A reader emails – “The article is practically a parody of itself. Naturally the Globe has forbidden comments on this gem.”
Brian Minchin said his son, Michael Langan, was as healthy as a horse, and used to walk four or five miles a day in pursuit of aluminum cans, trying to scrounge together enough money for some beer and marijuana.
He said his son may have been drunk or high on marijuana when he was confronted by two police officers in an alley close to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg’s downtown core. Police say they ordered Mr. Langan to drop a knife, and when he refused they were forced to taser him.
[…]
“He was asked to drop the knife or something and he didn’t do it. I guess they asked him several times. Maybe he was drunk. He probably was drunk because he gets kind of crazy and brave when he’s drunk,” he said. “People think they’re Superman when they’re drunk, even adults.”
[…]
He said he doesn’t have many memories of his son, but will always cherish the thought of the day they spent together when the Grey Cup was last in Winnipeg. Mr. Minchin scalped half a dozen tickets and then went into the stadium to watch the game with his son. They smoked joints and drank beers at halftime, he said.
Ah, father/son bonding, yer can’t beat it.
“Toke up my boy, but don’t Bogart that joint.”
test
Wow he smoked dope and drank with his son a minor, which is illegal. Yep there’s those Liberal/Socialist Family Values. No wonder society has become a cess pool.
Good luck with the law suit fella, your son may of been drunk and high whilst committing a crime whilst brandishing a blade and his death is the police’s fault. Yea I can just see the judges face, not that anyone would be stupid enough to actually take his case.
wow — looks like a six figure (no brainer) settlement law suit to me! Let me know if you need a lawyer, I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding one. Sorry about your loss…
Sounds like Canadian Native Indian culture. You know, the one we pay about 12 billion a year to support because it’s so … noble!
A native kid (half native? .. whatever) challenges the police with a knife. Many years ago he would have been shot. Instead they taze him and for whatever reason he dies. He died of stupidity not racism, police brutality or anything else.
I know for some, it’s difficult to see a life spent walking 4 or 5 miles a day collecting cans and bottles with which to get money for dope and booze, snuffed out so young, but to decent sensible people that is the sort of thing that happens to that sort of person and … who cares!
We can only hope that the progressives and the Indians don’t completely destroy the lives of the policemen involved. It’s just like those progressives to take time out from their vigil to free Omar Khadr long enough to make shit fly in Winnipeg.
One more point to dear old dad.
Police wisely prefer not to try to disarm, wrestle with or make any physical contact with people who they think might have AIDS, Hep C or who knows what else. The Taser is a logical option to protect police and disable crazy people.
Of the thousands of taser events each year, very few die. Those who do, would have stayed alive by simply doing what the cops told them to do. Simple eh?
Taser deaths are 100% preventable. Stupidity, apparently is not.
Good catch. There was an earlier article that caught my eye:
“He would carry a little knife, because you know what? That’s what kids do.”
On what planet? My high school had 1200 students, I ran with “the bad crowd”: nobody carried knives. We fought with our fists. Knives are for career jailbirds and pussies who can’t fight like a man, at least in my culture; I can’t speak for other cultures.
“I didn’t approve of it, but how are you going to stop that?”
Uh, I dunno, a size twelve steeltoe up his ass? Get his father to administer discipline, as humans have done for one million years? In any case, that’s a pretty clear admission that single moms aren’t fit to raise boys.
In my community the cops tasered an unarmed 17 year old kid who was behaving erratically in the middle of the street, not a threat to anyone. They were just too lazy – and weak – to tackle a 17 year old boy, so they tazed him.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080723.wtaserupdate0723/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostview
best short list the pair of them for their Order of Canada medals . . . so richly deserved eh ?
at least the Khadrs tried to give their kids direction.
hows about we replace Michin’s son with Omar Khadr. Kill two birds with one stoner.
“He was a perfectly healthy 17-year-old kid.”
— Who was a pot smoker and drinker…at 17. Perfectly healthy, upstanding member of society.
Only the good die young!
I would appear there is a chance of dying when tasered . I would think that the chances of dying from a couple of well placed round from a police officers side arm are much higher. The answer is to let the bleeding hearts take the taser away from the police then ignore their bitching and complaining when some dirt bag gets shot and killed.
