Las
Cruces mother-to-be is Tasered by police then accidentally Tasered again
Patrick Hayes
LAS CRUCES, N.M. – Phillip
Lopez and his wife Feliz Gonzales are expecting their first child, but they’re
worried he or she may not be born healthy.
In January, an officer with the
Las Cruces Police Department subdued the couple with a Taser.
Gonzales said, "I can’t
even describe the feeling. It was horrible.”
According to a police report
from Jan. 9, Officer David Rodriguez was responding to a domestic dispute
between Lopez and a neighbor on Court Avenue, near Melendres Street.
Officer Rodriguez said he told
Lopez to stop and put his hands up. When he didn’t, the officer fired his
Taser. Officer Rodriguez wrote, “The Taser was effective and Mr. Lopez did fall
down to the ground.”
According to the report,
Gonzales continued walking toward the officer. Officer Rodriguez wrote, “I did
feel in danger of receiving an immediate battery from Ms. Gonzales. At that
point in time, I did shoot another cartridge at Ms. Gonzales. When I shot her
with the Taser it was effective and she did fall to the ground forward.”
On cellphone video from a
neighbor, the officer is heard yelling, “Stop talking and keep your hands up or
I’ll tase you again.”
A few seconds later, Lopez
started to get up but instead of using the Taser on him, Officer Rodriguez sent
another cycle to Gonzales.
In the report, Officer
Rodriguez wrote, “While I was attempting to tase him, I also did inadvertently
send another cycle through to Ms. Gonzales. It was (an) unintentional cycle but
due to the (layout) of the Taser.”
Gonzales told KFOX14, “I
remember, stop it, stop it! And I’m trying to yell stop it, stop it! And he
just kept tasing me. I felt like I was going to die.”
Lopez said he felt helpless and
told KFOX14, “All I hear is her screaming and I say, 'Stop shocking my wife.
Why are you doing this?' And I don’t know what the cause of it was.”
The Las Cruces Police
Department would not elaborate on how the mistake happened.
The police report also stated
that Lopez became very disorderly.
“He was banging on the wall,
pulling on the handcuffs, trying to stand up, kicking his feet, spitting, (and)
just continually being verbally aggressive towards officers," wrote
Officer Rodriguez.
After they were booked,
Gonzales and Lopez were each charged with assault on a peace officer.
Gonzales said, “I think I was
the one that was assaulted. I have bruises from when I was on the floor. I’m
all messed up. Cut up. You know, from me hitting the gravel. It was horrible.”
Then on Jan. 9, the couple was
arrested by Las Cruces police on a warrant issued by New Mexico State Police
for a crime they said they didn’t commit.
NMSP, with help from LCPD,
identified the couple as the suspects wanted for stealing $600 worth of
merchandise from Walmart on Jan. 3.
Gonzales bonded out of Dona Ana
County Detention Center after a couple of days but Lopez, a convicted felon,
ended up spending six days behind bars.
Officer
accidentally shoots himself at Bridgeview courthouse
By Deanese Williams-Harris and
Lauren Zumbach
Chicago cop accidentally shoots
self at courthouse; injury not serious.
A Chicago police officer accidentally
shot himself at the Bridgeview courthouse Wednesday morning. Authorities said
the wound was not serious The officer was in the weapons room at the back of
the courthouse when the gun discharged around 9:30 a.m., striking the officer
in the upper leg, according to sheriff's officials.
He was taken to a hospital, and
his injuries were not life-threatening.
The officer was taking a gun
from a locker when it went off, sheriff's officials said.
The officer went to get his gun
as the courthouse was being evacuated because a smoke detector had gone off in
the law library. The alarm apparently malfunctioned and there was no fire,
officials said.
Several bystanders in the
courthouse said they did not hear the gunshot and weren't aware of what happened
until well after they were allowed back in the building.
"We thought it was just a
false alarm. We didn't hear about the officer until later," said Orland
Park police Officer Brian Eppolito.
Kathleen Connors and Ryan
Smith, both of Oak Lawn, were in a courtroom when the fire alarm sounded.
Smith said he and a number of
others in the courtroom smelled smoke, while Connors described an odor like
burning rubber.
Cop
accidentally shoots his sergeant instead of wild dog
By Matt McNulty
Police remove a crate with a
dog in it from 9720 Kings Highway in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where a cop
accidentally shot another in the foot. Photo: William Miller
A Brooklyn cop accidentally
shot his own sergeant in the foot Tuesday night as the pair responded to a
dangerous pit bull in an East Flatbush apartment.
The cop was trying to stop the
dog at 9720 Kings Highway at 10:40 p.m. when his gun discharged into his
superior officer’s right foot.
The sergeant, 36, was taken to
Kings County Hospital and was in stable condition early Wednesday.
The shooting was under
investigation, authorities said.
Cop
accidentally shoots gun; no one hurt
LAKE ARIEL, Pa. (AP) —
Prosecutors in northeastern Pennsylvania have launched an investigation after a
school police officer accidentally shot his gun inside his school office.
School resource officer Paul
Semler fired the weapon around 11 a.m. Wednesday inside the high school
building, according to Western Wayne School District Superintendent Clay LaCoe.
No one was hurt.
Semler is off the job while the
Wayne County district attorney's office investigates.
District Attorney Janine
Edwards tells The Times-Tribune of Scranton (http://bit.ly/1vkxxrA ) on
Thursday that her probe has not yet discovered what the officer was doing when
the gun was fired.
OSHA
Recommends ‘Cops’ Makes Changes After Crewman’s Death By Police During Arrest
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – A federal
agency on Tuesday called for additional training and safety instructions for
crew members of the long-running TV show “Cops” in response to the shooting
death of an audio technician last summer in Omaha.
Bryce Dion, 38, of Boston, was
killed Aug. 26 while filming an attempted armed robbery at a fast-food
restaurant when a stray bullet from an Omaha police officer slipped past his
bulletproof vest. The robbery suspect was also killed. Authorities later said
the weapon he was carrying turned out to be a pellet gun.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s
Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the shooting and
issued the guidelines but did not issue any citations or penalties.
In the letter to Langley
Productions, OSHA recommended teaching employees how to film from a distance
when there is gunfire in the area, taking precautionary measures when deciding
whether to accompany law enforcement into crime scenes and removing bonus incentives
that encourage employees to take risks to capture more action-packed stories.
“We believe these are actions
they can take to prevent accidents like this from happening,” said Bonita
Winingham, OSHA’s area director in Omaha.
Langley Productions released a
statement saying the company intends to implement the recommendations and
establish “even stricter procedures and policies to avoid any unforeseen
tragedy in the future.”
Winingham has requested that
the company respond to OSHA by March 31 with a letter outlining how it plans to
address the agency’s concerns. The agency will then evaluate any new policies
and training methods as they are employed.
“Cops” is a reality TV show
that has depicted law enforcement officers in action since it premiered in
1989. According to its website, the show airs on Fox and has been filmed in at
least 140 U.S. cities and three foreign countries.
Executives with the Santa
Monica, California-based Langley Productions said the incident in Omaha was the
first fatal shooting to occur while filming
