responsibility to the county right up until their little darling dropped dead. It's fairly clear by everything I read that this guy and his sister had fairly lengthy criminal arrest histories...nothing real serious, but they both were drug users, had prior criminal arrests, and not real stable education and employment histories. I'm not saying that anyone deserves to die in custody, but I feel fairly certain, based on experience, that there will be something (either medically, physiologically, toxologically, or psychologically) beside the jail staff's actions or inactions that contributed to this clown's death.

[skankhunt]

Originally Posted by 30564U

Ok...let's see if I got this correct. Both this guy and his sister were idiots who used God knows what kind of drugs and committed various petty crimes both together and separately...in other words, the family is known to local law enforcement. The guy, who's 19, gets caught, high as a kite on some kind of smokable sythetic drugs, then runs naked into people's residences screaming bible verses and claiming he's the Son of God (what if he actually was?). He gets caught and arrested without incident and eventually gets booked into the local gray bar hotel and spends ten days as a guest (because he can't raise bail...nice job sister, mom, and dad...that's on you) and on his last day, he gets in a pissy mood (or was he having drug flashbacks?) can't take the jail staff's verbal "abuse" and causes a scene. He more than likely also calls the custody officers naughty names and bangs on his cell door disrupting the whole jail. The jail staff get sick of his shit, pepper spay the fool, conduct a cell extraction, and put him into a full body restraint chair. Due to the pepper spray, he starts basically frothing at the mouth (common if you can't use your hands to wipe your mouth), so, fearing that the little idiot will spit said saliva, the jail staff put a mesh anti-spit hood on him. They put him in a common area and check on him every 15 minutes (standard practice) and at some point he expires. The other jail inmates (who are always trustworthy sorts with no axe at all to grind against the police or jail staff) claim the junior criminal repeatedly stated that he couldn't breath (and of course we all know that if you're talking...then you can breath). Oh...and since the coroner's death certificate ruled that Baby Capone's death was a "homicide" then the family just knows that someone must have murdered him and should be charged. Anything less would be unjust. I think I got everything.

Now, first off, based on what I read in the posted article and on the Internet, it appears that the circumstances surrounding this guy's untimely death are not suspicious nor out of common industry practices. In other words it doesn't look like the jail staff did anything that directly caused this guy's death. I'd love to see the video tape and a post mortem drug screen. Use of drugs while in custody is a distinct possibility as are pre existing medical/psyc conditions.

As far as the coroner's report listing the death as a homicide that's standard operating procedure. The definition of homicide is "the killing of one human being by another human being." The word homicide has no connotation of guilt. It is up to the courts to deceide what type of homicide (criminal homicide, justifiable homicide, or negligent homicide. Just because it has been ruled a homicide doesn't mean that the coroner believes that the idiot was murdered by anyone. It just means that he died of non natural causes. I'm sure this case will be settled out of court (95% are) and I'm sure that a law suit in this case might be warranted. You know when someone dies in custody you're gonna get sued for a wrongful death because government entities know that it's far cheaper to settle than to go forward with a court case. Anything can happen in a jury trial and trials are super expensive and long no matter the outcome.

Everyone seems to want to point blame at the jail staff. They've been cleared by internal affairs, the DA's Office, and the state's watchdogs. There was no criminality/malice involved...get over it. Now as far as civil liability is concerned, that might turn out to be true. Time will tell. As far as I can see in this case, it looks like they did exactly what they were supposed to do. Verbal taunting isn't a criminal or civil issue. Spraying an out of control prisoner with pepper spray and placing him in a full body restraint chair and checking on him every 10 to 15 minutes is also not a criminal/civil issue. Not listening to his alleged "I can't breath" pleas isn't a criminal issue...but, it just might be a civil issue. That doesn't mean it was with malice...they may have just thought he was being a pain in the ass. Again, time will tell.

It always makes me kind of sad, when everyone jumps to the conclusion that the jail staff murdered this guy. Everyone thinks about this emotionally and not logically. Look at this idiots family...nobody gave a crap about this guy for the ten days he was in custody and nobody paid his bail (which wouldn't have been much considering the charges and circumstances). Mom and dad didn't seem to mind abdacating their parenting responsibility to the county right up until their little darling dropped dead. It's fairly clear by everything I read that this guy and his sister had fairly lengthy criminal arrest histories...nothing real serious, but they both were drug users, had prior criminal arrests, and not real stable education and employment histories. I'm not saying that anyone deserves to die in custody, but I feel fairly certain, based on experience, that there will be something (either medically, physiologically, toxologically, or psychologically) beside the jail staff's actions or inactions that contributed to this clown's death.

you sir are a complete retard and should be restrained and pepper sprayed to death

[30564U]

Well that was an intelligent response...thanks for playing. Let's get it correct...he was pepper sprayed and then restrained.

