8 January 201419 December 2022 4WardEverUK

‘We called for help, and they killed my son,’ North Carolina man says

originally by: CNN.com
published: 7 January 2014

Seventy seconds: That’s how long a North Carolina family says it took for things to go horribly wrong as they sought police help dealing with their mentally ill son.

Keith Vidal, 18, died Sunday. According to CNN affiliate WECT, he was just shot 1 minute and 10 seconds after a third law enforcement officer showed up at his Brunswick County home.

The three officers all were from different jurisdictions, and family members say that the third officer (who came from a nearby city) turned what had been an improving situation into an unnecessarily aggressive encounter that ended in their son’s death.

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28 October 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Tippa Naphtali speaks out: Fury as ‘lethal’ Taser use on children rises

by: The Sunday Post
published: 27 October 2013

Tippa Naphtali speaks out to Sunday Post.

A furious row has broken out over the use of police stun guns on children. Official guidelines warn of potentially fatal consequences if youths are hit by the 50,000-volt Taser devices. But despite this, their use in confrontations with under-18s has rocketed by 1,000% over five years.

Figures show police used the weapons on just 29 occasions in 2007 but that shot up to 323 in 2011, an average of six times a week.

This included firing them outright and doing “drive stuns” in which the device is placed against a youth’s body and fired without causing incapacitation.

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22 October 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Police fatally shoot man after family calls for medical assistance

by: The Huff Post
published: 10/08/2013

The family of a Georgia man, who was fatally shot by police on Friday, are refuting the officers’ account, saying the killing was unjust.

Police say Jack Lamar Roberson, a 43-year-old father of two, allegedly advanced toward them with two items he was using as weapons. However, Roberson’s family said he was in need of help and wasn’t threatening in any way.

Roberson’s fianceé, Alicia Herron, said she called 911 when she noticed him acting erratically after taking his pills to control his blood sugar. However, officers came to their home instead of paramedics.