Published: September 19, 2007 Author: N\A
For Education and Discussion Only. Not for Commercial Use.


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?

An excerpt from one article on taser use, misuse and deaths.Apparently, tasers have been used improperly by untrained enforcement( including prisons), used when the suspect or prisoner was already restrained or down..
There is some effort in the law enforcement community to better train and intelligently deploy tasers to reduce misuse and reduce instances where they end up being deadly force.Jim

Former U.S. Marshal Matthew Fogg, a long-time SWAT specialist and vice president of Blacks in Government, says that if stun guns are going to be used by law enforcement, training on their use should be extensive, and that the weapons should also be placed high up on what police officers call the "use-of-force continuum."

Fogg isn't alone in calling for such measures. In October 2005, the Police Executive Research Forum, an influential police research and advocacy group, recommended that law enforcement only be allowed to use Tasers on people aggressively resisting arrest. The organization also recommended that law enforcement officers needed to step back and evaluate the condition of suspects after they had been shocked once. Similar recommendations were included in an April 2005 report from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. That report also urged police departments to evaluate whether certain vulnerable groups -- including the mentally ill -- should be excluded altogether from being shot with Tasers.

Although Fogg's organization has called for an outright ban of Tasers until further research can be conducted, Fogg says that he knows responsible members of law enforcement are perfectly capable of using the weapons effectively. Officers who are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of the community, he emphasizes, must be given the tools and training to be able to minimize harm to themselves and to others.

Fogg, who also serves on the board of Amnesty International USA, says that too many members of law enforcement seem to be using them as compliance mechanisms. "It's something along the lines of, 'If I don't like you, I can torture you,' " he says.

Some law enforcement agencies have already implemented careful use policies, including the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, which selectively hands out Tasers to carefully trained deputies. The department also prohibits use of Tasers on subjects already "under control." According to Sheriff Michael Hennessey, deputies are not allowed to use stun guns in response to minor ineffectual threats, as a form of punishment, or on juveniles or pregnant women. Within the department, stun guns are purposely set to turn off after five seconds. Additionally, every use of the weapon in a jail facility must be videotaped.

http://www.iolaregister.com/Archives/News/Stories/2007/June/Taser%20report%20arrives.html

Where is the report? When will it be released? To all those here who apologized for the local government: Haven't they had time to doctor the report up enough to release it by now?

She's in a freaking wheelchair idiot. Stay out of her way until she calms down. She poses absolutely zero risk to public saftey dumba$$. Who's she going to run down in her wheelchair and beat with a hammer anyway?

Since I'm not a cop and not indoctrinated in "steps" and procedures, I am entitled to use common sense.

First, evaluate the problem. A woman in a wheelchair in her own yard with knives and a hammer.

Second step. Is she violating any law therefore, requiring an arrest and the need to "come close to a fat-ass black woman"?

She is in her own yard with legal weapons threatening trespassers. I would say that isn't illegal and therefore, there may not be a need to arrest her.

Are her actions directly threatening anyone? Well, while she may be threatening, it appears that she lacks the means to do any real harm as that her mobility is limited and she is in a wheelchair. Common sense would tell a normal non-cop kind of person to tell the trespassers to leave and see if she won't settle down a little. At that point, she may be reasoned with and may relinquish her weapons.

Assuming that all else fails and it is both lawful and necessary to TASER her, why is it necessary to do it for nearly two minutes?

The whole mess could have been prevented if the cop just told everyone who wasn't a resident of the property to quit trespassing and go home.

Mon. Morn Q.B.

Wayne

What if she had a Hillary 2008 sticker on her chair?

In that case, drop the taser, transition to the 12 guage, and fire for effect.

The point is, these incidents are all individual, involving individuals. I have had a taser for many years and have yet to try it, except on catfish. (It doesn't work, by the way.) It may go by the wayside, but right now it is the tool these guys are given and told to use. There are people in every profession that suck at what they do, why should cops be any different? Oh I know... public trust, power, blah, blah, blah. Bad doctors kill more people every day than cops will in a year.

The point is the cop threw common sense out the window...

No such thing as "common sense". It is feel-good term.
Example..."He's got a lot of education, but no common sense" meaing he is an educated idiot, or "He's got a lot of common sense, but no education." meaning smart, but illiterate.

