A 21 year old black man in Winnfield, Louisiana, named Baron “Scooter” Pikes, was tasered 9 times in 14 minutes by a white police officer in January after he was arrested and handcuffed. He died. Seems a tad excessive to me. However, here’s the story of his arrest and subsequent death according to the police report by the arresting officers:
[Police Officer] Nugent spotted Pikes walking along the street and attempted to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for drug possession, according to Police Chief Johnny Ray Carpenter. Pikes took off running, but another officer cornered him outside a nearby grocery store. Pikes resisted arrest and Nugent subdued him with a shock from a Taser.
Then on the way to the police station, Carpenter told the newspaper, Pikes fell ill and told the officers he suffered from asthma and was high on crack cocaine and PCP. The officers called for an ambulance, but Pikes later died at the hospital.
So Mr. Pikes was high on PCP, crack cocaine and had a serious asthma condition? That poor man was seriously messed up if he smoked crack and took PCP with an existing asthma condition. The again, perhaps we should take a look at what the subsequent autopsy report by the Parish Coroner found:
An autopsy determined there were no drugs in Pikes’ system and that he did not have asthma, according to Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish coroner.
Gee, that doesn’t exactly corroborate the police account of what happened to poor Mr. Pikes, now does it. But what about the resisting arrest part? Aren’t police entitled to use appropriate force when someone is violently resisting arrest? What horrible acts did that allegedly drug crazed Mr. Pikes do to require these multiple taser shocks? Well, here’s what Officer Nugent, the individual who administered the multiple taserings of Mr Pikes, said about that:
Moreover, Pikes did not resist arrest, and he was handcuffed while lying on the ground, according to Nugent’s police report of the incident. It was only after Pikes refused Nugent’s command to stand up that the officer applied the first Taser shock in the middle of his back, Nugent wrote.
Several more Taser shocks followed quickly, Nugent stated, because Pikes kept falling down and refusing to get back up. Grocery shoppers who witnessed the incident later told Pikes’ family that he had pleaded with Nugent: “Please, you all got me. Please don’t Tase me again.”
So he deserved multiple taserings because he didn’t stand up fast enough, and then after each taser shock he was unable to get up off the ground fast enough to please this Officer Nugent? Wow. That’s one dangerous man, lying on the ground writhing in pain, literally begging Officer Nugent to stop tasering him. I can certainly see why Officer Nugent was forced to taser Mr. Pikes, again and again, in order to subdue him. What else could he have done? I mean, it’s not like Officer Nugent likes to use his taser on criminal suspects. I’m sure he only uses it when he absolutely has to according to proper police protocols. Or does he?
[Coroner] Williams said police records showed Nugent administered nine Taser shocks to Pikes over a 14-minute period. The last two jolts, delivered as police pulled Pikes from a patrol car at the police station, elicited no reaction because the suspect was unconscious, Williams said. […]
In less than two years on Winnfield’s 20-officer police force, police records show, Nugent ranked as the department’s most aggressive Taser user. Among the recipients were a 15-year-old African-American runaway who was not charged with any crime and Pikes’ father, currently serving a prison sentence for a drug offense, who was Tasered by Nugent last year, according to Kayshon Collins.
Okay, so Officer Nugent might be a little trigger happy overenthusiastic in his use of the taser on criminal suspects or black teenage runaways. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he meant any harm to come to Mr. Pikes. Oh wait, maybe we should reserve judgment on that point . . .
After consulting about the case with Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally prominent forensic pathologist, Williams ruled last month that Pikes’ death was a homicide. On the death certificate, he listed the cause of death as “cardiac arrest following nine 50,000-volt electroshock applications from a conductive electrical weapon.”
“God did not just call this young man home,” said Williams, who has served as parish coroner for the past 33 years. “If somebody can tell me anything else that killed this otherwise perfectly healthy young man … I’d like to know it.” […]
“This case may be the most unnecessary death I have ever had to investigate,” Williams said. “[Pikes] put up no fuss, no fighting, no physical aggression. … He just didn’t respond quickly enough to the officer’s commands.”
As we all know, African American men are well known as dangerous, crack smoking criminal degenerates (and always have been) and Mr. Pikes was undoubtedly a very evil, evil man. Even so, I think Officer Nugent just may have gone above and beyond the call of duty when he electrocuted Mr. Spikes to death for the crime of not responding quickly enough to the good Officer’s commands. Indeed, one can only wonder if Officer Nugent, under similar circumstances, would have tasered a white suspect who was handcuffed and in his custody 9 fucking times in 14 goddamn minutes.
I suspect Officer Nugent would have acted differently toward a white man under his control, but we’ll never know, especially since Officer Nugent isn’t talking to the press, and depending on what the Grand Jury decides, may never be called to account for his actions in tasering Mr. Pikes 9 fucking times in 14 goddamn minutes while Pikes groveled at his feet begging for mercy.
