Reenactment of the event by the Federal Heights Players
Decision of the Day – December 10, 2007:
Casey v. City of Federal Heights, 06-1426 (10th Cir., Dec. 10, 2007)
From a Tenth Circuit decision today:
Edward Casey went to the Federal Heights, Colorado, municipal courthouse to contest a traffic ticket. After losing his case, he walked to the parking lot to retrieve money from his truck to pay the fine, carrying with him the court file. On his way back to the courthouse he was grabbed, tackled, Tasered, and beaten by city police officers.
Casey may have committed a misdemeanor offense by removing the file from the courthouse over the court clerk’s protests. Still, isn’t Tasering a bit excessive? The district court didn’t think so, as it granted the cops’ motion for summary judgment on Casey’s Fourth Amendment claims.
On appeal, however, the Tenth Circuit reverses. The Court is particularly troubled by the fact that the officer who Tasered him did so without warning or provocation, at least according to Casey. The Court concludes that a reasonable jury could find that the officer’s decision “to shoot first and ask questions later” violated the Fourth Amendment.
Good quote from the opinion:
“We have located no case in which a citizen peacefully attempting to return to the courthouse with a file he should not have removed has had his shirt torn, and then been tackled, Tasered, knocked to the ground by a bevy of police officers, beaten, and Tasered again, all without warning or explanation.”
Taking the “files” is a great trick, really. I’ve tried to do this with a couple of different traffic tickets.
One time it worked and my ticket never showed up in the records 😉
One time it didn’t work and I got someone else’s file. I would have kept it and the lucky person would have been the beneficiary of no ticket showing on his file.
But I saw a checkmark “X” Not Wearing Seatbelt was checked and decided it was a moron’s file and took it back to the courthouse 😉 Only a moron doesn’t wear their seatbelts.
Again, just another reason to hate cops. Thugs.
Sounds reasonable. I just hope that all those who justified the tasering of the motorist in Utah will read this and rethink their position.
Finally, when Officer Sweet initiated the use of force, Mr. Casey was neither “actively resisting arrest” nor “attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396 (emphasis added). Although Officer Sweet was in uniform, he never told Mr. Casey that he was under arrest.
…
Mr. Casey also testified that he repeatedly asked, “What are you doing?” as he was grabbed and tackled. App. 100. Given this, a reasonable officer should, at a minimum, have ordered Mr. Casey to submit to an arrest or used minimal force to grab him while informing him that he was under arrest.
US Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit,
Hatred is never the solution.
I think part of the problem is that when you get a new gadget, phone, laptop, iPod, taser, whatever, you really, really are itching to use it.
If they gave me a taser, and I was a cop, I might be tempted to “try it out” the first opportunity I got.
Of course, this would make me a pig, but cops are people too, and people love gadgets.
If they would only use them when they SHOULD, I think tasers would be a good thing. But power is always abused. Always.
If you read my reply on the heat weapon, you’ll see that I am the daughter of a volunteer officer. Now in this case, I think they were acting under orders, but they were wrong in what they did. You ALWAYS warn the person of what you are about to do, even if they are a thief, that way it can’t come back onto you.
Now, Most people don’t realize this, but before an officer can use a taser,mace,night sick, etc., THEY have to have it used on THEMSELVES! That’s right, they get beat with nightsticks, maced, tasered, and even have to be treated like a criminal!
I remember the night my father got maced…he was fine till the shower water hit him then the screaming began and we heard a loud thud!
Lol, funny yes, but I say this to show that ALL but a few bad eggs know the correct way to handle any situation as they have been put in all situations.
They also have cameras on the dash of, and inside the cars, in order to protect both parties and to be able to prove what was said is true. This is why officers NEVER shoot first (or at least are NOT supposed to), which can be pathetic if they’re going into a situation were they know they are in danger.
For instance, my father caught a murderer, but he couldn’t shoot him even though he kept reaching for his coat pocket. This was because the guy hadn’t tried to kill him yet,(DUMB RULE in this case!)but when the State Trooper got there, He was able to cock his gun and put it top the guys head to make him get on the ground…ya, he listened then! lol. But as a bunch of good cops, the credit went to my father and he had to testify against this guy while his nasty brothers threatened him. Well, they picked the wrong guy because my real Dad was never easily intimidated…in fact he scared THEM without a word, but just with his stature.
