Family says teen tased by officer remains in critical condition



Fox 4 KC – by KASEY BABBITT AND MEGAN BRILLEY

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Police tased a 17-year-old, who family members say remains in critical condition as of Monday.

Police say an officer pulled Bryce  teen over for a minor traffic warrant. They say the teen resisted arrest and the officer was forced to tase him. But several eye witnesses are giving a different account.

It began as a routine stop as the teen was pulled over, but witnesses say it ended with the officer pulling the teen’s lifeless body onto this sidewalk.

Michelle Baker quickly grabbed her phone as she heard screams coming from the street.

Baker and other witnesses say they saw the officer tase the teen inside this car.

In a cell phone video taken by Baker you can see the officer dragging the teen’s body to the sidewalk, then standing with his foot on the teen’s back.

“You could tell the kid was going into convulsions. He turned him over and his head was dangling like this and he had blood coming out,” said Baker.

Curtis Martes, 17, says the teen was coming over to play XBox with him. When he heard his car pull up, he went to the porch to see a cop parked at the curb too.

Police say the officer walked up the car’s passenger window and asked the teen to roll it down.

“I hear him say from my porch he’s like ‘I can’t roll down my window it’s broke,’” said Martes.

The officer then walked to the driver’s side and asked the teen to get out of the car. Martes says the teen started recording on his phone.

“He was like ‘what am I being arrested for?’ The cop just grabbed him and said ‘you’re under arrest,’” said Martes.

Police say a struggle began and the officer warned the teen several times he would tase him.

“There was a wrestling match behind the vehicle where he resisted,” said Maj. Terry Storey of the Independence, Mo. Police Department.

But Martes and two additional witnesses say there wasn’t much of a struggle. They say the officer tased the teen then pulled him out of the car.

“He like threw him on the ground busted his face up. He kept like nudging him with his foot,” said Martes.

Five minutes go by in the cell phone video; all while witnesses say the teen was not breathing.

“You could see blood coming out of his mouth,” said Baker.

Martes was at the hospital on Sunday night with the teen and his family. He said the teen has swelling in his brain and is in critical condition.

The cell phone video taken by Baker is being used in this investigation.

http://fox4kc.com/2014/09/14/family-says-teen-tased-by-officer-remains-in-critical-condition/

5 thoughts on “Family says teen tased by officer remains in critical condition

  1. Cops want to know why the public despises them? They wonder why people are starting to pick them off? The answer is simple: if you are going to act like a bunch of predatory animals, people are going to slaughter you like predatory animals. What a sick, twisted world we live in now.

  2. “He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral.  Why?  Because anger looks to the good of justice.  And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
    St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) 

    “Two Pennsylvania State Police troopers shot late Friday, one fatally, were ambushed just outside the police barracks in Blooming .”
    maybe someone had a brother or son who did not appreciate the manner of his/her arrest.
    They had better clear all the woods around the station, but with a .308, they need to clear 800 yards.

    “STOP RESISTING”, “GET YOUR HAND OFF MY GUN”or in the courtroom, “I WAS IN FEAR FOR MY LIFE” “HE WAS REACHING FOR SOMETHING” etc…..

  3. Law enforcement is an EGO driven criminal enterprise for the most part ,male or female! Where else other than a mercenary could and ego driven psycho get a job? They even tase 8 year olds in school now if challenged but I know its just a few bad apples,sure seems to be a lot of bad apples lately now doesn’t it!

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