A 27 year old man forced his way into his former girlfriend’s apartment in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on Tuesday. He assaulted the woman causing her to flee with her young child to a nearby car. It is unknown whether she was able to leave the scene.
The man apparently thought that his ex-girlfriend, with whom he had had a 5 month relationship that ended approximately 2 weeks ago, was with another man in her apartment.
Police officers arrived at the woman’s apartment on Lincoln Street at approximately 1 am and found the suspect on the porch. He failed to comply with police instructions to drop to his knees. Instead he shouted “Go ahead and shoot me” prior to being sprayed with pepper spray.
While he was stunned momentarily, he was still able to flee to a nearby street on foot (Wellington Avenue). Within a few moments he had surrendered to a local officer.
The suspect has a record of convictions and was arraigned on Wednesday in Central Berkshire District Court. He was held at the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction with bail set at $1000 cash or $10,000 bond.
He was charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, and single counts of carrying a dangerous weapon, possession of an electric stun gun, and breaking and entering during the nighttime to commit a felony as well as other charges.
The suspect was highly agitated and confrontational. The use of pepper spray helped subdue a dangerous and violent man with minimal force and lessened police exposure to the dangers of traditional weaponry.
Filed under In The News by 
The funeral for a 17 year old young man was held on Friday night in Albuquerque, New Mexico. An estimated 850 people showed up at Gabaldon Mortuary, more than double the mortuary’s capacity. Attendees were fainting inside the overcrowded building and the Mortuary’s manager called the police for help with crowd control.
The deceased’s mother said that they weren’t expecting such a large crowd but noted that the young man was well loved and that his friends and family were there for him. She was upset that so many of her son’s friends and family members were unable to see him and pay their final respects.
When the police attempted to control the crowd, the funeral attendees became violent with some participants throwing rocks at the police officers. The attendees appeared to be upset that they were denied entrance into the rosary service and had been asked to leave.
Bernalillo County Deputies shut down an entire stretch of Old Coors Road and began to shoot pepper spray balls into the crowd. The services continued inside the mortuary despite the chaos.
As upset as the mother was, it would have been more disruptive if the crowd had continued to get out of control. The dangers associated with a crowd that was significantly over-capacity seemed to be overshadowed by her grief, and the dangers related to resorting to violence when dealing with a frustrated crowd were not minor either. Luckily the police were able to avoid further incident with the use of a non-lethal agent to subdue the crowd.
Filed under In The News by
Police responded to a call placed in the late afternoon on Saturday from the 1300 block of Seward Avenue in Akron, Ohio. The call indicated that a man was firing shots from a gray Chevy Impala, reported Akron Police Department spokesman Lt. Rick Edwards.
The man drove off and was pursued by police officers onto I-77 at Diagonal Road. The chase continued with suspect and police driving south alongside the northbound lanes.
As he approached Route 59 the suspect spun out his car and headed in the correct direction on the highway. The suspect rammed the vehicle of the police officer that was pursuing him.
After exiting the highway at East Avenue, the man drove through Kenmore and tried to drive through the front yard of a house in the 1800 block of McTaggart Drive. At this point he was apprehended but he remained aggressive towards the police officers and fought with them. He was subdued with the use of a TASER and arrested at 4:48 p.m.
The man was injured in one of the accidents associated with the police chase and he was treated at the Akron General Medical Center. His injuries were not life-threatening. The man’s name was not released and the charges he is expected to face were not enumerated.
The man’s aggressive behavior made the use of the TASER optimal because he was a flight
Filed under In The News by
After five years of discussions on the topic, campus police officers at the University of Windsor are more than ready to carry pepper spray while on duty.
Frustrated by the lack of action on the subject, pepper spray became a part of the last round of contract negotiation between the university and the union that represents the campus police officers. The union represents the 22 officers currently employed. The university hired an independent consultant as a result of these negotiations. The consultant recommended pepper spray as “a use-of-force option.”