Jesus wept, it says in the Bible. I don’t know if Jesus wept again after Baron Pikes died, but I’ll bet his family did. I’ll bet they cried for days on end. On the other hand, I’ll bet that Officer Nugent did not cry after he killed Mr. Pikes by tasering him 9 fucking times in 14 goddamn minutes. Not part of his job description, after all.
Of course, I’m sure Officer Nugent will be found innocent of any charges, assuming any are ever brought. Even if he did taser Mr. Spike 9 fucking times in 14 goddamn minutes.
This type of story (with slightly different variables from case to case) seems to be pretty routine these days. I am really happy to see your writing on the topic, with the appropriate level of ridicule and outrage that these tactics deserve.
Police state this America is, and far too few Patriots writing about it exactly how you just did. What the fuck happened to the country we grew up in. The one with a Constitution where we didn’t torture everyone to death (and we particularly didn’t send young men to meet “Old Sparky” without a cursory trial).
I am heartened, that our police-military-industrial complex is experimenting with other non-lethal weapons that will be available to other officers soon enough. Like the ray gun that makes subjects feel as if they are burning alive. That’s my favorite. I mean, no officers are ever going to abuse that type of weapon to try to get information out of some poor schmuck. I know that will never happen here. Just like I knew we would never have an express policy of using Chinese water torture.
Great country this.
The trouble with tasers is that, because they has been touted as non-lethal, the police are more likely to use them when they are unnecessary purely as an instrument of repression and intimidation (or for the sadistic pleasure of some of them). As a cop, if you shoot someone with a gun you can be off the streets for weeks while they investigate whether you acted appropriately in firing your weapon. Tasers on the other hand . . .
America fell into a black hole, we lost our civil liberties and few noticed.
just days ago I read of a blind, ill woman being tasered.
And then there’s the option: Injection of a drug
but all this is possible when we’re dehumanized.
Look away: Who gave permission for NASA to use cadavers in their testing? Whose cadavers?
the Iraq War.
People seem to think that cops only beat people up during the civil rights era.
BTW, Pikes was the cousin of Mychal Bell of the Jena Six infamy. I have no doubt that the cops knew this and have marked and shadowed family members and friends of the Six.
In tasing someone with their hands cuffed behind them–they’re not going to be able to get up very easily or respond to orders readily. The body can absorb only so much shock.
This officer Nugent just wanted to kill someone, and he got his wish.
Murderer.
In the ‘good old day’s it used to be touted that war encouraged technological innovation. We always assumed that they meant state of the art equipment. But after seeing our warriors protected with kleenex & undergoing electrical shocks from taking a shower I’m inclined to state the obvious and that is that our military is shovelled into the combat zones without benefit of American’s technology but son of a gun that technology is booming to turn around and aim it at our own citizens.
Different Scooter, different “justice.”
Going back to your post on Wednesday which I find explains so much. Apparently, amongst the human race there is the enticement than when offered the ability to abuse one another without a known consequence, some just can’t resist.
Bush/Cheney’s twisted logic of the necessity of torture for the larger good has quickly worked it’s way down the chain. Lying and denial are now an accepted part of the storyline.
This is obviously a first-degree murder case. Where is the FBI when it could actually do some good for a change?
Best to keep in mind, though, that as long as we tolerate indefensible laws like those against possessing some substances for personal use, we are inevitably supporting impunity for “law enforcement” by a police state. Where law is ridiculous there will be no law applied to “law enforcement”. Chickens coming home to roost, remember?
A story that I’ve been told about numerous times by a friend of mine with a more scientific bent than I have, but that I think may be one of the biggest outrages that we haven’t heard about yet, is the development of “nonlethal” weapons taking place right now.
It’s absolutely bone-chilling to learn of the technologies that are already ready to deploy right now. They have “pain rays” of various sorts that operate on microwaves that can make you feel as though your skin is on fire. They have another one that–no tinfoil hat bs either–can actually beam sound into your head.
Both of these systems, I’m told by a trusted source, but haven’t bothered to check firsthand yet, are fully operational and ready to go. Apparently the requisite contracts haven’t been issued yet, or something. But if there’s one thing we know from history, weapons, once developed, don’t lie idle. They get used.
This to me is like the mercenary (Blackwater) phenomenon. The implications are huge. I’m sorry I’m not better researched on it here but honestly I’ve kinda been avoiding learning specifics.