I told you all that to get to this: We get upset at cops for using their guns..stun or reg on those who resist; but we don’t even take into consideration that they are trained not to kill people but to bring them down with little or no harm. If they don’t bring that person down..the perp may hurt a child, a mother, your wife or Grandparents. They perform the necessary evil in order to protect us all.
The other thing we forget is that regular people carry guns:regular and stun guns, as well too! Without the proper training! These are the people who cause the fatalities you hear of; and those caused by police are usually never followed up with the entire story like it was that person or a family that would have died, or that the person was on crack and needed to be slowed down. I’ve seen officers in action, and as I said before like any profession there are some who are bad; but most are great men and women who work for shit wages ($20,000 in Iowa is high pay!) and risk their lives with a smile on their face, happy to help anyone who needs it. If it wasn’t for them, many friends, family, and others I know wouldn’t be here today.
A bit strong. Tasering I could get over, tearing a shirt is unforgivable.
#5 – Wow… I never thought I’d hear the gadget defense for the rampant cases of police brutality that are sweeping the nation.
@Eden
And yet police agencies just can’t seem to get rid of those bad apples. Why could that be? Hmmmmm? Because they are ALL bad to one degree or another. I don’t care if your dad dressed up as Santa for orphans he is still a cop and I don’t like cops.
This is a really good example of how this has gotten out of control.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RENmdf7kLKU
The cop clearly states that the guy was stopped on a random traffic stop for going 5mph over the speed limit. I think someone has timed this to show that only 42 seconds elapse from the time the officer first approaches the car to actually tasering the guy. No warning, no patience, and no proven crime. Having lived in Austin, I can attest to the fact that APD are notorious for NOT actually fighting crime. They patrol rich neighborhoods more than the problematic ones in East Austin, and (without fail) assign two cars to routine traffic stops like this. I’ve lived nowhere else that has such a policy, and the only thing it serves to do is keep the police safe from the dangers of enforcing the higher crimes.
I also have a friend who is a captain in the military, and says that of the troops in his battalion who are some form of law enforcement, 80% are total jerks who revel in abusing their power and brag about it when they think they’re safe amongst peers on military duty.
Look, you give dictatorial power to authority, whaddya get ? These guys only want ot protect you..let them, you really have no choice anyway..LOL !!
King George WILL BE BACK !!
#6,
Thats fine and all, just don’t expect anyone to understand when some nutcase walks into your (personal venue of choice) and opens fire killing a half dozen people or so.
By the way, people like you who rationalize totally random obscene behaviour like this ARE THE PROBLEM.
Get with the program, the solution is to end the sovereign immunity that police currently enjoy and abuse. After that I am happy to sit back and let this situation with the out of control police forces in the US work their ways out.
But until then expect more frontier justice from derranged individuals who just snap one day and start shooting people all random like.
Eden, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Trouble is, all police departments are unique. The force your father was part of might be as good as you say, but there are others that should be behind bars.
As for the number of bad shoots, the police are about 11 times more likely to shoot someone they should not have than are the CCW holders. (Wrong computer, I cannot dig up the reference due to the firewall.) The difference, IMO, being that the civilians are supposed to back down and leave if they can, the cops are taught to dominate a situation. Some people really resent a cop, or anyone else, trying to dominate them. The cop escalates until the civilian is dead. It should be manslaughter or murder, but they get special privileges.
Aside from suicides, most of the other killings are drug related, usually between dealers, or the gangs. Armed civilians of good reput outnumber both the drug gangs and the cops, and they are NOT murdering people in wholesale lots, so maybe the training they are missing is less important than people think.
#6
“Now in this case, I think they were acting under orders”
Maybe, and let’s not forget that to the legally elected idiots running the city, a cop that thinks is an unemployed cop.
>>I’ve lived nowhere else that has such a policy,
Try driving over one of the (remaining) bridges in Minneapolis near the end of the month (when quotas come due). You’re fore-ordained to get a $135 ticket.
