17-year-old dies after being tasered over Hot Pockets
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 3:23 am | By: Radical Russ
Charlotte Local News | Charlotte Observer
A 17-year-old who died after a police officer shocked him with a stun gun last week had marijuana hidden in his socks. And according to a search warrant, he’d been asked to leave the Food Lion where he worked before police arrived.Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Officer Jerry Dawson Jr. used his Taser after police received a disturbance call about 1:15 p.m. Thursday from the grocery store on Prosperity Church Road. Darryl Turner had worked in the University City store for about a year as a cashier and bagger.
Family members and co-workers said Turner, who graduated last year from a charter high school and planned to attend college, was a good student and reliable employee. His court record consists of three traffic offenses.His mother said her son had a temper but was not violent. She did say that Turner had come home for lunch Thursday and told her he had stolen a couple of Hot Pockets from the store. He was afraid of getting in trouble, she said, but she told him to go back to the store and admit what he did.
Police received the disturbance call soon after. As Dawson arrived at the store, police said, an “agitated” Turner threw something at a manager. Turner ignored Dawson’s commands and advanced toward him. Dawson then used the Taser to get him under control, police said.
Turner was later pronounced dead at Carolinas Medical Center-University. His death is the first Taser-related fatality in CMPD’s history.
Co-workers and friends said they never knew of Turner being reprimanded at work. Customers described him as “mannerly” and “pleasant.”
Another person’s life ended by the indiscriminate use of tasers by police. We were introduced to tasers as a “non-lethal” method of force to subdue a violent criminal and protect police. But lately, the taser is being used as a method of compliance even when an officer is not in any grave danger. I encourage you to check out the Taser Files at PamsHouseBlend.com, where you can review too many of these incidents where tasers are misused and people die. Unless a perpetrator is wielding a gun or a knife or other significant physical advantage, there is no reason for an officer to use a taser, which is a 50,000V roll of the dice. The officer doesn’t know if that person has a heart defect or is under the influence of drugs that would make the taser an instrument of death.