The kid has a knife and the cops choose not to shoot him and the parents are complaining? Taser the parents. (Twice)
He said he doesn’t have many memories of his son
That’s a major part of the problem right there.
They smoked joints and drank beers at halftime, he said.
Well that just about raps it up why he was shot. Like Father like son.
If he was a Heathy as a horse why wasent he working? Could it be his Dad influenced his lyfestyle? Now he wants payment for the neer do well he didn’t raise obviously at all. I guess to his sort even the corpse of his own son is a commodity for monetary exchange. No one takes responsability & watch we will end up paying this pig our tax dollars, not for grief but for an absentyeee fake Dad who’s only care it seems is he continue the legaqcy imimparted to his late son. That of Bum. I still say you go after a cop your looking for a funneral, justly so in my opinion.
Being drunk or stupid is no excuse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfvWseJuaNo
Maybe the loving father should have a chat with Paul Martin, he’s very interested in Indian Affairs, it’s his retirement hobby or something. He should be able to at least blame the Conservative government for the unfortunate death.
Kate, I know you don’t like profanity on your site, but can you make an exception in this case?
My reaction was, “Oh f—!” stopping myself in mid-laughter.
Do I feel some sympathy for the deceased boy? Damn right. It sucks he had to have such crappy negligent parents and then have his life cut short as a result of his entirely predictable behaviour. The Winnipeg police tried to use sub-lethal force on the boy in an effort to save his life despite him wielding a knife. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way and the police’s immediate attempts to revive the boy failed.
But can I laugh at his dad? Can I say, “Oh f—!” in reaction to his position?
That article is the biggest self-parody I’ve seen this side of MSNBC. It’s amazing. And I haven’t even finished reading it. I shall do that next.
Now in the process of braving a few more hilariously sad paragraphs:
See above quote from yourself, Mr. Minchin. They’re probably directly related, you negligent numbskull who had more to do with your son’s death than did the police!
That last line was not an attempt at humour.
I simply wonder what institution that father went to to learn to come across as dumb as he does?????
What did the police do in the time before tazers, when having to subdue a drunk/stoned person who was waving a knife at them? Pepper spray them, sic a police dog on them, shoot them, or whip out the batons and beat them to a bloody pulp. All of which people have died from as a result.
Rose “Yea I can just see the judges face”, this is not an open and shut case. Let us not forget how many of these judges were appointed by Liberals. As such most of them are of the “We’re all victims, no one is responsible, it’s society’s fault” philosophy.
The worst thing is that police draw the tasers thinking those are less than lethal, but people die. It’s unfair to police to arm them with a toy and promise that this toy won’t kill the customers, then watch how one after another the people zapped pass away.
Aaron, police know the weapon (not toy) can be fatal. They use it because it’s less likely to be fatal. Your comment was ill-thought out. Ignorance isn’t mandatory, you know.
One can only hope that’s the end of that familys bloodline.
Trash!
I disagree; I think that the taser is overused by police. The fact is – it IS a lethal weapon. The probability of death from its use is not rare but frequent enough that its use should only be in the most extreme cases. I don’t think that this was one of those cases.
As for the ‘reasons’ given by some of the justification for the boy’s death – I don’t think they are valid.
The fact that the boy had a disgustingly irresponsible father; that all he did with his own life was to search for old beer cans to get enough money for his drink/drugs – none of this justifies his death or his being ‘tasered’ by the police.
The fact that he carried a knife – again, that’s no justification.
IF, IF, he had been actually attacking a police officer, then, I can possibly accept their use of lethal force. But he wasn’t. He simply wasn’t obeying their request to ‘drop the knife’. He wasn’t attacking them.
What to do? I think that there has to be some serious review of when to use the taser. Again, I think it’s become too handy and overused.
A year or so ago some half crazed knife wielding idiot was surrounded by the local police who ordered he guy to drop the knife. He didn’t…so they shot him. Same result.
Of course all us red necks in the wild, wild west are gun happy fanatics.
