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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Moving Mountains-Mentally ill woman tasered unnecessarily by Minneapolis police
Tuesday 22 May @ 16:44:33 |
by LYDIA HOWELL
I witnessed torture last week.
Thursday, May 17, was a beautiful Minnesota spring afternoon and while out running errands, I was mentally planning the next phase of planting in my new community garden plot. I stood at the bus stop in the Rainbow Foods parking lot on 27th Avenue off East Lake Street—not far from where the raids on immigrants took place over the weekend. As a police car pulled up, my guard went up immediately.
Their focus was obvious: an African-American woman, who was perhaps in her early 30s. She was even more vulnerable to law enforcement, given aspects of her situation that soon became apparent.
Her white jogging pants and T-shirt were dirty. She gripped a luggage cart, with a battered overnight suitcase strapped on the bottom and various plastic bags tied all over it. I’d bet this week’s pay that she was homeless. In our age of relentless gentrification and contempt of the poor, being homeless is treated as a crime, where one is not only subjected to harassment and arrest by police, but to beatings and theft of all one’s belongings.
It was also quickly clear that she was mentally ill.
In a sing-song voice, she repeated the same sentence endlessly. I recalled what the radical psychologist R.D. Laing observed in the 1960s: If one attempts to read the “metaphors of insanity,” they are often revealing. In fact, they often say a great deal about the insane, everyday cruelty of our culture that drives people mad.
The woman was saying, over and over,”I’m not white and I’m not a star.”
One police officer was speaking too quietly to hear, but, at one point she said, “Talk to the store manager.” Then, a Hennepin County Medical Center ambulance drove up. The police knew they were dealing with a mentally ill person and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak has made a number of reassuring speeches about the MPD’s Crisis Intervention Teams—officers trained to deal differently with mentally ill people after several mentally ill people were gunned down by police.
There were about six of us at the bus stop, just five feet away. I remember thinking that surely so many witnesses present would protect the woman from harm. The two EMT guys came forward and the second police officer was behind the woman.
The woman had made no threatening moves toward anyone, but, proclaimed with a bit more intensity, “I’m NOT white and I’m NOT a star.” She was now surrounded by four big white men in uniforms. One cop behind her.
The officer who’d been talking to the woman put one hand on her shoulder. Taking one step back, she jerked away and shouted, “Get your hands OFF ME!”
Then, I heard the harsh buzz as the other police officer used a stun gun, Taser, on the woman.
One. Two. Three. Maybe even a fourth time.
Like the woman’s reaction at the first officer’s touch, I just reacted. Bursting into sobs and yelling, “STOP IT! You’re FOUR BIG MEN! You DON’T have to Taser her! STOP IT!”
The woman crumpled to the ground. I guess the EMT guys stepped in, but I wasn’t looking since the Taser cop now turned toward me.
“She’s off her meds! Did you want her to attack YOU?”
Actually, it was the police that had scared me from the start. But, my body was now numb and I was in “de-escalate the cops” mode. That means, be still, maintain eye contact, keep one’s voice low and use the word “sir” frequently. He threatened to arrest me for “interfering with a police officer,” and demanded that I leave.
Walking quickly across the Rainbow parking lot, I desperately hoped for another bus. Any minute the squad car might come and then what? Luckily, the No. 7 pulled up and I jumped on.
The Taser is touted as a “non-lethal” alternative to deal with aggressive suspects without shooting them. No research has been done as to its long-term health effects. As many as 200 people have been killed by Tasers. Police departments are supposed to train officers on when they’re allowed to use this device, which administers a shock of 50,000 volts. Here’s what Amnesty International (AI) says:
“Many U.S. police agencies now ROUTINELY use Tasers to subdue UNARMED, non-compliant individuals who DO NOT POSE A SERIOUS DANGER to themselves or others ... police have used Tasers against unruly school children, mentally disabled and elderly people and people who simply argue with officers ... REPEATEDLY ADMINISTERED SHOCKS, sometimes while IN RESTRAINTS.” (Emphasis added)
The City of Minneapolis spent $160,000 on Tasers last year and plans on spending $861,000 this year on more Tasers. The Arizona-based company that supplies thousands of U.S. police departments with the stun guns also sells them across the globe to governments with human rights abuses. AI also notes that these weapons are “portable ... easy to use ... inflict severe pain at the push of a button and leave no marks.”
That sounds like the perfect torture device for abusing one’s authority over others while evading all accountability.
American institutional torture didn’t start in Abu Ghraib. Then again, that video of Los Angeles cops beating Rodney King—almost 60 blows with batons—exposed this reality more than 15 years ago.
See Amnesty International www.amnesty.org
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