LF: State Trooper Facing Murder Charges After Tasing A Teen Riding An ATV

Title: State Trooper Facing Murder Charges After Tasing A Teen Riding An ATV
Source: TechDirt
URL Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2 ... r-tasing-teen-riding-atv.shtml
Published: Apr 25, 2018
Author: Tim Cushing
Post Date: 2018-04-27 09:52:30 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 20164
Comments: 104

from the height-of-unreasonableness dept

More than two dozen hours of recordings and 600 pages of documents obtained by the Detroit Free Press have uncovered disturbing details of the senseless killing of 15-year-old Damon Grimes by Michigan State Trooper Mark Bessner last fall.

Lots of killings are senseless, including many of those committed by officers authorized to use deadly force. But this one was especially senseless. Trooper Bessner decided against all policy and reason to fire his Taser at Grimes while both he and Grimes -- riding an ATV -- were traveling at 35 mph down a residential street. To add to the insanity of his act, Bessner was the passenger in the cruiser. Having initiated the pursuit, Bessner decided to end it by tasing Grimes. The result was the complete, gruesome destruction of a human being.

Grimes had been driving about 35 mph on an ATV when Bessner — a passenger in a moving patrol car — fired his stun gun at the teen during a chase on Detroit’s east side.
Grimes slammed into the back of a parked truck and flew off his ATV. The impact of the crash ripped gashes into his forehead, both cheeks and upper lip and dislocated his skull. Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival at St. John Hospital.

Bessner is now facing murder charges. There's a good chance Grimes never knew he was being pursued. Earbuds were photographed at the scene of the fatal crash. No one involved in the pursuit has been willing to go on record as to whether they appeared to be in use at the time of death. Additionally, obtained footage shows the cruiser's emergency lights weren't activated until 24 seconds after the fatal crash.

What the Free Press has uncovered with this mountain of public records is staggering. Officers arriving at the scene expressed their disgust at Bessner's actions. One officer in particular registered her disbelief at what she was witnessing.

“His pulse is weakening because he was on that fuckin' thing, and you chased his ass,” Detroit Police officer Kimberly Buckner muttered to herself as she stepped out of her vehicle, her body camera recording every step and word.
As she walked toward Grimes, an unidentified Detroit police officer reached out his hand to cover the lens of Buckner's body camera quietly saying: "They fuckin' tased his ass while he was cruisin'."

Buckner showed more compassion than other officers, though. The unidentified officer she spoke with later stated police escorts for ambulances were reserved for injured officers not "bad-ass 15 [year olds]" who ran from the cops. The officer went on to state he had "no sympathy" for the dead teenager. Another unidentified officer is captured saying, "Don't run from the State Police. You'll get fucked up."

Unbelievably, Detroit PD officials had no idea this officer -- still unidentified -- had criticized the cooling corpse of a teen shot by an officer with a Taser while riding an ATV at 35 mph. Only at the prompting of the Free Press was an investigation instigated. The officer has been pulled from patrol duty while the investigation is underway.

The Michigan State Police have a lot to answer for, and reps aren't talking. A pending lawsuit is only part of the reason for its silence. The other part is likely due to its refusal to deal with a problem trooper until he was charged with murder.

Bessner has a history of using excessive force and has been reprimanded before for using his Taser inappropriately, including using the device on handcuffed suspects. The investigation into Bessner's conduct shows that over a four-year span ending in 2017, he had 40 use of force incidents, 17 pursuits and five car accidents.

If the Michigan State Police could be bothered to police themselves, this may have been prevented. Bessner was -- at best -- a lawsuit waiting to happen. This isn't normal behavior, no matter how his lawyer spins it. It appears Bessner is going to lean hard on the Supreme Court's Graham decision, if his lawyer's statements are any indication.

Bessner's attorney, Richard Convertino, agreed to an interview, but then didn't respond to requests to schedule it.
Convertino previously called Grimes' death tragic, noting the teen drove the ATV “recklessly and dangerously” and “actively resisted and evaded arrest.”
“During the pursuit, Trooper Bessner was forced to make a split-second decision under circumstances on the scene and at the moment which was tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving,” Convertino told the Free Press in the email, shortly after the crash.