The policy still needs to be approved by local area police, however, and that approval appears to be stalled. A request was sent to the Windsor Police Service Board in June and there has been no action on the request in the intervening months.
University of Windsor campus police feel that every day they are further delayed is another day of being subjected to increased risk. “It’s a safety concern for us,” says one campus police officer.
The campus police officers cite other campus police security forces that authorize the use of pepper spray for their officers: the University of Western Ontario, McMaster, Waterloo, and Guelph.
Currently the campus police officers at the University of Windsor carry handcuffs, batons and bulletproof vests. They are at a disadvantage when unruly visitors get out of control because the only tool they have to subdue such a person is brute force.
“This university is not a gated community,” one campus police officer said. “From time to time, undesirables come onto our campus…violent individuals.”
Hopefully they will not have to wait too much longer to carry pepper spray.
Filed under In The News by
A Cincinnati man who was placed in a halfway house in Camp Washington, Ohio for offenses unknown to news organizations was considered to have escaped when he left the halfway house without permission at 2:50 a.m. on August 9th.
He remained at large, and in violation of his parole, until the end of November, when on Sunday, November 29 he fired a gun through a window at the residence of his child’s mother. The incidence took place in the 200 block of Craft Street in Winton Hills. The woman was struck in the left arm.
He escaped again and remained at large, eluding capture until the middle of the day on Wednesday. A Cincinnati police officer saw him in Walnut Hills and tried to stop him. The man ran away from the police officers but was pursued vigorously. He received a shock from a TASER gun while on the Interstate 471 ramp and was subsequently brought into custody.
He was booked into the Hamilton County Jail at about 1:30 p.m. on that same day and charged with escape, felonious assault and obstructing official business.
The man was able to remain at large for nearly 4 and a half months so it is not unfathomable to think that without the use of a TASER gun he might have been able to escape yet again. Luckily he was apprehended before he could do any further harm to his child’s mother or other members of the community.
Because of the use of the TASER gun, he was apprehended with a minimum amount of force which creates a safer environment for suspect and police officer alike.
Filed under In The News by
A 23 year old man was arrested with the aid of a stun gun after a fight in a Philadelphia area bar.
A fight broke out in the bar’s men’s restroom after the man allegedly attacked another man at around 1:20 am. The man allegedly grabbed another patron from behind, forcibly turned him around and immediately punched him in the face.
The fight grew when the alleged victim’s friends came to his rescue and fended off the attacker. The man denies starting the fight and says, instead, that the alleged victim and his friends had targeted him because they didn’t like him.
In the bar’s parking lot, police questioned witnesses about the incident. During that time, the alleged attacker attempted to escape by running away from the area. A police officer used a stun gun on the man but was unable to stop him from fleeing. The man ran across 6 lanes of traffic on Easton Road. The police officers continued their pursuit until they tackled the man and then used the stun gun again when he continued to struggle.
Subdued enough to arrest, the man still continued to cry out and bang his head against the patrol car. The man eventually went into seizures at the police station and was taken to a local hospital and currently reported to be in fair condition.
He was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, harassment and simple assault. The assault charge is a felony. The man’s bail was set at $100,000.
Filed under In The News by
A karate instructor in Canfield, Ohio taught a class at the Old North Church on Saturday that covered the basics of self-defense when shopping or attending late night parties.
Meant to combat the rise in crime during the holiday season, the class was a women only event and focused on things like being aware while you are shopping or coming home from late events.
The karate instructor explained that would be robbers and attackers look for easy victims, for people who will not fight back for whatever reason. The goal of the class was to help women have an attitude that will discourage would be robbers and attackers.
Women should feel like they can protect themselves and those attending the class agreed that they felt considerably more confident, which was the goal of the karate instructor who organized the class.
Important highlights included always being aware of your surroundings and only carry the essentials with you such as required credit cards, personal papers etc.
