Another senseless death

The day Linwood Lambert Jr. died in South Boston, Virginia, in May 2013, the police department there issued a curt news release with the headline "Subject Passes Away in Police Custody." The announcement failed to mention that Lambert, 46, an African American man, died shortly after three white police officers shot him with Tasers 20 times in the space of about 30 minutes.

Video footage of the incident, released recently by a judge's order and reported in depth by MSNBC suggests it is a case study in abuse by police ignorant of best practices in the use of stun guns. Their actions violated guidelines, including the local police department's own policy forbidding Tasering suspects in handcuffs.

Over a seven-year period in the 2000s, 334 people died in the United States after being shot by police using stun guns, according to Amnesty International USA; many more have died since then.

The incident involving Lambert unfolded when police in South Boston went to a motel before dawn in response to noise complaints. They found Lambert there, delusional and acting oddly.

Handcuffed but assured he was not under arrest, Lambert was taken to a hospital where, upon arriving, he became agitated and kicked out the squad car's rear window, bolted from the back seat and ran toward the emergency room entrance, crashing into its sliding glass doors. The three officers immediately pulled out their Tasers and began firing. The Tasering continued even after Lambert, by now shackled at the ankles and reinserted in the squad car, slumped in the back seat.

The officers' actions flouted federal guidelines for the use of stun guns, including warnings that the jolts not exceed 15 seconds in total (Lambert was probably shocked for well over a minute), that subjects should not be shot with more than one Taser at a time, and that Tasers should not be used against suspects who are handcuffed or under the influence of drugs (which Lambert admitted to the police he was). Critically, guidelines stress that anyone shot repeatedly with stun guns get immediate medical attention. Lambert, Tasered at the hospital doorway, received none before he died.

"Why are you trying to kill me, man?" Lambert, supine, asked as the police Tasered him. Why, indeed.

Editorial on 11/18/2015

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