If the wording in that last paragraph seems familiar, it's because it directly quotes a Supreme Court justice.

The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments - in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving - about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.

That statement in defense of Bessner's reckless actions is a bit too much on the nose. There was no need for this to be a 'tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving" situation. A teen was riding an ATV and the cops were in cruisers. If the teen posed a risk to others, the solution was not to fire a Taser from a moving vehicle at an unprotected body traveling at 35 mph. That's just a good way to seriously injure someone. In this case, the injuries were fatal and the trooper whose best call under pressure was to commit an act almost every cop would find unreasonable is now behind bars awaiting trial. I'll bet he wishes he'd responded a bit more reasonably.

The State Police gave him every chance to show them what kind of officer he could be. And in the end, he showed them he could be even worse than he was in the four years leading up to his murder rap.

These women were testifying about Cosby's alleged behavior that was never proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. It's gossip. Why should we believed it ever happened to them?

Second, if I toss a coin 25 times and it comes up heads every time, what are the odds it will come up heads the 26th time? Yeah. 50-50. Past behavior is no indicator of current behavior. If it was, we can avoid the time and expense of trials and go straight to conviction.

The three-strikes law deals with convictions. Past behavior is considered during sentencing, not conviction.

Most of those accusations were the result of civil trials so they would not be admitted.

However, if Cosby's conviction for this case stands on appeal, then I think it could be cited in other future criminal trials as part of a pattern of criminal conduct by Cosby over the course of years.

You're only proved that you don't understand statistics properly. Apples and oranges.

Sure but both prosecutors and defense attorneys will try to drag in past behavior on the sly to muddy up a victim (like a rape victim who wears racy clothes or an assault victim with a history of fighting) or to keep a jury from finding out about other unrelated charges or convictions. And a judge tries to keep the trial balanced so someone doesn't get convicted on the basis of crimes he may have committed years ago.

So, let's say you put O.J. Simpson on trial again for some crime. His lawyer would never allow the prosecutor to start talking about his murder trial (he won) or his civil trial (he lost). Or his involvement with extensive satellite TV piracy. Or even his conviction in Nevada when trying to recover his old memorabilia from some crook. A jury might just convict him based on his other crimes or even the perception that he got away with murdering his wife and her lover. Some people still think that's why he served that much time in Nevada prison, not the actual charges he was convicted of.

35 mph on a city street is only 10 over. It’s not recliess or dangerous enough to justify a killing. Second degree murder is overcharging. This is manslaughter at worst. Detroit won’t riot if the cop is acquitted. Rioting burned out of Detroit long ago. The city is 94% black and about 2% Hispanic. And the whites who live in the city ain’t Lord-of the-manor types, if you know what I mean. Detroitcops are famously corrupt, in the “part of the local criminal community” sense”, not an occupying army.

Moot point. As far as I can tell, all of those civil suits are pending. One was settled out of court. Meaning, from a legal standpoint, his record is as clean as yours and mine.

If a woman wants to accuse Cosby, let her come forward separately in court where discovery and cross-examination can take place. It's supreme bullshit that she should be allowed to testify at another trial when there is zero proof that anything she says is true.

"Witnesses said the trooper pulled close to the ATV and fired his Taser during the chase, and they believe it might have caused Grimes to crash. Witnesses said the teen was trying to get onto the sidewalk when he hit the pickup truck."

Unless, of course, there is an exception to the general rule. And the applicability of exceptions is within the discretion of the judge.

Should be. State troopers should not be empowered to cause certain injury to prevent a very theoretical injury. 35 mph on a 25 mph street simply is not that fast or that dangerous. There's no indication that it was a crowded street.

Truth is, the troopers were pissed that the guy did not stop, so they stopped him, in a manner that anybody could foresee would cause serious injury or death. And it did.

Our society has indeed empowered them to do things like this, but as the incidents pile up, our society may decide that it is time to start taking some of that power back. And the place where that power is most logically taken back (given political realities) is the courts.

You're making a self-righteous argument assuming facts not in evidence, at least not yet.

