Police Attack with Taser Sleeping Man in His Own Home

[Anguirus]

Let me guess...the tasered guy is black? Or Hispanic. "He can't own this house! It's too nice!"

[Pablo Sanchez]

This story is so actually so outrageous that I'm incredulous.

Here's a more recent article on it from the Post-Gazette.

When Shawn Hicks returned to his North Braddock home on Stokes Avenue after a Saturday night out on the town with friends, he didn't bother turning on the lights.

Instead of heading to his bedroom, Mr. Hicks, a 29-year-old business major at Point Park University, plopped himself face down and fully dressed on his cream-colored leather sofa in his living room. He also neglected to deactivate his home security system, which has a silent alarm.

Surrounded by the darkness and familiar comforts of his home, Mr. Hicks was asleep within five minutes. He didn't know it at the time, but he was not destined to have sweet dreams that night.

"I felt a lot of voltage going through my body," Mr. Hicks said recalling the events of that late July weekend. "That's what woke me up."

Jumping to his feet, Mr. Hicks was aware of an intense sensation between the shoulder blades of his 150-pound body. It didn't stop there. His whole body felt as if it were on fire.

When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, his heart skipped yet another beat. Two North Braddock police officers, Gerard Kraly and Lukas Laeuricia, were standing in his living room. To this day, Mr. Hicks still doesn't know which is Kraly and which Laeuricia.

The shorter of the two officers did most of the talking. His mustached partner was a burly over-6-footer in his late 30s or early 40s. He held the Taser, the prongs of which were sticking in Mr. Hicks' back.

The polite family newspaper version of what Mr. Hicks said in response to being electrified translates roughly as "What's going on here?"

The shorter cop, whom Mr. Hicks remembers as blond, asked him to calm down. The officer said that North Braddock police received a call from the security company monitoring Mr. Hicks' home. They believed a break-in was in progress.

The cops had entered the home, turned on the light and found Mr. Hicks asleep on the sofa. If they identified themselves or ordered him to get up, Mr. Hicks said he did not hear it. He said he wasn't aware of their presence until he was shot in the back with a Taser.

According to Mr. Hicks, the cops were skeptical. "How do we know that you're who you say you are?" the shorter of the two cops asked.

At that point, the cop holding the Taser squeezed the trigger, sending Mr. Hicks into paroxysm of agony. It was not a short jolt like the first one he received. He fell to the floor. His screams woke the neighbors.

"What do you want?" Mr. Hicks asked. "Please stop [shooting] me." The shorter cop helped him to his feet. Swaying unsteadily, he offered to show them his identification. They searched him and found his wallet. After inspecting it, they threw the wallet on the coffee table.

"I told you I lived here and that I'm the legal resident," he shouted, believing he finally had justice, common decency and the angels of heaven on his side. A staff member at the African-American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania, Mr. Hicks counts himself on the side of the law-abiding citizen.

The cop with the Taser squeezed the trigger again, anyway. Mr. Hicks flapped his arms wildly, but didn't fall. All he could do was scream loud enough to be heard all over the Mon Valley.

After removing the pellets from his bloody back, the cops handcuffed Mr. Hicks and led him out his front door to a police van. They did not read him his rights, Mr. Hicks says. The back of his shirt was soaked with warm, sticky blood.

Meanwhile, cops from six neighboring boroughs searched the house for other "burglars."

Mr. Hicks' mother, Arlene, arrived just as her son was being escorted out the door. She had Mr. Hicks' 11-year-old daughter and a niece in tow. "Why are you arresting my son?" she asked. The taller of the two cops answered that he "didn't have to tell her anything."

When Mrs. Hicks persisted, he said her son was being arrested for "being belligerent."

In the van, Mr. Hicks said he told the cops he needed medical attention. He says they told him he would wind up in county lockup if he insisted on it. "Never mind," Mr. Hicks said.

Mr. Hicks sat in a holding cell until 5 a.m. The cops returned. "We're not filing charges," they told him. "You're free to go, but if you get into trouble in the next year, we will file charges."

