Posted
on Sat Jul 26, 2008
Last updated
Jul 29, 2008
Backlash from Friday's taser incident is sweeping through Mid-Missouri, with dozens of people pointing the finger at police.
We first showed you the dramatic video on KMIZ.com of Phillip McDuffey being tased, then falling off the walkway bridge over I-70 after threatening suicide. University hospital tells us he is still in critical condition.
Not even a day after it all happened; petitions against the tasers are already making their way around town.
The police are standing firm on the issue saying they did nothing wrong, but we found out today plenty of people are saying the second taser should never have been fired.
Its exactly what anti taser advocates were afraid of. Mary Hussman with Grass Roots Organizing says, "We don't want incidents we've seen happen elsewhere to happen here. Well yesterday it happened here."
Hussman says its bad enough to see it once but she's worried about it happening again.
She's been against tasers for awhile, but the petitions just started on Saturday and she says it wasn't too hard to find people that were not only against it, but were angry about how the incident on Friday it all went down.
Hussman says, "We collected 50 signatures in an hour. That's about one a minute."
The video even got to those in favor of taser use. Councilmen Karl Skala says it just wasn't right. He says, "I think obviously it's a judgment failure."
A failure so crucial he says it could affect the council's decision on arming even more officers with tasers after it approved nearly forty more in June.
Skala says, "I think it does provide added emphasis to waiting a little while to make sure there is proper policy and proper training to make sure that unfortunate incident is minimized."
Skala told me he thought the Columbia Police Department's policy is fine; it's the training that needs to be beefed up.
Opponents are hoping the council's next meeting August 4th will include discussion about a task force to create policies before distributing additional tasers.
