North Country Gazette



Pinellas County Taser Deaths—Excusable Or Not?

Posted on Wednesday, 7 of May , 2008 at 8:35 am

COMMENTARY

By June Maxam

PINELLAS COUNTY, FLA—Between June 2001 and June 2007, nationwide there were at least 245 cases of deaths of subjects soon after having been shocked using Tasers. Of these cases, in seven cases, medical examiners said tasers were a cause or a contributing factor or could not be ruled out as a cause of death.In 16 cases, coroners and other officials stated that a taser was a secondary or contributory factor of death.

In dozens of cases, coroners cited excited delirium as cause of death. Excited delirium has been questioned as a medical diagnosis.

Several deaths occurred as a result of injuries sustained in struggles. In a few of these cases, head injury due to falling after being shocked contributed to later death.

In 2005, a medical examiner ruled for the first time that a taser was the primary factor in a death.

Apparently state attorney Bernie McCabe thinks he knows more about medicine and forensics than Jon Thogmartin, Pinellas County medical examiner.

Time after time, the office of Pinellas County state attorney Bernie McCabe closes out a case of death by a finding of  justifiable homicide, finding that the police of the Sixth Judicial Circuit were justified in the killing of an individual, often with a bullet in the back or more recently, in the increasing deaths resulting by taser guns wielded by police.

Although McCabe refused to prosecute the Clearwater police officers involved in the death of Thomas C. Tipton, the case is now in court as Tipton’s widow has brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, claiming that the officers who restrained Tipton and rescue workers were negligent, reckless, improperly trained and that the city had supplied them with “faulty and life-threatening equipment”.

Thomas Tipton died at age 34 in April 2006 after a violent confrontation with a trio of Clearwater cops in which he was handcuffed, tasered and restrained face down. Thomas Tipton never got up.

The medical examiner’s office ruled Tipton’s death a homicide, listing cocaine and alcohol as contributory conditions. The autopsy findings indicated that Tipton died of asphyxiation resulting from being face down on a patio while officers compressed his chest. The autopsy report said the alcohol in his system could have hastened the asphyxia. The Clearwater police had tasered Tipton following an altercation at a motel on north Clearwater Beach, claiming he was combative.

In what has become almost a routine determination in deaths of individuals in altercations with police officers, McCabe cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing despite the medical examiner’s findings, saying that the force used by the cops which resulted in Tipton’s death was “reasonable, necessary and justified”.

McCabe concluded that the repeated taserings of Tipton by police played no role in his death.

The autopsy indicated that Tipson had both marijuana and cocaine in his system and toxicology tests reported his blood-alcohol level at 0.227 percent, nearly three times the legal threshold of impairment.

There are reports that Tipton’s family’s investigation has uncovered evidence that disputes the quantity of drugs in Tipton’s bloodstream and eyewitnesses are challenging the police account of Tipton’s behavior.

Was the Tipton case just another case of a Pinellas County cover up?

Tipton had died in a struggle with police, after officers had tasered him. Rescue workers tried to revive him but their portable defibrillator had a dead battery.

After Tipton had knocked over several patio chairs and had broken several jalousie windows at a motel on Clearwater Beach, police were called. It was determined that Tipton was highly intoxicated. As officers tried to subdue him, he threw a table at one of the officers and ultimately was tasered several times. He was handcuffed but soon became enraged and began kicking and yelling at the officers who took him to the ground. They held him face down on the concrete as he continued to struggle but then he suddenly went limp.

The paramedics who responded tried to resuscitate Tipton but the defibrillator battery was dead as was the battery of the backup. By the time they brought a third defibrillator to the scene, no heart rate could be determined. He was pronounced dead.

Despite the medical examiner’s ruling of homicide, McCabe concluded that Tipton by himself, without the actions by the police, had “escalated the encounter from a situation in which the police sought to simply send him home in a cab to a prolonged, violent fight”. Despite having repeatedly tasered Tipton while he was handcuffed, McCabe said that the officers had “consistently used the least amount of force available” in the three to one subduing of Tipton.

McCabe’s exoneration of the three officers was supported by a finding by the Clearwater Police Department review board who said that in restraining Tipton the three officers had followed all policies and procedures.

One of the officers retired from the police department earlier this year and paramedic Dwayne “Chris” Vaughan was fired in three months after the incident for reports he filed concerning the attempted revival of Tipton. Although his medical license was revoked, he was rehired as a fire medic earlier this year but he is prohibited from treating patients or performing any duties that require paramedic certification.

Last July, McCabe cleared seven officers of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department in the May 5, 2007 death of Daniel Bradley Young, 33 of Largo. McCabe ruled that Young’s death was an “excusable homicide”. Young was tasered by several of the officers.

Young, the brother of Pinellas County Jail detention deputy Randall Young, was allegedly wandering in his neighbors’ yards, walking back and forth across Park Blvd. from his residence, speaking incoherently, shedding his clothing and collecting and carrying objects from the yards of his neighbors to his residence.

Police said that when Young was told he was under arrest, he became combative, a struggle ensued and officers tasered him.  He became unresponsive and was transported to the Largo Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Young was the second man to die that week at the hands of officers of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department. McCabe cleared them all.

McCabe has been Pinellas-Pasco state attorney since 1992 and has worked in the state attorney’s office since 1972. Although reliable sources say that McCabe left the office for about a year after allegations of misconduct surfaced involving his adopted daughter, to date The North Country Gazette has been unable to obtain McCabe’s employment records.

When a public records request was filed with Pinellas County government seeking McCabe’s records, the request was referred to the state attorney’s office which then informed NCG that they didn’t have such records on file and didn’t know why county government would have referred the request to them.

