The Hawthorne (CA) police department is in serious trouble after three officers tazed a deaf man who was trying to communicate with officers that he was deaf:
Officers Jeffrey Salmon, Jeffrey Tysl, Erica Bristow, and Mark Hultgren allegedly ordered Meister to stop loading the boxes into his car, but Meister could not hear the order. One of the officers then grabbed Meister by the hand, who responded by attempting to use American Sign Language to communicate with the officer.
The officers interpreted his sudden movements as resistance, so they “struck Meister with fists and feet, and forcibly took him to the ground.” Once he was on the ground, one of the officers allegedly shot him twice with a taser. Another officer then delivered a “drive stun” to Meister’s abdomen.
They continued to beat Meister until he was unconscious, then escorted him to the hospital, where he was charged with assaulting the officers. The charge was later dropped.
Once again, California is solidifying itself as a state where the cops are out of control. You have Rodney King. You have the case where a cop beat a homeless man to death. And now you have cops beating a deaf man unconscious because he could not understand what they were saying because he could not hear.
The City of Hawthorne and others like it are violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by not providing proper training to its officers on how to deal with people with disabilities. When our politicians gut spending for resources that our officers need in order to function effectively, these sorts of situations happen. And in turn, it undermines public confidence in our law enforcement officers to the point where people will not call the police in the event of serious crimes. This creates the very antitheses of the law and order that many of our politicians are trying to promote.
At the state level, California's politicians need to take a look at the culture of police brutality that is all too frequent within that state. While most police officers are not like these three, it is officers that engage in these actions that give all of law enforcement a bad name.