Mr. Hicks staggered into the parking lot and began walking the 10 minutes to the Braddock hospital, refusing another officer's offer of a ride home. He was examined and released that morning. Mr. Hicks filed a detailed police complaint the following Monday, but the case didn't come to public attention until the New Pittsburgh Courier's front-page story last week.

The North Braddock police department referred inquiries to the borough solicitor, John Bacharach, but he declined to give the officers' side of the story. "I know about the incident," Mr. Bacharach told me. "I don't want to comment because I am not confident enough in the facts to say one way or the other." He promised that "the matter will be investigated."

Mr. Hicks will be moving forward with his legal strategy if he doesn't hear from North Braddock soon. You don't have to be Johnnie Cochran to know what's going to happen next.

Kudos to Anguirus for hitting the nail on the head; Shawn Hicks is a black man. There may have been circumstances that Hicks isn't mentioning which could better explain some of the officers' actions, like after they woke him up with the taser he may indeed have been "belligerent" towards them--who wouldn't be?

Probably after they looked at his ID and established that they had used excessive force on the legal resident of the domicile, they realized that they had fucked up but good (especially considering that it's blatantly obvious that they escalated force because he was black), and now everybody in the law enforcement community there is in full ass-covering mode. Hence taking Hicks to the lockup and threatening to file unspecified charges later, refusing to file charges on the officers, and using first intimidation and later the offer of a ride home to keep him away from a hospital where his injuries would be documented and recorded.

This guy is going to take that police department and DA's office for a bundle on this civil suit, if he's telling the truth.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I would sue and sue and sue until I'd ruined the lives of those officers and the head of police.

[Flagg]

Let me guess...the tasered guy is black? Or Hispanic. "He can't own this house! It's too nice!"

Or as a Dave Chappell joke goes:

2 cops bust down the door of a home whose owner called to report a robbery, a black guy is standing there and they shoot him.

Cop#1: Damn, this is the third one this week!

Cop#2: Third what?

Cop#1: Damn nigger breaks into a house to rob the place and puts pictures of him and his family all over the place!

[CaptainChewbacca]

At least the guy is going to enjoy owning his very own police department.

[Kamakazie Sith]

One thing that is missing from this story is the other side. Where's the police report?

[CorSec]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's still being written to make Mr. Hicks look terrible. But, still, I'm all WTF, they come into his house and tase him twice. And being arrested for 'being belligerent'? Doesn't that mean half the cops should be under arrest too?

[Kamakazie Sith]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's still being written to make Mr. Hicks look terrible. But, still, I'm all WTF, they come into his house and tase him twice. And being arrested for 'being belligerent'? Doesn't that mean half the cops should be under arrest too?

Oh I apologize. I didn't know you personally knew Mr. Hicks. Do you also know the officers involved?

Being belligerent has different meaning in law...

[18-Till-I-Die]

This is retarded. It's fucking insane these cops aren'tbeing charged.

Oh and of course, he's black. My God, i'm so shocked he's black. Cause...the cops have always treated black people so nice.

This brings to mind a similar case that i read about in a newspaper a few months ago. This black guy is seen removing stuff from a house. Now, it's his fucking house, he's trying to move to a new one closer to the club he just opened. So the cops pull up and SEVERAL of them rush him, without warning, and bag his head on the car window then throw him down and start beating him. One tried to put him in a choke hold and he accidentally bit the guy, and they beat him some more and claimed he has "assaulted" them. Now, ironically, their report includes such things as him "cursing" them and "attacking" them and claim other such nonsense such as he came at them in what one described as a "kung fu stance" (no i'm not kidding)...but interestingly their dash board cameras show NOTHING like this.

[CorSec]

Oh I apologize. I didn't know you personally knew Mr. Hicks. Do you also know the officers involved?

I don't need to know them to say they were belligerent. They tased a man in his sleep and then after he had proved who he was. They arrested a man in his own home for no good reason.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Oh I apologize. I didn't know you personally knew Mr. Hicks. Do you also know the officers involved?

