Southern Christian Leadership Conference calls for ban on Taser use by police

[The Straight Story]

MARTINSVILLE — It’s been about three months since a 17-year-old died here after being Tasered by a police officer.

The Danville/Pittsylvania County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other African-American community leaders are calling for a moratorium on the use of Tasers.

The Rev. Avon Keen, leader of the local SCLC, and other leaders held a meeting Saturday to discuss the issue at the Blue Ridge Regional Library in Martinsville.

The SCLC and other members of a panel plan to push for a ban on their use until there is adequate research on their dangers and how they should be used, Keen said. Keen said they want to approach local enforcement agencies about the idea and take it statewide and national.

The SCLC’s effort comes three months after 17-year-old Derick Jones died when a Martinsville police officer Tasered him when Jones “moved rapidly” toward him, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on Jan. 9. Police were called on Jan. 8 to a home on Rives Road after receiving a report of a young man using the bathroom in the street and a later call of young men fighting.

Tentative results from a U.S. Department of Justice study finished in June found no conclusive medical evidence that Tasers cause injury or death, even after numerous instances of people dying after the officers Tasered them, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. During Saturday’s meeting, Torrey Dixon, a civil-rights attorney in Durham, N.C., said about 300 people across the U.S. have died after being Tasered. Dixon said there needs to be a push to build large-scale, non-violent resistance to call for ending the use of Tasers.

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/sclc_calls_for_ban_on_taser_use_by_police/10219/