I was on the Courier website when I ran across this story. Eric Rule was struggling with a Waterloo police officer, Steven Bose, when officer Bose fired his Taser at Rule. Officer Bose was on his knees, while Eric Rule was grasping hid head. After Officer Bose taser was fired, another officer, Jamie Sullivan, who was standing behind both individuals, fired his Taser at rule. After Officer Sullivan fired his Taser at rule, he used his Taser to "drive stun" rule. After being hit three times with a taser, Rule was still not able to be reined in, so Officer Bose used his handgun and shot Rule, killing him.
Not much information is being released about the case and waterloo police declined to comment on the incident, because of a possible litigation in the matter. There are still questions about why these Tasers didn't stop Rule. Engineers determined the Tasers were operating to specifications during their test runs. However after looking at the three pronged darts recovered from the scene, they showed no signs that significant electrical current had passed though them.
Here is a little information about Tasers for those of you who are not that familiar with them. Tasers are designed to override a person's nervous system with an electrical shock delivered by two barbed probes. Both probes, which remain attached to the Taser gun by wires, have to hit the person in order to complete the circuit and deliver a five-second shock. This shock keeps the brain from telling the muscles what to do. I know of two types of Taser, one were the probes are shot out from the gun and the other one where you have to touch the Taser to the person for it to work. I do not know the difference between a Taser at Rule and a Taser to "drive stun" rule.
A couple of questions come to mind. I assume that the officers have to test their Tasers before they go on duty. I know the UNI police officers have to test their Tasers every day. The first questions is did the Officers test their Tasers that day. If they did test their Tasers and they worked what happened from the time they tested them until the time they were used that would cause them not to work. My second questions is did they have to shoot for the kill. There were two officers on the scent with Rule. Rule was down on the ground with one officer while the other officer was standing behind them. I don't see why that Officer Sullivan couldn't have fired a shot to injure Rule, but not to kill him. Instead Officer Bose, who was on the ground with Rule, fired the shot that killed him. I guess I could see why Officer Sullivan didn't want to shoot his gun in fear that he might hit his fellow officer. Since Officer Bose was on the ground with Rule he might not have had a good shot or a chance to really aim his shot. This situation just makes me wonder if there was a way around killing Rule. The article doesn't state how old Rule was or why he and the police had that encounter. I just think that the officers shouldn't have fired their gun and killed Rule unless it was absolutely necessary and if the officers had no other choice and their lives were in immediate danger, but that's just my option.
Here is a link to the article:
http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/article_f7d53a56-56bf-11df-9cfd-001cc4c03286.html
I know a little bit about tasers, but not an extensive amount. The difference between "Taser at Rule" and "drive stun" is the amount of volts passing through an individual and delivery method. Tasers are meant to override the victims nervous system as you know, which is what "taser at rule" is. However, I have seen first-hand on some individuals able to overcome the basic settings of a taser. With a strong nervous system and enough willpower, an individual can overcome neuro-muscular incapacitation and be able to "brush" off the taser prongs even though they can be barbed. Granted, this is atypical, but it can happen. "Drive stun" is when you up the voltage so the victim is compliant due to the pain involved if "taser at rule" fails. In the case of "drive stun", no projection of barbs is used and direct contact between victim and taser is made. This somewhat shows that willpower (psychology) is sometimes enough to overcome obstacles.
In regards to whether they tested their weapons, as they are supposed to, it could be possible there was a malfunction when the taser was reloaded for actual use. This could be caused by a general mechanical failure or, more likely, improper technique caused by the user.
Did the officer have the intention to kill the perpetrator? Probably not, but when a non-lethal weapon fails on you, and someone is attacking you, adrenaline starts pumping and one would be prone to panic. Whether he intentionally shot to kill or not is hard to determine. You would most likely be correct why Sullivan didn't take the shot as his partner was also in the line of sight of his weapon. However, if Sullivan "drive stunned" Rule, he would have had to be in arms-reach from the perpetrator. In this case, I don't understand why Sullivan couldn't wrestle him away.
From the article it is unclear if the police officers were in the right or wrong when they shot and killed this individual. Im sure there is going to be an extensive investigation into this to determine that. On the other hand I have heard stories that some people can with stand the electrical shock that is given out by a taser. I dont believe that they can with stand it enought to keep struggling with the officers and persuade the officers that their life is in danger to the extent that they feel they need to use deadly force. This is an unfortunate event and no matter the crime that Mr. Rule had or had not committed it is sad that this has happened, if it was necessary or not.
This is an unfortunate story, both for the individual who died as well as for the officers. It hard to know which side to stand on at this point because there is not a lot of evidence. If I were the officer I would be very upset for several reasons. First of all, it's obviously upsetting when an individual resists arrest but secondly when your first means of help (the taser gun) don't work. Whether the officer messed up, or if there was a malfunction, there is still a person dead. It would be really unsettling to know what you did everything in your power though to use the gun correctly and so when it didn't work who's to blame!? But on the other hand, for Mr. Rule, he is dead regardless. I believe a lot of investigating needs to be done to determine the real cause of error. Did the officers really need to shoot him with a gun and kill him? Probably not, but it's hard to tell with the little information we have now. Hopefully we will be updated on this story though.
I remember this case pretty well, if you look into it more, you will find all the details behind what happened. The officer was on the ground with a drunk husband who was fighting with his wife. The two cops split up the couple and the husband started fighting the cop and was on top of the cop beating him up. The man actually clawed at the officers face and gouged at his eye, I'm not sure what happened but I think the officer went blind in that eye. The reason the officer shot the gun was because they are told that when they are in a situation where they feel their life is threatened and there is no other way out, shoot till the threat is no longer there, and that is what the officer did, he shot the man twice to make sure he was dead, so that one shot wasn't seen as an accident and three shots wasn't seen as too much. As for the taser gun malfunctioning, I don't know, things just don't work sometimes, but being the man was fighting, maybe the adrenaline over came it, I don't know, but I seen one case where the officers had to shoot three taser guns at him to force him to the ground, so, everyone is different.