I guess Mr. Obama would blame his death on his father, “currently serving a prison sentence for a drug offense”. Probably did some pot and cocaine the way Obama himself admits doing, just got caught. So why should Officer Nugent feel bad? It wasn’t his fault. It was the fault of black men who just aren’t responsible enough. Heck, even the black folks say that’s the problem. 😉
Not sure what this gratuitous leap of logic was for. Don’t think that Obama has yet commented on this case, but thanks for giving us your criticism of what Obama might have said if he were the caricature of him that you draw.
Things are more complicated with Obama than you would like.
Once, just once, I would like to see a cop go to jail for this sort of thing.
preferably to a jail where all the other inmates have tasers. And ideally, his roommate is the CEO of the company that makes the damn things.
.
Here in the birthplace of two of Louisiana’s most colorful and notorious governors — Huey and Earl Long–the police chief Gleason Nugent committed suicide three years ago after losing a close election marred by allegations of fraud and vote-buying.
The current police chief Johnny Ray Carpenter (pallbearer ar Nugent’s funeral) is a convicted drug offender who got a pardon from Edwin Edwards, the former Louisiana governor who is serving time in federal prison for corruption convictions.
All of that tangled history is now wrapped up in the Pikes case, because Scott Nugent, the officer who Tasered him, is the well-connected son of the former police chief who killed himself–and the protege of the current chief, who hired him onto the force.
…
Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish coroner, is no stranger to controversy in Winnfield. Back in 2004, his garage was firebombed, and he says he’s been shot at 19 times by people upset with the independence of his investigations. He wears a gun holstered at his waist.
(January 29, 2008) It has been decided that Officer Scott Nugent will be suspended with pay until further notice, pending the coroner’s report. (May 22, 2008) The City Council did decide to fire Scott Nugent (21) from the force. According to Winnfield Mayor Deano Thornton the decision to remove Officer Scott Nugent from the force was made at a special city council meeting.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Go to jail? I’d like to see a cop on death row for it. We’d see the death penalty disappear within a matter of weeks.
Steven D,
I’m completely off topic here. Have you seen David Bromwich’s op-ed in the Huffington Post on the Benny Morris NYT op-ed of July 18, Iran and Israel, which you talked about? He clearly tells us who Morris is.
No, but I’ll go check it out.
Thanks
As reported here it seems like Officer Nugent (related to Ted?) should be facing murder charges.
But I think the other commenters covered the basics. The civil rights division of the Justice Dept doesn’t protect citizens’ civil rights just like the voting rights section works to keep the wrong people (read: minorities) from voting. So the purpose of Republicans, who claim that government doesn’t work, is 1.) to fill their pockets, and 2.) to make sure that government doesn’t work.
Tasers are a very flawed “non-lethal” device (because they can kill), but even granted that, it’s obviously not the tasers that are the problem.
“All men are created equal” is pretty straightforward. But if this shit is happening in 2008 then it’s clear that the purpose of government (and this can be said more or less for any government anywhere) is not to protect equal rights, it’s to maintain the inequality. And there’s no easier inequality to enforce than racism.
Sorry to be so depressing. It’s only noon and too early to start drinking.
just another note here, this is happening all over this country, and just recently here in Fl, the cops are on a rampage with tasers.
also trumping up cases against people, and surprisingly enough, they never seem to have video cams in the cruisers, and they never stop you where witness’ are around, and late at night, watch out in those dark areas, you won’t look so good when they get through with you, and then they proceed through the court system to destroy your life, of course the system makes money of it, and they bleed you dry.
I know several friends right now in the very same situation, and they are of no particular color, just happened to be the “lucky” ones in the line of fire.
It MUST stop, our liberties are no more.
we truly are living in a police state/country….FACT
Steven, very illuminating post. My only problem is that every time I see the headline I sounds like some cop tasered a corpse. I suggest something more clear and direct like White Cop Kills Shackled Black Victim with Taser Attacks.
I have a badge and am inherently good. When I say jump you jump and say how high at the same time, and you better do so before I finish asking you to do so. You did not do so, so now I employ my taser. I’m tasing you, yet you do not stop shaking. You are clearly resisting. Stop resisting! You are disobeying my orders!
He died, oh well, it was probably excited delirium. These weapons are nonlethal, and besides would you rather I shot him 9 times?
Bow down to my authority.
This is not a taser story, it is a story of human cruelty. My son is a police sergeant in a small northern California town, and frankly, I’m glad he has a taser to use as something between going hands on or pepper spraying someone, and unholstering his Glock to deal with someone who intends to do great bodily harm to him. To me the only news I fear more than learning that my son has been hurt on the job or worse is that he has had to shoot someone. This is not the case with the inhuman Officer Nugent, who apparently got off tasering Pikes 9 times in 14 minutes. This is not a taser story, it is a murder. Nugent’s intent was clearly to inflict grievous bodily harm and pain; that Scooter Pikes died during this atrocity is clearly murder. Perhaps Nugent’s ancestors used ropes instead.