I don't need to know them to say they were belligerent. They tased a man in his sleep and then after he had proved who he was. They arrested a man in his own home for no good reason.

This is all according to his side of the story. Again, do you know Mr. Hicks personally? Why do you place so much trust in him that you've already made your conclusion without hearing the police report?

[18-Till-I-Die]

And here we go with the apologists.

Wow that took some time. What were you caught in fucking traffic?


Seriously, justify this. Come on, explain why he needed to be tazered in his sleep. Give a logical reason why he needed to be tazered again AFTER he had proven he was not a criminal, nor was he breaking in. Go on, try it, lets see the labored logic.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Oh I apologize. I didn't know you personally knew Mr. Hicks. Do you also know the officers involved?

I don't need to know them to say they were belligerent. They tased a man in his sleep and then after he had proved who he was. They arrested a man in his own home for no good reason.

Belligerent under the law means confrontational and threatening. The cops were douches.

I ran this story by a friend of mine in law enforcement. Proper procedure for this would've been for one officer to cover the other, while the 2nd officer approached slowly and continued, in a loud voice, to try and wake the man and ask him if he was ok, until trying to shake the man awake. What if he'd been ill or had some condition that could've made a tasering a fatal occurrence?

As to the police report, I'm guessing they aren't releasing it because there's no way they can make 'unprovoked tasering' look reasonable.

[Kamakazie Sith]

And here we go with the apologists.

Wow that took some time. What were you caught in fucking traffic?


Seriously, justify this. Come on, explain why he needed to be tazered in his sleep. Give a logical reason why he needed to be tazered again AFTER he had proven he was not a criminal, nor was he breaking in. Go on, try it, lets see the labored logic.

Here come the fucking misrepresentations. Never once did I say it would be justified to taser someone in their sleep. What I am saying is the police report could reflect something different that would justify deployment of a taser which would mean that he wasn't sleeping when they tasered him.

I'm not sure why people rush to take sides on a situation that they've only heard one side of the story.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Oh I apologize. I didn't know you personally knew Mr. Hicks. Do you also know the officers involved?

I don't need to know them to say they were belligerent. They tased a man in his sleep and then after he had proved who he was. They arrested a man in his own home for no good reason.

Belligerent under the law means confrontational and threatening. The cops were douches.

I ran this story by a friend of mine in law enforcement. Proper procedure for this would've been for one officer to cover the other, while the 2nd officer approached slowly and continued, in a loud voice, to try and wake the man and ask him if he was ok, until trying to shake the man awake. What if he'd been ill or had some condition that could've made a tasering a fatal occurrence?

As to the police report, I'm guessing they aren't releasing it because there's no way they can make 'unprovoked tasering' look reasonable.

Actually, they aren't releasing it till the investigation is complete. Standard OP in all departments, but let's continue with the baseless guessing.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I stand corrected. My appologies.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I stand corrected. My appologies.

No worries. Let's just wait so we can consider the totality of the situation before we pick sides. Believe me, I'll be right behind every single one of you if it turns out to be true.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Note that I misread the date on the article I posted, it's actually the earliest Post-Gazette coverage of the story.

This is all according to his side of the story. Again, do you know Mr. Hicks personally? Why do you place so much trust in him that you've already made your conclusion without hearing the police report?

It's true that we haven't seen the police report. But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the main newspaper serving Pittsburgh, apparently hasn't seen it, either. A search for "Shawn Hicks" at their website will turn up three articles in the last month on this story, and no official response from the Police Department or the City government. Apparently the authorities have been refusing to return calls for comment on this matter for a month or so. I don't know about you, Kamakazie Sith, but I happen to find that kind of suspicious. Perhaps they haven't released that report because it is less than flattering?

What we can definitely tell from the story that we have (1) a very angry black man who says he was the victim of excessive force and (2) a police force and city government stonewalling, and obviously so.