McCabe’s term expires this year but he’s already good to go for yet another four year term, unless he should be removed from office or other unexpected circumstance. McCabe was reelected Friday without opposition.

Although he had no opponent, McCabe raised $28,025 in contributions, primarily from assistants in his office and their spouses, and from investigators in police agencies throughout the two counties. McCabe’s long-time assistants Bruce Bartlett, Robert Lewis and James Hellickson and their wives each contributed $1,000 per household. Election law says that the maximum contribution per person is $500, not per household. Assistant Mark McGarry and his wife contributed $1,000 as did Vance Arnett and his wife along with Douglas and Barbara Crow.

Prominent attorney Anthony Battaglia and his partner Aubrey Dicus along with their law firm were substantial contributors to McCabe’s campaign which recorded just one expenditure according to the Florida Division of Elections, $48 to the U.S. Postal Service.

Judging from a review of determinations issued by McCabe in deaths and alleged wrongdoing involving police officers, it appears that if you’re a public officer or official in Pinellas County, Florida, you may have blanket immunity from prosecution.

It also appears to be a case of the fox guarding the hen house where McCabe and others are reportedly engaging in the same type of alleged criminal wrongdoing as those that he’s supposed to be prosecuting.

McCabe refused to prosecute the members of the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners who allegedly engaged in violating the city charter by individually contributing to political candidates. His refusal to prosecute the politicians was the second in two months. Bob Lewis, the assistant state attorney who announced McCabe’s office’s determination not to prosecute the matter, had donated the top limit to McCabe’s 2004 election campaign. So did Lewis’ wife. And they have again in the 2008 election.

So did Jim Hellickson and his wife, the assistant who improperly appeared in a campaign commercial in 2004 fall for Pinellas County probate court judge George Greer. So did Bruce Bartlett and his wife, the chief assistant state attorney, and Bill Loughrey and his wife.

Is that a prerequisite for keeping your job at the state attorney’s office, making the maximum contribution to McCabe’s political campaign?

And let’s not forget Douglas Crow and his wife at $500 each, Crow being McCabe’s chief assistant who decided in 2000 to drop two felony criminal charges against the Church of Scientology for the alleged abuse of a disabled adult and practicing medicine without a license in the death of Lisa McPherson.

Did that set a precedent why McCabe refused to undertake an investigation into Michael Schiavo and the entire Schindler-Schiavo matter?

Is it true that money talks, people walk?

According to political commercials aired by Pinellas County probate court judge George W. Greer during his 2004 reelection campaign, McCabe himself was allegedly guilty of violating Florida Statutes and lending the influence of his office to help promote Greer’s campaign, statutorily prohibited.

McCabe allowed assistant state attorney Jim Hellickson to appear in Greer’s TV commercial, giving the appearance that the state attorney’s office was endorsing Greer. Bob Dillinger, Pinellas County’s public defender also lent the influence of his office, allowing assistant Paula Shea to appear in the commercial.

Of course McCabe also refused to prosecute former Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice for using taxpayer money and resources to endorse Greer’s campaign, allowing a uniformed Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputy to appear in the commercial, obviously endorsing Greer, as well as allowing the use of a taxpayer owned patrol car.

Considering that McCabe can’t and won’t police himself and is apparently using his office to protect his own wrongdoing and that of his political cronies, how could the public ever expect that he would find some of Everett Rice’s hires in the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department guilty of crimes and now those of Sheriff Jim Coats?

Deputy Christopher Taylor shot drug suspect Jarrell Walker twice in the back, but although McCabe said that the sheriff’s department needed to review its policy on deadly force—instituted by none other than Everett Rice—that the Taylor killing of Walker was, guess what—yep—justifiable homicide.

And just what was Walker doing that justified the police officer shooting him in the back twice? He was lying face down on a couch, with his hand underneath the skirting of the couch. Wasn’t there some other way of containing Mr. Walker than shooting him in the back?

Other officers found no gun or weapon under the couch.

Rice hired Taylor in 1998 and he was involved in two previous shootings. Instead of reassigning Taylor, Rice allowed him to remain on the SWAT team and ultimately the officer took a black man’s life—-but it was justified according to McCabe.

In May, 2000, Taylor shot a man who allegedly interfered with the investigation of a shoplifting suspect in a Seminole parking lot. In April, 2004, he was one of two deputies who shot at a truck driver who snagged a sheriff’s patrol car under a boat trailer. No deaths were involved in those incidents but in both cases, McCabe and Rice cleared Taylor of wrongdoing.

In 2005, even McCabe said the Pinellas Sheriff’s deadly force policy had a problem—-and then the FBI has opened an investigation into whether Walker’s civil rights were violated. Looks like Everett Rice may have created a humdinger of a civil rights liability for Pinellas County taxpayers. It also appears that the department may have a discriminatory policy regarding the handling of black suspects.

It looks like McCabe’s continued suspected cover ups in the tasering and shooting deaths of suspects have created a humongous liability for the taxpayers of Pinellas County.

Over the next several weeks, the NCG will delve deeper into the operations of McCabe’s office, the sudden deaths of suspects by taser which McCabe has labeled “justified”.

Anyone with information regarding any of the above cases, Bernie McCabe and the operations of the Pinellas County state attorney’s office is asked to contact NCG at news@northcountrygazette.org Anyone who wishes to help defray the costs which will be associated with this special report or who wish to support the efforts of NCG may do so by using the PayPal button on the home page, www.northcountrygazette.org 5-3-08

Category: Courts, Crime, Florida, Government, Police

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