Columbia man wins $50,000 in police Taser lawsuit
Monday, January 16, 2012 | 8:44 a.m. CST
BY
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA — A 24-year-old Columbia man has received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the city police department and two officers over their stun gun use.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Cadilac Derrick settled his federal civil suit earlier this month. The case was then dismissed from Missouri's Western District U.S. Court after it went to mediation.
Derrick was pulled over by two Columbia officers in a Feb. 24, 2009 traffic stop. A patrol car dashboard video shows the man being subdued with a Taser after he didn't immediately respond to a request to leave the car. Derrick's girlfriend and her 3-year-old child were also in the car.
Criminal charges filed against Derrick for resisting arrest were later dismissed. A police internal affairs investigation found the two officers acted appropriately.
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Comments
Seems to me we hear an awful lot about the use of tasers. Could this possibly be the cause of the unrest between law enforcement and our citizens? I am not questioning the use in this or any other case but it seems where there is this much smoke there must be at least a bit of fire.
Funny, but I feel much more threatened by Tazer-happy cops than I do by random motorists with pocket knives. Then again, he did have TWO of them, so he might've been a ninja.
On second thought, better taze everybody, just to make sure.
There have been some 500+ deaths after being shocked by tazers so far. Kinda like the electric chair, just without the chair. Will the real "high-tech lynching" please stand up now?
Moral of this story: Every single trigger pull is a potential lawsuit. Derrick's lawyer will be able to afford a new Cadillac; Cadilac will wind up with 3 months worth of hard partying money (if that's how he wants to spend it); and the city's insurance bill, and your taxes, just went up another fraction of a percent.
Doesn't that just make you feel all warm an fuzzy inside?
I usually side with the officers, we do not see what they see, and do not know what exactly was going on. If a police officer asks you to do something, you darn well better do it.
After reviewing the video, I have to agree that Cadilac Derrick was rightfully compensated, and that $50,000.00 was possibly not enough for what he and the others were subjected too.