The global warming Nazis should be on the side of the guns. You don’t have to use that dirty, poluting, environmentally degrading electricity to charge up a gun.
I see the G&M decided to leave out that he was also a meth addict.
ET – So you see nothing wrong with pulling a knife on a cop? You don’t even see a hint of aggression there? Have you ever even been close to a real fight? … I mean the physical kind.
“IF, IF, he had been actually attacking a police officer, then, I can possibly accept their use of lethal force.”
Yes – IF he had been attacking them, they would have shot the little bastard with their pistols. Since he wasn’t, they used a taser instead. This kind of situation is exactly why they have the taser in the first place.
“I disagree; I think that the taser is overused by police.”
ET, I agree with you its overused. I totally agree.
However, THIS case is EXACTLY the type of incident it SHOULD be used for.
Aggressive armed drunk teenager. There’s a risk in using it, but less of a risk than other options. I don’t support using the TASER as a compliance device. But to take down someone with a weapon? Yes.
One thing they’ll have to look at as a training issue is where the teenager was struck. There seems to be some indication the TASER may be more dangerous when it hits the chest than the abdomen.
this case APPEARS(if you can believe the lying cops) that the taser was justified. THEY are tasering people for practice! Read up on it.
So ET…the police, acting on information that the kid had committed a crime, had an obligation to take him into custody. And he’s brandishing a knife…in the presence of THE POLICE! And he refuses to drop it. What is your plan for the resolution of the matter?
Do the police have to approach more closely to determine if he is actually going to use the knife on them? And if they get close enough, and he makes an effort to stab the police officers, what is the probability that the police cannot react in time to prevent their own injury, or possible death?
Think about it. How many seconds would it take you to lunge and cover a distance of say…20 feet? Two seconds, maybe three? That is not a lot of time for the police to react to an imminent threat.
Here’s a suggestion. Call your local police department and volunteer for their “ride along” program, so that you can get a better idea of the type of situations the police have to deal with on a daily basis.
You might learn something…
reg dunlop, if you’re going to make grand claims like “they” (Who are they? Winnipeg police? Anyone in particular?) are TASERing people for target practice, can you do more than encourage us to “read up on it”?
You’re making an outlandish claim. You’re also stating we can just read about it and understand it. Fine. Help us out by showing what to read, or shut up.
From Wpg.Free Press (Fri),this stellar example of ‘fatherhood’ was ‘panhandling all day to support him and his son’ and this ‘He didn’t go back to school last year when school started..he was kind of a stubborn kid,you know?He didn’t RESPECT me that much I suppose.He was a kid so I still loved him.Harmless kid.Maybe he did some stupid things once in awhile,but who doesn’t as a teenage kid?
Gee Dad,if you had wanted the kid to respect you..maybe you should have been a better example?
ET, should the cops have set up a folding table, sit down, order pizza and just wait him out then?
“Maybe he did some stupid things once in awhile,but who doesn’t as a teenage kid?”
Yep…remember those times way back when, when we were teenagers…when we broke into cars, stole property belonging to other innocent people, and then when confronted by the police threatened them with a knife?
Me neither…
“volunteer for their “ride along” program”
I did this once when i was a news reporter. My main memory is that police aren’t supermen – or superwomen – and situations escalate very quickly.They’re brave and professional, but that doesn’t mean they’re the toughest guy on the block, nor do they pretend to be. One person with a knife can cause a lot of grief in a few seconds, including what happens to a civilian who gets in the way while they’re escaping.
I don’t think magic alternatives to tasers exist, and people have died when being subdued with physical force of all types.
ET, here are some of the bad things that can happen when you leave an aggressive drunk teenager with a knife:
– they can charge the police, thus guaranteeing suicide by cop (certain death)
– they can charge the police, and within 20 feet or so, close the distance before the police can do much, thus killing or injuring officers
– they can escape and evade, causing police to fire which might injure bystanders or people in their homes
– they can kill or injure themselves with the knife
Or the police can deploy a TASER which can, but generally doesn’t, cause a fatality.
The person responsible for the death was the boy, with a strong assist from his wayward parents.
