How Tasers became instruments of excessive force for the Border Patrol

[YankeeFan]

LA Times:

Searching for a way to curb fatal border shootings, Border Patrol leaders decided in 2008 that their agents needed a new weapon on their belts.

The agency began to supply Tasers, a hand-held device that delivers a paralyzing electric charge, as a way to end confrontations quickly and safely.

But in scores of cases along the border, the Tasers became instruments of excessive force, a Los Angeles Times analysis found.

The Times examined 450 uses of Tasers from 2010 to 2013 that were documented by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

At least 70 times, agents fired the devices at people who were running away, even though there was no struggle or clear indication that agents were in danger, according to use-of-force reports. At least six times, agents used the weapons against people who were trying to climb over the border fence back into Mexico.

Two people were shocked while they were handcuffed. Two were hit with five cycles of the weapon, even though the agency's policy says no one should receive more than three.

How Tasers became instruments of excessive force for the Border Patrol

 

[YankeeFan]

Must be nice to be a Fed. Just like the last 100+ FBI shootings, no wrongdoing was fond in these cases:

Three people died after being hit by Tasers wielded by border agents or customs officers. In one episode, 24-year-old Alex Martin, who had led agents on a car chase, burned to death after a border agent smashed his car window and fired a Taser inside. The device ignited an explosion and fireball.

Others were seriously hurt...

Investigations found no wrongdoing in either case.

The Times' analysis found that most of the people subjected to Tasers had been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border or were suspected of being in the country illegally, not fleeing arrest on more serious charges.

 

[Starman]

But I thought real Amurricans wanted to keep the smelly brown people out of here By Any Means Necessary?

You just wait until President Hairball takes over, when we just line 'em up against the Rio Grande and drop 'em in with one bullet to the head. Nobody will be crying about tasers then.

 

[YankeeFan]

The Border Patrol appears to be a well run organization:

A Border Patrol agent with alleged ties to a Mexican drug cartel has been arrested in connection with the beheading of a Honduran man in March.

Joel Luna, 30, was taken from his Hebbronville home on a charge of possession of a controlled substance Thursday by Cameron County sheriff’s deputies, Texas Rangers and federal agents.

On Friday morning, Luna, who had been transferred to Cameron County, was charged with capital murder, engaging in organized criminal activity and tampering with physical evidence. He is being held without bail.

The investigation into Luna, an agent for the past six years assigned to a checkpoint in Hebbronville, began shortly after the June arrest of four men who would later be charged with capital murder in the death of Franklin Rodriguez Palacios Paz of Honduras.

At the time, Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio declined to comment on the possible involvement of organized crime in Mexico. But on Friday, he said investigators now believe that the case is connected to a drug cartel across the border.

Palacios was reported missing days before his headless body was pulled from the Laguna Madre off South Padre Island by a fisherman. His chest had been mutilated with a sharp object, suggestive of organized crime violence in Mexico, officials said.

Border agent charged with capital murder in decapitation death