Just say he's stupid.

Pat, "tasering a catfish! ":) now that IS funny..

I <would like to> believe that of the tens of thousands of sworn LEOs in America, that about 99% of them really DO try to protect & serve the public and enforce laws with proper training and control.

Some lack experience, some lack specific training , and some perhaps just are not pyschologically suited for the tougher parts of the job...

And then there are are very a few who are sadists and criminals and use their badge and power to abuse others.Worse criminals than most they will ever arrest.

All in all tho, they do a good job which is usually hours of routine punctuated occasionally by a few minutes of absolute chaos where they must do the right things for the right reasons with the least amount of force necessary.

Concerning tasers and electricty..50KV even at small milliamps is still an electric shock.
HOW that shock will effect any individual depends on WHERE the electricity enters their body, the duration, their physical condition, stature and health, any foreign substances in their system( drugs, alcohol etc) their body's pH level, mosture or lack of moisture on the skin...and also their gender.

Women because of their body fat content being generally higher than men, will take worse effects from the same shock received in the same body location than men all else being about equal.Jim

Well, not really tasering the fish... tasering the water to see if it effected the fish. (Not enough amperage for them to notice.)

They could have just rolled her into a busy intersection!!

Dang Pat, that's funny. Must be nice to be a boss.

Spot on assessment about the common sense thang.

Didn't the article say she was in the street?

Actually I've been think lately that it must be nice to be RETIRED.

Yup.

At 300lbs that's when you offer her a pack of peanut butter or cheese crackers, if she drops the wpns. The food will definetly get a change in thought pattern, if that doesn't work get, FRIED CHICKEN.

Wasn't there so can't say whether all those zaps were needed or not. Just remember, because someone is in a wheelchair doesn't mean they can't walk. Maybe she has difficulty walking, maybe she's too lazy, but it doesn't mean that she is absolutely no threat.

It would be nice if there were always the proper tools at hands and all cops had extensive training and never made mistakes. But, when folks act in wacked out ways around cops, and they have weapons, often times those folks die.

_____________________________________________________
That's really pretty astute..:)

A bit of relaxed diffuse the situation conversation and listening while the gal ( who called them) blew off steam by one officer, offer to run to Mamma Hodges 'Wangs and Thangs Barbecue ' by the other, and there would not have been a need for any report..the press, the lawsuit, the inquiry..or a death..

OR the things BOTH those two officers will live with for the rest of their lives..Jim

Dude, you're an idiot. If you're a cop, you're the one that makes guys like me, and families like her, rich.

You figure it out....

VA, I thot that comment was a bit over the top also..

IF he is a LEO, and IF I was his shift Sergeant, he'd be reading about excessive force incidents and their outcomes including the aftermath to the officer and family for the next ten weeks.Jim

Am guessin' he ain't a cop (yet), but that school let out, or he had free time in study hall...

I've used that concept many times with prisoners that i was transporting on warrants that i served on them. I told them if they'ld be quiet and quit raising cane, i'll get them a Big Mac & Coke, the food was free to me from Micky D's. It's worked like a charm, i told them that they're going to be in jail for a while and this is the only non-jail food they'll see. The same concept works with a cigarette. It changes their thought process, it makes them happy and i don't have to listen to them.

It is amazing what a touch of good humanity can accomplish when folks are all wound up or in trouble..
( when they were in trouble was mostly the time we got to meet them)

I used to serve alot of felony warrants..sometimes watched for days to get the right time and schedule of the wanted...

Always made it clear that I had a job to do..nothing personal..
That I preferred to not have to take them to the hospital first, but was well able to do that if they wnated to get froggy.

Sometimes, with watchful eye, allowed many to dress properly and brush their teeth before the cuffs went on...and say goodbye to family and kids.( I'd watch the wife closely as the worst injurty I ever had was getting cut by a black gal whose husband had beat her within an inch of her life and decided as we were cuffing him that she couldn't do well without him)


Often took them to breakfast on the way in to the magistrate or lockup...( early AM is a good time to pick them up.)

No regrets.. and all I did was by the book with full cognizance of the risks..I had them controlled..for self and the job.

I wasn't well suited for the job I guess by today's standards..:) Jim