Nbadan
12-02-2007, 02:41 AM
This is insane...Keep in mind Cpl. Thomas O'Connor begins yelling at this man 16 secs into the stop and asks him to step out of the vehicle 27 seconds in...
An Austin police corporal who pulled over a man along a busy highway on Thanksgiving 2006 for driving five miles per hour over the limit ordered the driver out of the car and then shocked him with his Taser stun gun as the motorist appeared to question what was happening, according to a videotape from the officer's patrol car camera.
Cpl. Thomas O'Connor's immediate supervisor and internal affairs investigators exonerated him of wrongfully using the weapon, saying he was justified because he "perceived a threat," dozens of pages of internal memos and other records said. In May, Cathy Ellison, acting police chief at the time, suspended O'Connor for three days in May for using force against Eugene Snelling and for violating a department policy requiring officers to "respect the rights of individuals and perform their services with honestly, sincerity, courage and sound judgement."
The dramatic traffic stop has now become a "black eye on the organization," according to new Chief Art Acevedo, who this week will begin using the video as a training tool to prevent future incidents.
Acevedo, who arrived in June amid a federal investigation into how Austin police use force against minorities, said he was troubled by the officer's quick use of his Taser on Snelling, who is black, and by internal affairs detectives' decision that O'Connor, who is white, had done nothing wrong by using the weapon.
Days after he took office, Acevedo first saw the videotape and a stinging memo from the Austin Police Monitor's Office, which summed up its response: "We believe that Corporal O'Connor was far too quick on the trigger."
"It was very upsetting to me," Acevedo said in an interview last week. "What I saw wasn't consistent with my expectations of the men and women of the Austin Police Department. Our job is to de-escalate stops, not escalate them. The way the officer conducted business, he absolutely escalated the situation."
Here is the Video: Austin Cop Tasers guy for not handing over drivers license and insurance fast enough (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8U1JRAJpr8)
An Austin police corporal who pulled over a man along a busy highway on Thanksgiving 2006 for driving five miles per hour over the limit ordered the driver out of the car and then shocked him with his Taser stun gun as the motorist appeared to question what was happening, according to a videotape from the officer's patrol car camera.
Cpl. Thomas O'Connor's immediate supervisor and internal affairs investigators exonerated him of wrongfully using the weapon, saying he was justified because he "perceived a threat," dozens of pages of internal memos and other records said. In May, Cathy Ellison, acting police chief at the time, suspended O'Connor for three days in May for using force against Eugene Snelling and for violating a department policy requiring officers to "respect the rights of individuals and perform their services with honestly, sincerity, courage and sound judgement."
The dramatic traffic stop has now become a "black eye on the organization," according to new Chief Art Acevedo, who this week will begin using the video as a training tool to prevent future incidents.
Acevedo, who arrived in June amid a federal investigation into how Austin police use force against minorities, said he was troubled by the officer's quick use of his Taser on Snelling, who is black, and by internal affairs detectives' decision that O'Connor, who is white, had done nothing wrong by using the weapon.
Days after he took office, Acevedo first saw the videotape and a stinging memo from the Austin Police Monitor's Office, which summed up its response: "We believe that Corporal O'Connor was far too quick on the trigger."
"It was very upsetting to me," Acevedo said in an interview last week. "What I saw wasn't consistent with my expectations of the men and women of the Austin Police Department. Our job is to de-escalate stops, not escalate them. The way the officer conducted business, he absolutely escalated the situation."
Here is the Video: Austin Cop Tasers guy for not handing over drivers license and insurance fast enough (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8U1JRAJpr8)