Lots of sad aspects to this story. A parent who didn’t do much to steer his son right. A young man who wasted his life. Some cops who are going to get dragged through the mud because it’s politically correct. And lots more people getting killed when tasers are taken away from cops and they need to start shooting people who pull knives.
All life is precious. Too bad this one ended with a kid pulling a knife on a cop. Maybe under different circumstances this life could have been steered in the right direction.
I’m not making outlandish claims, Christoph, only well documented examples to form an opinion.
Type in T-A-S-E-R to your search engine and you’ll find that canadian cops are the world leaders in the usage of their favourite weapon, the taser. And it’s used for, apparently, their own practice or enjoyment.
Link to at least ONE specific reference or story, reg dunlop. I’m not searching the entire Google results for the T-A-S-E-R term to research your assertion.
Since you claim to have seen evidence of this, it shouldn’t be that hard to present some here.
And, for what it’s worth, I think TASERs are used inappropriately at times in Canada, and elsewhere. I’ve already said that.
In this case, the TASER was justified for reasons I and others have expressed.
From the previous post;
{The following is an extract from the book “Tools of Violence: Guns, Tank and Dirty Bombs” by Chris McNab and Hunter Keeter. While the book deals with military weapons, the small arms section includes info on police shootings from which this is extracted.
“One final issue also needs to be laid to rest, that of the perceived advantage of a gun over a knife. The lethality of a knife must not be underestimated. It requires no loading, reloading, or firing procedure, can produce lethal injuries with every single thrust, retraction, and slash, and is often better than bullets at generating injuries producing critical blood loss. Patrick and Hall make note of tests done at the Firearms Training Unit (FTU), and the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where a rubber-knife armed instructor would charge and attack a fellow officer, armed with a blank-firing pistol, from a variety of ranges:
“Beyond a distance of 21 feet [6.4m], the agent with the handgun had time to evade the initial attack and shoot, if the gun were already in hand. Inside 21 feet, most of the agents could still fire a shot by the time the attacker reached them with the knife, as the attacker concurrently was able to stab or slash the agent. The harsh reality in such circumstance is that unless the shot happens to hit the attacker in the central nervous system, the attack will succeed … At closer ranges, the attack was successful before the agent could raise his weapon and fire a shot. When the agent started from a holstered position, he was successfully stabbed/slashed every time when the attack commenced inside 21 feet.”}
Please, if you are going to comment about what the police should or should not do, gather a little real life information (as opposed to what is on TV) about what the police face and the risks involved.
The alternative to a taser in a situation such as this one is called…. A Service Revolver!!
That option pretty much guarantees the kid dies.
The police took the conservative measure and unfortunately it still turned out badly.
The only things that could have been done better here were the parenting and the kid’s choice not to drop the knife.
Again, I repeat, when a law enforcement officer directs you to do something… DO IT!
If they are out of line, you pursue it within the legal system. You don’t argue and you don’t fight!
Unless a dirt nap is your ultimate goal.
a link for Christoph: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2007/11/22/taser-death.html
And it’s one of many.
Check out the police response of taser usage deaths inquiries–All Negative! IE: the effing cops are never wrong, no matter what. And when they’re shown to be wrong, Dzaniek, they lie and backstabbed their way out of it.
Brent – Why bring reality into a professor’s world view?
Reg Dunlop
You may be right about them using the taser more in this country.
That could just as easily be attributed to them trying to avoid using lethal force.
Do you know anything about the bureaucracy involved when a police officer pulls his/her sidearm?
Do you know anything about the risks police face anytime they confront a combative person?
I’m betting you are so far removed from that kind of violence (again the real kind, TV does not count) that you’d crap your pants if faced with it.
The police do it daily for you and I.
Personally, I will place my faith in them all day everyday before listening to a blowhard like you.
You’re an obvious fool, Brent.
My comment wasn’t posted prior to this but the use of tasers is epidemic in canada. Take that as you search.
I agree with ET.
PiperPaul: “ET, should the cops have set up a folding table, sit down, order pizza and just wait him out then?”
Actually, waiting to see if the individual calms down is definitely a better choice.
Bruce: “the police, acting on information that the kid had committed a crime”
I see nothing in the story indicating the police were acting on information that he had committed a crime.
