it's not okay you think anything about this is okay right now body cam footage submitted by janet of union county illinois shows her son suffering from meth induced mental illness being tased by police officers imagine parents calling 9-1-1 for an ambulance and instead police officers aware that they have a warrant for the son arrive instead of an ambulance and they don't bring an ambulance and instead of medical treatment they use force this offers a good example of what i would classify as a controversial use of a taser against someone who poses no threat to the officers or anyone else but is merely starting to run away and doing so immediately without explanation or warning let's take a look at the footage and then we'll go into the law on tasering unarmed suspects in union county illinois which is in the 7th circuit first let's play the initial 9-1-1 call jacob anderson's father called 9-1-1 seeking an ambulance for his son who is suffering from a mental illness emergency due to his unfortunate meth addiction 9-1-1 what's interesting emergency i'm trying to call an do i have ambulance call the hospital uh no sir we dispatch the ambulance what do you got um it's my son um he's uh psychotic right now he's in a psychotic state okay had a relapse about a couple weeks ago and he's just uh he's in he's going nuts an ambulance never arrived however but several police officers did arrive including deputy child neckt i don't know if i got that right who turned on his body cam after arriving at the anderson home according to his report he noted that he received a report that jacob was having a mental health crisis described as psychotic and that an ambulance was needed he then wrote i also knew that jacob had a felony warrant as well as a history of running away naked from help when we arrive upon arriving the deputy made contact with jacob's parents who indicated that jacob was inside the residence and appeared to have let them in it's this one right right here shut up todd that one i don't know sheriff's office yep deputy child neck wrote in his report as i approached the door i could hear a male yelling i then withdrew my taser and knocked on the door i then heard the male yell come on through i'm going to the side door as i walked through the residence and came to the side door jacob saw me turned and began to run away from me at this point i raised and fired my taser at him as he ran away i was unable to issue a warning to him because the situation evolved so quickly he wrote that he allowed the taser to run for a five second cycle until sheriff harville and chief wilkins could get there to assist he also mentioned in his report that after the arrest of jacob i realized he broke my oakley mercenary sunglasses he had been wearing he attached a photo of them to the report noting that he had paid approximately 140 dollars well the government taxpayers did two years ago we'll take it no if it's jacob's just going into evidence did you grab that taser scott yeah that's a taser we're grabbing it it's not okay you think anything about this is okay right now all right all right we ought to just take in the hospital scott we don't want to fight him in the back of an ambulance yeah that's true i'm trying to be a dick but i the international association of chiefs of police puts out a model taser policy which provides guidance to law enforcement agencies around the country about taser usage when it should be used when it should not be used this is not law this is their policy this is what they provide it should be used to protect the officer or others from reasonably perceived immediate threat of physical harm from the person to be exposed to the taser or to restrain or subdue an individual who is actively resisting or evading arrest or to bring an unlawful situation safely and effectively under control it should not be used according to this model policy on individuals who passively resist and are not reasonably perceived as an immediate threat or flight risk or individuals and restraints except as objectively reasonable to prevent their escape or prevent imminent bodily injury to the individual the officer or another person or when the officer has a reasonable belief that deployment may cause serious injury or death from situational hazards including falling like down a hill and hitting your head on a utility box like the atlanta case we talked about or drowning or igniting a potentially explosive flammable material or substance such as the case where the guy doused himself with gasoline they tased him and he blew up and died except when deadly force would be justified or when the suspect's movement or body positioning prevents the officer from aiming or maintaining appropriate body part targeting really presumably based on generalized excessive force case law from the federal circuits around the country and taser law can vary some by federal circuit so union county illinois is in the seventh circuit and there are quite a few published cases in the 7th circuit about when taser usage is considered excessive there was a 2009 case called lewis versus downey which held that the tasing of a jail inmate with no warning who wasn't threatening the officer would be excessive and it ultimately discusses tasers and categorizes them as basically an intermediate level of force that's designed not necessarily to cause injury but severe pain and the courts noted that generally the holdings out there find that the use of a taser against an actively resisting suspect whatever that is doesn't either does not violate clearly established law or is constitutionally reasonable thus actively resisting may or may not be sufficient justification for police to use a taser on a suspect so what about active resistance from someone who's known to be mentally ill or who is not actively threatening anyone but merely trying to run away somebody who's mentally ill so there's a 9th circuit opinion called brian versus mcpherson where a court warns situations where a suspect is known to be mentally ill emotionally distraught is different than where somebody who is an armed and dangerous criminal and has recently committed a serious offense the use of force that may be justified by the government's interest in seizing a mentally ill person differs both in degree and in kind from use of force justified against the person who has committed a crime or who poses a threat to the community now the 7th circuit has cited the 4th circuit published opinion in a state versus armstrong versus pineville which held that where during the course of seizing an outnumbered mentally ill individual who is a danger only to himself police officers choose to deploy a taser in the face of stationary and non-violent resistance to being handcuffed those officers use unreasonably excessive force utilizing the graham factors in this case we can skip to the most important of the grand factors whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or anyone else at the scene the video in this case proves conclusively that there was no safety threat posed to any individual by jacob he was running away he clearly wasn't holding a weapon nor was he threatening anyone reviewing the deputy's report he admits that he tased jacob in the back as jacob turned away to run he mentions no immediate safety threat as the basis for his use of force now the second grain factor is met to some extent for the officers he was actively evading them however they had not announced their presence nor the reason for their presence they had not identified themselves they had mentioned that they had a warrant they pretty much instantaneously instantaneously encountered him and then tased him was merely running away from the site of law enforcement sufficient to constitute active resistance whatever that is now was that sufficient for a five-second shock from the deputy's taser let's look at the first and final grand factor that we haven't discussed the severity of the crime involved there's no allegation that jacob had committed any crime on this occasion this was a mental health emergency his parents called 9-1-1 requesting an ambulance but he apparently did have an outstanding unnamed felony warrant the officer's report doesn't mention any serious crime that jacob was alleged to have committed so as to necessitate having to immediately tase him moreover the reports also indicate that the officer was well aware of the fact that jacob was suffering from in a mental illness episode thus the courts expect the officer to take that knowledge into account when deciding whether or not to tase jacob as opposed to just tasing him first and asking questions later as always thanks for watching you'll find more information at the blog at the link below the civil rights lawyer dot com if you want to learn more about these cases and your constitutional rights please subscribe hit the bell notification so you don't miss future updates future videos please also comment i want to hear your thoughts about this case do you think it was reasonable to tase jake up here basically at first contact if you want to support the channel please consider clicking the join button on youtube and became becoming a channel member sponsor remember freedom is scary deal with it i'll see you next time [Music]