Sunday, March 01, 2009

A Death In Texas

Another post-tasing death in Texas (added emphasis mine):
That's what a 40-year-old Houston man was seeking when he packed his car full of all that he owned and moved to his parents' home. Robert Lee Welch was diabetic and said to be depressed over a recent breakup. Saturday morning his family says Welch lost himself.

Welch's brother David Nichols recalled, "I saw my brother in the bathroom -- very incoherent and without any clothes on -- walking around in circles."

His family says he couldn't be calmed down and couldn't communicate, so an ambulance was called. Montgomery County deputies arrived first. According to a press release, Welch resisted their attempts to restrain him. They deployed a Taser -- six times, the family says.

"He never felt any of it," Nichole said. "He did not react to it."

Welch's mother says a deputy put his foot on the back of his neck and then her son's body relaxed. He was loaded into an ambulance. A statement from the sheriff's office says paramedics discovered he wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse. A few minutes later at a Conroe hospital, Robert Lee Welch was pronounced dead.

Hm, tasing diabetics, where have we heard about this before? Oh right, it was in Texas:

A Texas man who called 911 to request medical assistance for a diabetic seizure earned a tasering from local cops for his trouble, the Waxahachie Daily Light reports.

Allen Nelms, 52, was suffering said seizure "during the early morning hours of April 28 when his girlfriend, Josie Edwards, called 911 to request paramedics".

A police officer duly turned up at the house on Waxahachie's east side, "inquired as to what was going on", then called for back-up. Shortly after, and as Nelms was "in his bed in the couple's bedroom", cops "burst in with their guns drawn and yelling at him to get on the floor".

Edwards recalled "about six or seven police officers kicked the front door in and stormed the back bedroom where she said she could hear one telling Nelms to get on the floor". Her statement, which forms part of an written complaint made by Nelms to the Waxahachie police department, says: "Allen was shouting, 'Please don't do me like this. I just need help.' Next thing I heard some 'zing' noise and Allen was shouting. I asked what were they doing to him. One policeman replied, 'We just took care of him.' ... After they did their shooting and laughing, they came out [of] the rooms. The paramedics had to pull out the Tasers."

And who can forget the tasing of an OK man having a diabetic seizure?