Some commenters are making the assumption that the kid was violent. Potentially he was, but most people are not when smoking dope. It is also possible that in this case he was smoking dope on his own, and that the cops initiated the altercation.
Cops are not infallible. Most of the cops I have met on the beat are assholes, assuming the worst of the most harmless and law-abiding citizens.
Kate just posted a link to a story of cops fining people for smoking in their cars.
Recently I was tailgated by a cop for miles in the dark of night in a rural area, as he waited for my speed to exceed the limit, at which point he pulled me over to give me a ticket.
From my experience, most cops are assholes, whether they are talking to hardened criminals, grannies or infants.
Cops have a tough job, but certainly nobody forces them to take up the profession, and they do not have the right to abuse law-abiding citizens.
Perhaps this kid led a less than exemplary life, but that does not mean his life was worthless.
Let us see now.
This is a major tragedy on human scale of things. Death of you child who ever you are what ever are the circumstances, all is disqualified for the moment, it is unbearable.
The problem of today’s young is that the previous generation grew up not by the wishes of their parents. The previous generation grew up according to ‘scientific methods’ of other people that never had children, though they were good at writing and spreading propaganda that the parents are wrong and the sociologists are right.
Remember one named Spock the guy never had a child until he was like hundred years old, (exaggeration, don’t make a federal case out of it), the guy wrote a book on how to raise a child and had absolutely on idea himself. It must have sounded good. He managed to screw up a whole generation of parents and messed up children in the process.
Life being somewhat self-correcting process is trying hard to repair all that garbage, though there will be victim, actual victims that will pay for the foolishness.
Not that everything was the best before, though it was not as bad on such a massive scale.
Sociology, hardly being a science discipline, is fully responsible for what happened in this case.
Consider this, the boys father behaves as a barbarian, how could he know any better how to guide his son? It is likely that the boy was told at times that his behavior could use some attitude adjustment.
The thing is some kids need a slap, not a beating, a slap to get attention, then they need to be held by their parent and they need a good hug, this is not the frilly bloody hug they come up with at your work, a real solid kind of deal that show them you mean well, you are there for him, he is all you’ve got, just trying to get their attention.
There is more, though this is exhausting.
Reg
It is amazing how many times, when you confront a fool with their fallacies, they resort to name calling.
I know, I called you a blowhard first, but only after pointing out your fallacies.
You are trying to use taser usage rates to make the claim that police are abusing them.
You however, provide no evidence to support that, beyond your very weak opinion.
You still have not supplied “ONE” link to support your claim.
Could that be because your sources don’t really support your opinion until you twist them just the right way?
Provide the evidence or give us your absence.
sf: “I see nothing in the story indicating the police were acting on information that he had committed a crime.”
And the citizens phoned the cops after they witnessed him in breaking into a car …
So what, exactly, is your definition of committing a crime?
sf
You are characteristic of the people I listen to at work (Provincial Transprortation).
It’s always the cop’s who are to blame for their crappy record.
“They are persecuting me.”
I work directly with the police.
They don’t have the time to chase individuals unless they work in a town with a populace in the low thousands.
Yes, some cops are pricks.
That comment can be made about any segment of the populace.
Some of the people in my office are pricks. So what!
The vast majority are normal guys like you and I with a little larger balls. (a requirement to be able to handle the job)
If you only encounter assholes, it’s because they are reflecting your attitude back at you.
Oh and by the way, when this story first broke, it was openly stated that the kid was breaking into cars and observers called the police.
They responded as required to.
They were doing their job.
the most despicable thing to me is that the father seems to be completely unapolegetic for the way he raised his kid and for the way his kid was living his life. And how the press seems to have calmly taken down and printed his POV without apparently any editorial comment.
That the father is not ostracized for his conduct only provides tacit societal approval for the resulting failed life. I don’t blame society for not giving him enough opportunity but for giving him too much.
So sf… lets see if I understand you. You tell us a ‘why I hate cops’story that has you driving down a dark rural road being followed by a cop. In your mind that cop was waiting for you to speed up so he could write you a ticket. So… you speed up and the “a**hole” gives you a ticket! I think I know what sf stands for now.