Did Clinton Township Police go too far?
Fox 2 aired a video (below) of Clinton Township Police repeatedly Tasing a handcuffed man outside McLaren Macomb Hospital in Mt. Clemens on Tuesday evening. Clinton Township Police had arrested the man for DUI following an accident and took him to the hospital.
Authorities say the man, Maurice Taylor, wouldn't get out of the squad car at the hospital, so police had to put him in a wheelchair to transport him. He is not handicapped.
The hospital said Taylor was combative and gave police problems. So while security officers tried to hold him down, Clinton Township Police Tased him, Fox 2's Randy Wimbley reports.
"That video was clear as day. I saw everything with my own eyes. He did not touch an officer; he did not bite at an officer; he did not kick an officer," Richard Carman, who recorded the incident, told Fox 2. He says he saw police Tase the man three times.
Wimbley reports that police were unavailable for comment but the hospital says Taylor was combative, refused to leave the cruiser and had to be forced into a wheelchair.
"It's not a defibrillator. They're not using it to jumpstart somebody and make them move," Carman said."You're using it as a defense mechanism against someone hurting you. He was not hurting anybody," says Carman.
Fox 2 legal analyst Charlie Langton defends police:
"Look at this guy. They had four five cops around him and he's still resisting!" Langton says. "The police have a right to detain him. If the guy is combative, the cops can Taser him because he was resisting arrest. There's no doubt about it, this guy was in some trouble and you've got to cooperate with police. I didn't see that today."
Ron Scott of Detroit's Coalition Against Police Brutality disagrees:
"I think that the taser was excessive was excessive. Police are trained in holds, different kinds of holds they can execute. So, the only reason [tasering is] done is in terms of officer safety. You tell me whether any of those officers were unsafe at that particular point."