I don’t know if the Mpls cops have tasers or not, but you would be well advised not to act sullen.
#6, Eden,
I remember the night my father got maced…he was fine till the shower water hit him then the screaming began and we heard a loud thud!
Lol, funny yes,
I’ve been hit with pepper spray. I didn’t think it was funny. I don’t know anyone who has been hit with pepper spray, mace, tear gas, or whatever that thought it was funny. A sadist might. Normal people wouldn’t.
Six cops were trying to get a homeless person away from a building as I was leaving. The cops never apologized and left me to fend for myself. Oh, yes, very important, the homeless person was a Viet Nam vet who lost both legs and still had shrapnel in his chest. He sold pencils from a cup. I assume he didn’t have a peddlers license. I don’t know because he never came back.
#15 –
They look for out of state license’s ?
I’m waiting to see if anyone can spin these types of issues into some kind of political advantage.
Just another example (if more were needed) that Tasers should not be a standard way of dealing with everyday situations police officers encounter.
If someone is threatening an officer with a knife, by all means go ahead; but in other cases there is no justification for the blatant escalation of violence the use of a dangerous and extremely painful weapon such as the Taser represents.
What are the questions that they can ask? They keep asking were are you going, I don’t tell anyone where I am going why should I tell them. Then the big one where are you comming from well if they could see form the road. I don’t like them asking me any questions the only thing that they should ask is are you form the US or where are you from, do you have papers. They need to stop all other questions.
Some of you people are ridiculous. I’m familiar with this case. This guy took the file over the protests of the 55yo female court clerk. He caused a disturbance in the courtroom which is why the officer were summoned. They didn’t arrive until Mr. Casey was supposedly in the parking lot on the way back to the court. The officer did in fact ask for the file back several times, Casey refused. That’s called Disobeying a Lawful Order. Sweet attempted to place the guy into custody, telling him to place his hands behind his back. He did not comply, attempted to pull away from Sweet when he grabbed his arm, and they ended up on the ground. Other officers arrived, and the taser was used to get Casey into custody. Believe what you want, but this guy was not just “tackled” and “beaten” out of the blue.
Incidentally, Casey was found GUILTY of the criminal charge of Resisting Arrest and an interference charge in a CRIMINAL court, where the burden of proof is MUCH higher than some Mickey Mouse civil proceeding.
Integrity,
You must not have been there. I have no idea where you obtained your information. I was personally there and witnessed the entire event. Incidentally the charges against Mr. Casey, Resisting Arrest and the Interference charge were dropped.
There was no doubt what so ever that Mr. Casey was heading directly back to the building. His vehicle was only a few parking spaces from the building and clearly visible through the large glass lobby windows that looked over the parking lot.
Also, Mr. Casey’s young daughter was still in the building using the restroom. When Mr. Casey left the building he told a women that he needed to go to his vehicle to retrieve his wallet so he could pay for his fine. Officer Sweet approached Mr. Casey while he was returning to the building.
When asked for the file Mr. Casey clearly offered the file to Officer Sweet. For what ever reason Officer Sweet did not take the file.
From what I saw, Officer Sweet then took Mr. Casey’s arm and attempted to place it behind Mr. Casey’s back. Mr. Casey was able to release himself from Officers Sweets grip all the while continuing to head toward the court building. Officer Sweet then jumped on Mr. Casey’s back trying to bring him down to the ground. A police vehicle then arrived at the scene.
A female police officer exited the vehicle, pointed a tazer at Mr. Casey and Fired. The tazer did not appear to affect Mr. Casey. Mr. Casey removed a tamer wire from him his body and still tried to proceed towards the building. At this point about six to eight police officers arrived and brought Mr. Casey to the ground and repeatedly beat him.
His eight year old daughter witnessed the incident, crying while watching.
This guy WAS indeed tackled and beaten OUT OF THE BLUE and the Federal Heights Police department is the party that is now BLUE from their inappropriate action.
All officer Sweet should have done was watch and observe Mr. Casey, Let him pay his fine.
If any one here is Mickey Mouse ing, it is you Integrity (of which you have none). Your big ears consume much hearsayand translate poorly. In this situation SeeSay clearly overluled
Justice