EDIT:
I was writing this while cooking myself dinner and I started writing it before your reply to CC about investigation procedure. A relevant question would be, does this rule apply to the police department's own investigation or also to the FBI's civil rights investigation. Because the local department has already finished up their end and decided not to charge the officers, but has still offered the report or actually any comment on what may have transpired.

[Flagg]

Oh I apologize. I didn't know you personally knew Mr. Hicks. Do you also know the officers involved?

I don't need to know them to say they were belligerent. They tased a man in his sleep and then after he had proved who he was. They arrested a man in his own home for no good reason.

This is all according to his side of the story. Again, do you know Mr. Hicks personally? Why do you place so much trust in him that you've already made your conclusion without hearing the police report?

There's nothing wrong with making a conclusion based on what information we have. Since the police have refused to give a story, we only have Mr. Hick's side.

[Big Phil]

I stand corrected. My appologies.

No worries. Let's just wait so we can consider the totality of the situation before we pick sides. Believe me, I'll be right behind every single one of you if it turns out to be true.

Can you honestly think of any situation where what the officers did was even remotely justified? If not, cut the crap and stop whining about the "rush to judgment."

[Kamakazie Sith]

Note that I misread the date on the article I posted, it's actually the earliest Post-Gazette coverage of the story.

This is all according to his side of the story. Again, do you know Mr. Hicks personally? Why do you place so much trust in him that you've already made your conclusion without hearing the police report?

It's true that we haven't seen the police report. But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the main newspaper serving Pittsburgh, apparently hasn't seen it, either. A search for "Shawn Hicks" at their website will turn up three articles in the last month on this story, and no official response from the Police Department or the City government. Apparently the authorities have been refusing to return calls for comment on this matter for a month or so. I don't know about you, Kamakazie Sith, but I happen to find that kind of suspicious. Perhaps they haven't released that report because it is less than flattering?

They refuse to comment on it because it's a matter of policy. Internal Investigations, and criminal investigations are not commented on till completed to avoid any problems, like defamation of character.

What we can definitely tell from the story that we have (1) a very angry black man who says he was the victim of excessive force and (2) a police force and city government stonewalling, and obviously so.

What you call stonewalling, is actually procedure for almost every single police department that I know of.

EDIT:
I was writing this while cooking myself dinner and I started writing it before your reply to CC about investigation procedure. A relevant question would be, does this rule apply to the police department's own investigation or also to the FBI's civil rights investigation. Because the local department has already finished up their end and decided not to charge the officers, but has still offered the report or actually any comment on what may have transpired.

The actual report should be a matter of public record, so they don't have a choice to hand it over.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I stand corrected. My appologies.

No worries. Let's just wait so we can consider the totality of the situation before we pick sides. Believe me, I'll be right behind every single one of you if it turns out to be true.

Can you honestly think of any situation where what the officers did was even remotely justified? If not, cut the crap and stop whining about the "rush to judgment."

Yes, a situation that is different from the one that Mr. Hicks claims to have occured. Not that hard really...

[CaptainChewbacca]

Indeed, 'the guy could be lying' is always a possibility until you prove he's telling the truth.

[Thanas]

Pfft. Please.

At this point, there is no reason to assume he's lying. Until new evidence comes forward, the police involved are simply scumbags of the lowest order. There is no need to resort to knee-jerk apologism.

In response to people crowing about the investigation being unfinished:

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said yesterday that the investigation by county police determined there was no criminal matter to be pursued from the July 28 incident in which police Officers Gerard Kraly and Lukas Laeuricia Tasered Shawn Hicks while he was asleep on his couch.

So while the FBI might indeed review the case, what is stopping them from releasing the investigation report? It's not like the FBI is conducting a new investigation, it is reviewing it. And frankly, just what the heck is supposed to take them that long? Incompetence? Stonewalling (my pick)?

[CJvR]

Despite what seems like absolutely atrocious behavior by the police it seems to me like something is missing. How do you just forget about your alarm system? The thing you switch on / off whenever you enter / leave your house, just how drunk was Hicks that night?

How nice of them not to file charges for bleeding on their Taser darts...