[Megamel29]

Originally Posted by 30564U

Well that was an intelligent response...thanks for playing. Let's get it correct...he was pepper sprayed and then restrained.

I'm not sure what 'psychological' problem would cause him to die in this scenario. Also, when he said he couldn't breathe he probably meant he was having trouble breathing. Exposure to pepper spray can have that effect. It's for reasons like this that prison staff should have to look into it when an inmate says they can't breathe.

[30564U]

Originally Posted by Megamel29

I'm not sure what 'psychological' problem would cause him to die in this scenario. Also, when he said he couldn't breathe he probably meant he was having trouble breathing. Exposure to pepper spray can have that effect. It's for reasons like this that prison staff should have to look into it when an inmate says they can't breathe.

You ask a good question. According to everything I read he was on suicide watch. I'm a little suspicious about his reaction to synthetic marijuana, I'm thinking he sounds a bit like a nut. I didn't mean to infer that he died from anything specifically psychological, but his mental state mightvhave played a factor. I agree with youbon the whole "I can't breath" thing. I'm sure he meant that he was having difficulty breathing and I'm pretty sure jail staff just figured the pepper spray was the issue. There have been many cases of folks suffocating after being pepper sprayed, but usually they were on their stomachs and I think all had some type of prior medical condition that the spray and restrained position exacerbated. This is exactly why I'm a big fan of the Taser. It's more effective and has far fewer after effects than OC.

[Megamel29]

Originally Posted by 30564U

You ask a good question. According to everything I read he was on suicide watch. I'm a little suspicious about his reaction to synthetic marijuana, I'm thinking he sounds a bit like a nut. I didn't mean to infer that he died from anything specifically psychological, but his mental state mightvhave played a factor. I agree with youbon the whole "I can't breath" thing. I'm sure he meant that he was having difficulty breathing and I'm pretty sure jail staff just figured the pepper spray was the issue. There have been many cases of folks suffocating after being pepper sprayed, but usually they were on their stomachs and I think all had some type of prior medical condition that the spray and restrained position exacerbated. This is exactly why I'm a big fan of the Taser. It's more effective and has far fewer after effects than OC.

Good points. But people have died from taser use. I guess there is no safe way to hurt people. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for pepper spray to cause someone to have breathing difficulty, especially if they produce a lot of phlegm. Possibly their airway might constrict. I don't know what could have been done differently. But it is a shame he died.

[30564U]

Originally Posted by Megamel29

Good points. But people have died from taser use. I guess there is no safe way to hurt people. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for pepper spray to cause someone to have breathing difficulty, especially if they produce a lot of phlegm. Possibly their airway might constrict. I don't know what could have been done differently. But it is a shame he died.

Many years ago I sprayed a guy with OC and he had some type of reaction and his head swelled up and the poor guy looked like a giant pumpkin head. I have no idea what happened, but he looked bad for quite some time. The Taser deaths seem to be related more to the control holds and force used after the Taser and not so much the Taser itself. In most all of these types of cases there's something else that causes the problems and not the OC and Taser. I remember when law enforcement first started using pepper spray and a large East Coast agency was using it to great effect. Then one day the coppers sprayed a guy and then they used a Taser to actually subdue the guy. Well...when they hit him with the Taser he burst into flames. It turned out that the OC spray had a very flammable carrying agent that was mixed with the OC to give it a better and longer spray stream. No one ever thought about what would happen if you used OC and then hit the guy with a Taser...oops.

There are no 100% safe ways of neutralizing combative bad guys. OC spray, Tasers, nets, fire hoses, tear gas, batons, black jacks, saps, 2x4, bean bag rounds, baton rounds, rubber bullets, spray goo, flashing light rays, high intensity sound projection, pepper balls, or just plain tackling the idiot. Nothing is really without risk. But, when you look at the long term risk/benefit of each product/technique and take things like officer injury rates, prisoner injury rates, public perception issues, law suits, and all other issues, anything is safer than going hands on with a suspect.

One thing that the media always fails to take into account is that any time a police officer gets into a fight or wrestling match with some knuckle head is that it's always a fight for that COP's life. When you carry a firearm, it changes the dynamic of a simple fight, and turns it into a very dangerous situation. Most cops who are shot in the US and Canada are shot with their own firearm. How you fight changes dramatically with a firearm on your hip. Taseing or pepper spraying someone at a distance is way better than getting close enough so that the bad guy can grab your gun.