The witnesses and the accident scene evidence indicates that the yout' had slowed down to try to get on the sidewalk and that he flipped his ATV by trying to corner too fast, throwing him into the back of the pickup and his ATV striking another part of the pickup tailgate and ending up flipped over in the middle of the street.

Maybe young Mr. Potatohead didn't even get hit with the taser at all and just rolled his ATV trying to take the corner too fast. At this point, we don't know.

But even the witnesses (Detroit residents of a high-crime cop-hating neighborhood) say that the yout' had slowed down and was not going 35mph at the time of the crash.

And was Mr. Potatohead even wearing a helmet? The only photo we have of him (so far) on the ATV is this one:

He may be dead only because he tried to corner too fast and wasn't wearing a helmet.

There's a lot of dumbass counties and towns that are relaxing laws against running ATVs on public roads. There are now more people getting killed riding ATVs on paved roads than off-road. And the ATV manufacturers specifically oppose allowing ATVs to be ridden on public roads, saying they are inherently unsafe and unlicensed and not equipped or designed for public roads.

The real murderers of this kid are his own parents, giving a young idiot such a dangerous vehicle and then failing to supervise him in any way.

All I can say is "God bless Saint Darwin", the patron saint of dumbass helmetless riders.

a) It was illegal for him to drive his ATV on the street.
b) He was doing wheelies and driving recklessly.
c) 35 may not be fast in a car, but it is on an ATV.
d) 35 is dangerous. It killed him, didn't it?

In Red China, the cops used to pull speeders out of their vehicles and summarily execute them at the roadside.

Well, that wasn't the intent, was it? I mean if the cop wanted to kill him he would have simply shot him.

I think it was unreasonable, with a foreseeably tragic result, and I don't believe that the police should have a different standard applied to them in such circumstances.

I don't know if a Detroit jury will agree with me or with you, so we'll see. If they agree with me, I will be pleased. If they agree with you, I'll just shrug my shoulders and chalk it up, once again, to the dysfunction of our justice system.

But is that a matter of public safety, even for some white Mr. Potatohead who does it? Surely this is not within the purview of the highway patrol (who was requested by the city of Detroit to help law enforcement in high-crime areas of Detroit)?

Of course, it is no business of those racist MHP cops to interfere with the right of minors to operate unlicensed vehicles dangerously on public streets.

It's downright racis' to even suggest that the Potatohead clan should wear a damned helmet.

Oh, I can see the headlines had law enforcement not intervened and the kid was killed in a head-on accident.

"Why didn't they stop him?? He was wasn't supposed to be on the street! The cops watched him go by and din do nuffin. If he be white they'd stop him."

And take a look at Idiot Helmetless Redneck on his ATV, popping wheelies while endangering traffic on his unlicensed ATV (leaving aside whether Mr. Dumbass had a drivers license, any insurance on his ATV or personal health insurance). Not to mention whether someone who is already breaking so many traffic laws isn't also driving under the influence as well.

Didn't the driver who he hit head-on, entirely his fault, have a right to peaceable and lawful use of the public roads without some moron crashing into him?

But, nooooooooo, no one can disrespect the rights of lawless ATV/scooter/unicycle/dirtbike riders to do any damned thing they want on any roadway, whatever the known and easily anticipated consequences of operating ATVs dangerously on public roadways is. Because some bleeding hearts wanna feel righteous about shedding their crocodile tears over Mr. Potatohead in Detroit eating the bumper of a Ford F-150.

Licenses, licensed vehicles and insurance of all kinds be damned! These laws don't mean a thing! How dare the police actually enforce them?

Because that is exactly the lawlessness on the public roadways that the majority of asshole posters on this thread are advocating. Some, like Vic, enjoy morally preening over their lawless philosophy, at least as it applies to black teenagers.

More times these Precious Children were popping wheelies in traffic at 80mph in a 45mph zone on unlicensed vehicles, wrecking all over the roadway.

And here are helmetless black teens on ATVs operating in a pack to defy the cops chasing them. Traybon, Traybon!

And this is exactly the kind of situation that the MHP was in that neighborhood to stop.

