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Published: September 19, 2007 Author: N\A
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A Clay County woman's family said it's seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police.

The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court, according to a WJXT-TV report.

In April 2006, officers with the police department said they were called to a disturbance at a home in the 400 block of Harrison Street just before 5 p.m.

In a 911 call made to the Green Cove Springs, Delafield can be heard telling a dispatcher that she believed she was in danger:

Dispatcher: And what's the problem?

Delafield: My sister is waiting on my property.

Dispatcher: Your what?

Delafield: My sister (inaudible) is on my property trying to harm me.

Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.

Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield's death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

"One, she's in a wheelchair. Two, she's schizophrenic. Three, they're using a Taser on a person that's in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes," Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

The family said it plans to sue the Green Coves Springs Police Department now that it has all the reports regarding their loved one's death.

"We're going to try to compensate the estate and the family and try to get justice," Alexander said.

He said he believes the evidence weighs heavily in favor of Delafield's family and that justice will be served.

"I think that this evidence is going to show, along with some of the evidence we've collected outside of here, that there is no reason Emily Delafield should have died that day," Alexander said.

He said he plans to file a notice to sue sometime before the end of the year.

Here's a link to the article( the Police were cleared) and a video with some audio and evidence of how many times and the duration of taser use on this overweightblack woman in the hoverround wheelchair, who, BTW, called police to come help her..
Prett sick police work, IMHO.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=91565

There should be an alernative in that situation.

AND ANOTHER ARTICLE INDICATING THAT POLICE HAD BEEN TO THE DELAFIELD HOME 29 TIMES IN THE PREVIOUS 2 YEARS FOR DISTURBANCES.

Pretty sad that family or friends had not been more proactive in taking care of this schizo woman...but still I have a hard time understanding why the use of tasers for that duration was deemed necessary..Jim

http://www.news4jax.com/news/8980210/detail.html

The Co. that makes Taser is now making a model with a built in camera to show what led up to the using the devise and the effects upon the person. I am Taser qualified and i've seen it used when some other action might of been better. I would of sprayed her with OC first before using the Taser, but that could back fire also. I do know that i am not going to get cut, trying to go hand to hand with a fruit loop armed with a knife, that's not 100% either.

I'll bet a jury is going to have a hard time figuring that out, too. Kind of unfair that the family who apparently didn't take very good care of her when she was alive will now cash in at the courthouse for her death.

Anyone with 2 knives and a hammer is a threat.
OC or Glock would have been a better choice says this armchair QB.

__________________________________________________________
Well, If I read the article correctly, the woman in the wheelchair-hoveroround or whatever was the one who lived there, had gone into the street and called the police to help her because her sister was there in her house and threatening her.

Who knows for sure but the two kitchen knives and junk drawer hammer being held onto by a deranged 300# woman in a wheelchair who was obviously upset enuf with some family issue to call the po-lice..would not have been a threat to me, LEO or not..

Time was when good LEOs would have sized that situation up kept their distance and worked thru the immediate emotional crisis differntly with the help of family, friends or just gentle common sense and compassion.

I worked as a LEO for some time and in some of the worst areas in the nation and while use of force, deadly or othrwise may have been justified at times, many times it wasn't necessary to restore order, serve papers, make an arrest.
Jim

While it may be difficult for some, imagine IF that fat old mentally unstable black lady was your sis or Mom...or for that matter, the 70 year old lady in Orem Utah in the other post today who was so frustrated with getting cited for NOT watering her lawn that she flew off the handle..:(

Man, those wheelchairs are so fast nowadays, she could have chased someone down and hit them with a hammer. They should have just shot her and left it at that.

For real mental illness sucks big time..... can happen in anyones family, but when it happens to people who don't have much in the way of education/financial resources it really sucks. Most state mental health systems have gaping holes in their systems so law enforcement gets stuck in the middle.... sad all the way around.

"sad all the way around. "

Yes it is..LEOs, Paramedics, Firefighters, Taxi Drivers..almost anyone who comes in contact with someone with mental problems really has little or no training to cope with inexplicable, unpredictable and often hazardous behaviors.
The families of the people are often ill equippend financially-emotionally also to deal with them....it is sad, esp if it's someone close to you that you knew back when they were OK..
Schizophrenia and bi polar illnesses are some of the worst because the people can be OK one momnet and then go off for no apparent reason..Jim

That's so very true. Many communities don't have mental health professionals in organizations to help these people. The state facilities are mainly worried about the person being a threat to themselves or others. LE many times get stuck holding the bag, based on the situation and they have no resources to turn to other then arrest and committal by a medical doctor.

leave one guy to talk to her, while the other goes to the hardware store to purchase a big net and industrial strength magnet.

Net her and suck the hammer and knives up to the magnet.

If you left the right guy talking I'd like to think she might have layed them down on her own.

Mental illness tough call. The video cam sounds like a good idea, a 300#'er seated or not swinging a knife as hard as she can prolly wouldn't be anyones idea of a day at the beach.

Perhaps when she was tasered she was able to keep swinging, who knows?

Mental illness can be some downright scary stuff, can't blame an LEO for not wanting to get sliced though.

Yep. My older brother was a probation officer for 31 years and saw the shift happen. All kinds of people are tied to the criminal justice system<at much greater expense, not to mention quality of life issues> because mental health systems fell apart due both to lack of funding and a crushing level of bureaucracy.

When I policed Washington DC back in the late 60's and 70's, didn't take long for the word to get around the precinct on who was who in your beat..from stumble drunks to pimps or hookers to druggies to mentals to cop chasing women..:)

We knew them all..and the population was a whole lot bigger and more transient than 80K in Green Cove Springs north of Jacksonville Fla.

The police had been to that home 29 times in the past 2 years supposedly..so I'd think they knew the old gal was mental..
Just hard to imagine there was no more appropriate way to finish that call than by using two tasers for 20 hits over many minutes , some up to 25 seconds long...BUT AGAIN, I wasn't there that day..Jim

Your'e welcome...but I don't remember going to Green Coves Springs.

The silver lining in these sad cases, like the one I posted a week or so back, is that medical examiners are now starting to link tasers to the cause of death in these cases, or at least noting that they were a contributing factor. I think that beats the hell out of "this person just happened to die of natural causes after being tased 20 times, but the electric shocks to this subject were totally safe and not a factor in the subject's death according to the coroner and the manufacturer of said weapon."

One of the inherent risks with taser use is that there is usually no way of knowing if the person to be subdued has any heart problems, pacemaker,shunt, or other health issues where taser use might precipitate permanent damage or be fatal.

The taser was never designed to be a deadly force tool..

I'm still tying to figure out why there was any need to subdue a woman in a wheechair with legal weapons in her own yard. Just stay out of her way and subdue her if she tried to leave.

And then, assuming the TASER was the correct call, I'll bet you a hundred dollars she dropped the knives and the hammer after the first two second jolt.

This is an obvious case of trying to inflict pain or trying to make some COMPLETELY compliant rather than using the minimum amount of force necessary to effect an arrest.

Dude, you're an idiot. Taser use comes in after verbal commands are not heeded to. Only step after non-compliance would be gas or taser to subdue the subject for public safety. Since you seem to be all-knowing, how would you come close to fat-ass black 300# woman, eh?