I-Team: Injection Used To Subdue Prisoners - Nashville News Story - WSMV Nashville

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"The drug has an amnesia effect, and we use that therapeutically because one of the nice ways to take care of the discomfort is to make people forget that they've had it," said biomedical ethics and law enforcement expert Dr. Steven Miles.

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I woke up -- I don't know how much time had passed -- with a sergeant standing over me telling me to sign here. I didn't know what I was signing Ms. (Channel 4 I-Team reporter Demetria) Kalodimos. I just signed a piece of paper and was immediately right back out.

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This doesn't bode well...

Hello NK:

For people who support torture, this turn of events shouldn't be surprising.

excon

They also use Versed (ver-said) the same drug in children at the dentist.

I know my son had it last year when he was 3 after falling and chipping both his front teeth.

It took about 30 - 45 minutes for the drug to take effect on my son in the waiting room. He was very sleepy afterward.

It could be that the needle is a step up for them... they may be the type of police force that would just stomp the $hit out of e'm and then cuff them... but with the videos, and camera phones they have to change tatics.

By the account of the article of the one person interviewed ;he could not be subdued even after being tasered . What do you recommend when someone needs to be subued and every other procedure has failed ? Let him go ? This guy was a danger to himself and to others by his own admission. Maybe it would be better for them to put a bullet in him ?

If there is a good medical reason for not having the protocol the time to bring it up was before the policy went into effect. If there is a good reason beyond paranoia about any tool the police have at their disposal for doing their job ,then it should merit a review of the policy and a reversal if warranted .

Police can use any reasonable means to subdue a person who is a danger to himself or others, as this person clearly was if you read to cited article. My only question is that if this person was held down long enough for medical personnel to arrive and administer the shot, why couldn't they cuff him? If you hold him still enough to administer an injection of some sort, you should be able to put cuffs on and haul the guy away. If you can't get his hands close enough together, you use more than one pair of cuffs.

To assume that what is depicted in the article is torture is an unreasonable streach of the definition of the term.

Jim I was wondereing the same thing. Me personally I have never had any problems with the police force but I have seen,heard, read some rather cruel things from the city surrounding mine, where I live. In fact where I live we have a very good police force, I don't think everyone is so lucky.

I was a police officer in the military and in Washington, D.C. I also arrested a lot of people when I worked in retail security. It is obvious to me that there are many persons who become police officers who, for a vartiety of reasons, abuse their power and tend toward the use of excessive force or an attitude that will put people in a fighting mood, so to speak. Unfortunately, we have not come far enough in the science of human behavior to weed these people out.

I am not sure that others would like what they would have to do on the other hand, have 4 or 6 officers with clubs help stop the person.

I have worked on the street, I had one person break his handcuffs from behind his back. He said he saw dead people in the back of the police car. He then lifted me ( and I am over 250) and threw me, Single hits with a baton did not even get his attention and mace did not phase him.
We had to finally get 5 officers to use enough force to take him back down and put severl cuffs on him with leg irons, believe me, it would have been much, much more humane to have some other method.

Another gentleman was in a public library. Could not use mace indoors in public, well again it was not a pretty sight by the time things got done.

Another person was found hitting their head against the telephone pole, now the vote was to let him keep hitting till it knocked him out, but the Sgt out voted everyone and it took 5 or 6 officers to get him under control

Those people who tazers and mace have no effect on, do not come in easily and someone is going to be hurt before it happens.

I always say, don't judge the method until you tried to do it with the other methods.

Why don't they should just shoot them dead! You know, self defense!

I have seen people waving knives around and failing to put them down shot for just that reason. Several years ago an incident like that happened in D.C. and when the U.S. Park Police shot the guy, you could see the back of the guy's sweater jump up as the bullet left his back, right on TV.

While this was ruled to be OK, I think other means should have been tried as long as the person was not charging anyone with the knife. I have seen fire hoses used to disarm people in such circumstances.

Jim We had an incident in a neighboring town with a known mental person threatening a group of officers with a brick they filled him full of bullets not 1 or 2. I believe he had about 20 in him when they examined him.

These officers did not get into trouble either, and the onslaught of people continued... then they had a riot in 2000s... Not that I approved of it but I guess the people were fed up and did not know what else to do. I think that made the city stand up and take notice of the wrong doings of the officers even though no fault was ever admitted... however they have been known to pay out some large sums of money to the victims families, started sensitivity classes, hopefully they now do a more thorough evaluation before they hire the officers.

So it is correct to say that these non-lethal measures are preferable .

What does bode well these days? The thing that every one seems to be missing is that not every police officer is the same. I have considered this profession, but I have a real passion for Psychiatry. Dealing with people is not usually very easy, especially if you have "authority" over them. People don't like the idea that they are not in control of their lives and generally dislike being told they can't do this or can't do that. Truth be told, we do have a chioce, even if there is law saying we can't do something. All you have to do is accept that "if" you get caught, you'll have to pay the pipper.

So is an injection a good idea, sure why not? If you're about saving lives. Some people can be very strong, especailly if they are mentaly unstabel or on drugs, which some times you can't tell. (The chemistry of the body works in strange ways sometims, Adrenaline) And if they wriggle loose they could hurt/kill some one. To cuff some one you need at least one free hand, not always an option. Not to mention there are often other problems going on at the same time, supply and demand, there isn't always another avalible unit to come to help.

Now, if your into the idea that people get what they deserve, then you'd probably not care if they got an injection, or beat, or shot.

Some officers are big, some small, some ichin to fire there gun, some wish they never had one, some who play for the other side and some that just pretend to play for the other side. (no I'm not talking about gays, though I'm sure there are some, big deal, they're just people too, so get over it! ) There are processes in tact to ween out the not so good people or poor choices, but those processes are not perfect, and just because some one is confident and logical, and capable doesn't mean they don't get scarred, or caught off guard, or what ever the case, they are just people too.

So, what ever we "think", doesn't relly matter. What matters is that in the hands of the right person, things work out, but who in the heck knows who those right people are?

The trouble with the person with the knife and I guess getting off track a bit, is that you as the officer don't have the ability to normally wait another 10 min for a fire truck to arrive at the scene, if there are people around and the person is armed with a knife, you have to judge the distance between him and anyone else including yourself. The magic number we were always taught was 30 ft, first a officer is not going to be good at hitting a moving target, a person running at someone, and reaction times, so officers at least in the three schools I was at, taught that if the person with a knife is within 30 feet of you or someone else, they are a life threatening situation and deadly force would be approved. A dead suspect with a knife plays a lot better on all the news ( expect extreme liberal ) than a dead bystander who was killed because the officer waited.

Of course every situation is different and what works in one situation might not work in another. I was taught that you use "every reasonable means" to sudbue a person who is threatening to use deadly force. That gives a lot of leeway and I have seen people sit there for hours threatening deadly force. If you do an Internet search for 1882, bomber and Washington Monument, you will see one example.

If there are "people around" when one of these situations arises, it is the officer's duty to remove them.

Hello:

I agree with Jim. If you can hold him down long enough to inject him, you could cuff him.

excon

It's basically the 'date rape' drug. Are they planning to fire darts at people? <cue Wild Kingdom>