A few days after Sambo ate the Ford bumper in Detroit, cops were driving around the neighborhood, encountering crowds of 100 or so black teens with a dozen illegal dirtbikes and ATVs. I doubt they had the courage to arrest them either.

No wonder Detroit has been such a lawless shithole for the last 50 years. They deserve what they've made of it.

That's the philosophy -- all activity is allowed unless or until it injures another. Only then will the individual be held liable.

But, increasingly, society is picking up the tab for these incidents. Meaning it's only fair that society minimizes cost by limiting the underlying reckless behavior.

You can look on YouBoob to see the competition among these on-road ATV/dirtbike scumbags as they break traffic laws outrageously and evade cops. It's a Real Thing in urban America.

Not to mention how many backyards and acreages these lawless bikers ride across willy-nilly with no respect at all for property rights.

And God forbid their bikes have mufflers. No, they're noise nuisances as well, night and day in some areas.

As a general rule, shooting at drivers or tires of vehicles, is typically a big no-no UNLESS the vehicle operator is currently running people over, menacing officers with the vehicle or attempting to do so.

Vic isn’t very smart. Shooting at a vehicle or it’s operator with a firearm or taser is DEADLY physical force. Officers must justify the use of it.

One is deliberately lethal, the other is designed to never be lethal (supposedly).

This vid is the source for most of these articles about the incident. Notice the female officers are a major source of trouble.

Let's follow up with some coverage of a 15yo yout' in Bridgeport CT who got shot while trying to run down a cop.

Of course, the cops get blamed. Apparently, it's their job to let people run them down in the street and never shoot back.

I bet he does. But given that he's 15, they'll never release his record or the number of encounters with the police.

I think his parents bought it, knowing he would be using it illegally to ride on city streets without license/license plates/insurance.

Look at that last vid I posted. You'll hear a neighbor saying that he was constantly riding that ATV through the neighborhood dangerously.

Just a matter of time before he killed hisself. I agree with the black Detroit police officer on the scene: "No sympathy at all for bullshit. Mother fucker wanna be grown, ya' act grown, ya' gotta fucking deal with it."

Maybe more so, his character as Zeus in that Die Hard With A Vengeance movie. Kinda dated now but it was a good franchise movie, certainly no worse than these awful Star Wars and Marvel superhero movies.

What a shock - the thug's partner was fired for lying and trying to cover up this heinous act.

According to the IA report, dated March 19, the department directly accused the officer, saying:

Unless you have desk jobs available at the PD or meter maid jobs or such, a cop with a record of lying in reports or in courtroom testimony is useless. They can't be called as witnesses against defendants. Anything they say or did, the defense attorney just says, "Are you lying to the court again just like you did in Case Blah-blah-blah"? Game over for the prosecution.

Maybe not at that age. It is as likely to be a case of a kid using his big brother or fathers ATV without permission,and is more worried of being punished by his mom when he gets home than he is about getting punished by the police.

In the entire history of the world,the only nations that had to build walls to keep their own citizens from leaving were those with leftist governments.

And they are right. I had never even ridden an ATV when I first read this news story,but have since bought a 572CC 44 hp 4X4 one to use to pull a tow-behind 48 inch rough cut mower to cut tall field grass. Let me tell ya,25 MPH with nothing hooked to it is a little scary. Short wheelbase,elevated seating position,and quick steering.

Yet some of them are now being made that have 90 HP. Yeah,most of them are the "bench seat" models with a wide track that gives them MUCH better stability,but WTF does anyone need 90 hp for in one of those things? I can see and understand mega torque,but high horsepower?

In the entire history of the world,the only nations that had to build walls to keep their own citizens from leaving were those with leftist governments.

I can see why fat boy was only going 35 MPH. I doubt that little ATV would carry that much weight any faster.

In the entire history of the world,the only nations that had to build walls to keep their own citizens from leaving were those with leftist governments.

from the height-of-unreasonableness dept

â€œTruth is treason in the empire of lies.â€ - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

from the height-of-unreasonableness dept

â€œTruth is treason in the empire of lies.â€ - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

â€œTruth is treason in the empire of lies.â€ - Ron Paul