Cops taser man holding baby, Baby falls, Man charged with child endangerment

Tyrael · #1 19th-April-2007

Quote:

April 18, 2007, 3:17PM

Mom: Baby not the same after Taser incident

By MIKE GLENN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

A woman whose husband was shocked by a Taser last week while holding the couple's newborn child is considering suing The Woman's Hospital of Texas and the Houston Police Department.

"The hospital was irresponsible (and) the officer was irresponsible," attorney Sadiyah Evangelista, who represents Jacqueline Gray, said Tuesday.

The couple's infant fell to the ground after Gray's husband, William Lewis, was hit with the Taser fired by D.M. Boling, an off-duty HPD officer working security at the hospital.

Lewis, 30, was later charged with child endangerment.

"I'm very upset and I'm distraught," Gray said at a news conference organized by the Millions More Movement Ministry of Justice.

Hospital personnel checked the baby out and determined she appeared unharmed. But Gray said her daughter, Carla, hasn't been the same.

Houston police said officers confronted Lewis at an elevator when he tried to leave with Carla about 1:30 a.m. without following discharge procedures.

Lewis became "belligerent" when hospital personnel told him he shouldn't be leaving with the baby. Police reported he said there would be a "hostage situation" if they tried to stop him.

In a statement, hospital officials said neither parent made a request to be discharged before Lewis attempted to leave with the baby.

Police said Boling and a second off-duty HPD officer feared Lewis was trying to kidnap Carla and that his aggression posed a risk to the child's safety.

"One officer deployed his Taser on Lewis as the other attempted to take the baby," HPD officials said in a statement.

Police said Boling fired the Taser opposite from where Lewis was carrying the baby.

"The voltage is not transferred from one person to another. Therefore, the child would not have been affected by the device," police said.
Woman's Hospital officials said security measures are meant to protect patients.

mike.glenn@chron.com

News source.

TheGreatGod · #2 3 Weeks Ago

Police has a lot of lunatics in it.

Feckless · #3 3 Weeks Ago

What did he do wrong?

Is it a crime to leave a hospital with your own child?

**Percy** · #4 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

What did he do wrong?

Is it a crime to leave a hospital with your own child?

The questions of a reasonable man.

The answers of course are obvious.

Would they have Tasered the Mother?

Not a chance.

What did he do wrong? He was born a man. He became a Father. It is enough.

paul parmenter · #5 3 Weeks Ago

This is where anti-male and PC hysteria inevitably leads you - to tasering an innocent man and putting his baby at risk. This hospital bought wholesale into the lie that all men are paedophiles; so did the police. Hence a father taking his own child is immediately interpreted as a monster indulging in kidnap. Cue the hysterical reaction by panicking staff and police who fancy themselves as Clint Eastwood.

BTW, am I right in belieing that the overwhelming majority of baby-snatching from hospitals is committed by women? Why the hell would any man want to snatch a baby?

shaazam · #6 3 Weeks Ago

I have had personal experience with hospital staff

the staff take men on sufferance and can be quite off-hand to the point of rudeness

I would bet that the staff at that hospital knew he was the father of the baby but because he defied their culture they set out to teach him a lesson

the feminit legal casuistry will fit him with some sort of penalty for being tasered by the triger happy leos

GrizzlyPenguin · #7 3 Weeks Ago

That is absolutely stupid and truly irresponsible of the police to do such a thing. Even if they were "firing the tazer opposite of where the child was", that's no fucking excuse to shoot a man with a CHILD IN HIS ARMS! Of course, they wouldn't shoot the mother if this was the case, but this is the polices' fault on all accounts.

Indeed, however, there is some PC hysteria going on here with the whole pedophile thing.

I hope the cop gets fired, the hospital and station gets sued, and they apologize to the man. This should have never happened.

**TERA** · #8 3 Weeks Ago

I agree 100% with everything you've said Grizzly. It's simply outrageous. And how much do you want to bet the cops will not be held accountable for their actions?

**Rothzael** · #9 3 Weeks Ago

I thought the idea of tasers was to reduce the need for deadly force. The police could use a taser where they would usually use a gun and the suspect would not be killed; just incapacitated. But look, tasers have already killed!

So, would they have shot at him, with a real firearm, if he were holding the baby? Moreover, did they consider the risk to the child in the event that he fell on it or dropped it?

MadShangi · #10 3 Weeks Ago

Police are overly trigger happy with their taser guns. There has been a lot of coverage in the newspapers about the needless use of tasers used by officers, that usually result in death. Tasers are deadly weapons and should be taken out of the hands of these imbeciles. I've seen a YouTube video where they use a taser on a man in a Vancouver airport. They hit him with the taser, and when he's on the ground, they taser him again, and then the man's dead. There were four officers on this man, they couldn't restrain him? Fucking idiots.

AKUUS · #11 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul parmenter

This is where anti-male and PC hysteria inevitably leads you - to tasering an innocent man and putting his baby at risk...

...and then, to add insult to injury, blame the man for the child's being injured!!!!