Getting into the holiday spirit doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t adequately prepare for the possibility of coming into harm’s way at some point. Self defense, also, does not need to be so elaborate as to take away from the holiday spirit.
A happy medium can be found with the use of basic self defense tools to help you to feel confident in your ability to avoid dangerous situations and/or evade would be attackers. Items of personal protection such as pepper spray, stun guns or TASER guns can also be helpful in feeling confident and secure.
Filed under In The News by
Early in December in London, England a candle light vigil was held to remember those women who have died due to acts of violence.
The Ritual of Remembrance was held at Brescia University College on the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre of 14 female students who were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique and was meant to renew the resolve to end violence against women.
Candles were burned in honor of loved ones who had died, roses were laid on the ground or on empty chairs to signify those lost and at one point 200 people wailed in unison to represent the lives lost to violence.
One woman who attended the ceremony recounted an incident that had occurred just three days prior to the candle light vigil. She had been delivering an item to the mail room of an apartment building when a middle aged woman approached her. The woman was obviously very recently battered and had bruises and other injuries on her face.
Within a few moments, the battered woman’s abuser appeared. The first woman pulled out her pepper spray to defend the battered woman and the abuser left, sufficiently intimidated by simply the sight of the pepper spray.
The woman gave the battered woman a hug as the battered woman said that she didn’t want the abuser to be arrested as he was on probation and he hadn’t hit her for a while. At the candle light vigil the brave defender said, “In my heart, I want to help all who live in fear.” Clearly, when push comes to shove this woman will do just that.
Filed under In The News by
A Texas man was stopped for driving under the influence by Houston County Sheriff Deputies but when he attempted to run from officers he was also charged with felony third degree escape.
The man, who appeared in court this week, was pulled over as part of Thanksgiving Day precautions against drunk driving. When sheriff deputies attempted to arrest him for driving under the influence he twisted out of the handcuffs and ran away from the patrol car.
Another sheriff’s deputy used a TASER on the man, who nonetheless continued to run away. The first deputy used another TASER on the man and noted that the man “fought until the end.” It took three or four deputies to handcuff and arrest the man, even after receiving two TASER shots.
The man maintained at the hearing that he was not drunk at the time and wasn’t being unruly until they attempted to “lock [him] up.” He notes that he should not have tried to run away.
The District Court Judge set a $15,000 bond for the resisting arrest charge, a misdemeanor, and a $5,000 bond for the driving under the influence (DUI) charge. The man also received a $15,000 bond for the felony third degree escape charge.
The man, who if not drunk at the time, was highly agitated and in an altered state. He was a considerable risk to police officers and citizens in the area. Although TASERs alone did not subdue the man, they were an important tool in helping to control a highly agitated person.
Filed under In The News by
A 24-year-old murder suspect in Jefferson, Wisconsin, near Madison in the south central portion of the state, was carried out of the courtroom after erupting violently in court on Monday.
The murder suspect challenged sheriff deputies by standing up, shouted profanities and starting to fight with deputies. A large contingent of deputies, five in total, forced him onto a table in an attempt to subdue him. The deputies then used a stun gun and bodily removed him from the courtroom. The entire incident was recorded on video.
The murder suspect is obviously a highly volatile man who is charged with killing two people outside of a Jefferson area bar in the early hours of the morning. The two people slain, an off duty police officer, a 6 year veteran from the town of Oconomowoc’s police department, and her boyfriend, were said to have been killed over a petty bar dispute.
The two individuals where transported to different hospitals after the shooting. The off duty police officer died at Fort Memorial Hospital in Fort Atkinson and her boyfriend died at a Milwaukee hospital early Sunday morning.
Immediately prior to the outburst the murder suspect had learned that the judge set his bail at one million dollars.
Considering how high emotions run in cases involving the death of a law enforcement officer, it is good that it is possible to subdue a violent offender using a non-lethal weapon. Order in the courtroom was maintained with the minimum amount of force.
Filed under In The News by
