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A naked man standing on a fire escape and, later, a storefont, fell to his death after a police officer stunned him with a Taser. Based on video (below) and witness reports, Iman Morales, 35, was wielding a fluorescent light bulbs at cops who tried to get close.
According to the Post, Morales was yelling from the fire escape at 491 Tompkins Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. When police asked him to come down, he "climbed down to a ledge above a metal roll-down storefront cover" and starting waving the long light bulb. The Daily News reports a witness as saying, "When the police came, he was screaming, 'You're gonna kill me and I'm gonna take everyone with me. I'm gonna die and you're gonna die with me.'"
After he continued to ignore the police order, one officer fired his stun gun, apparently per orders from his boss. WNBC reports a witness saw Morales freeze and fall "on his head on the sidewalk." Another witness told the NY Times, "It was a dead man's fall." The Post also has a distressing gallery of images showing Morales outside the building, being Tasered, falling and on the ground.
Morales was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he later died. He had rented an apartment on the third floor of the building. His mother had called 911, finding him "out of control" (she believed he stopped taking his medication). When police went to his apartment, the Daily News reports he "crept nude onto the fire escape and tried to enter a neighbor's fourth-floor window when police forced their way into his apartment." That neighbor said, "He tried to get into my window. He banged. He said, 'Let me in! Let me in!' But no way I'm letting a naked man into my apartment." Another witness said that his mother had been yelling, "No! No! Don't hurt him! He's sick."
The NYPD is investigating the incident; this past summer, the NYPD started to arm police officers with Tasers, as a way to avoid shootings. The Times notes, "Community activists held a news conference after Mr. Morales’s death, urging neighbors not to prejudge the police and urging the authorities to fully investigate." However, City Councilman Peter Vallone did say, “My first take is that while I’m sure there are no experts out there on how to handle a crazy naked man with a weapon on top of a ledge, I’m also sure this wasn’t the right way."
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The man was clearly mentally ill and wasn't going any place. He wasn't going to kill anyone with that light bulb either. Why the rush to taser him?
I thought I could clearly see him poking that big white stick (light?) at the officer just above the frame on the fire escape -- maybe I'm wrong? I would think that would give them justification to tase the naked guy.
Then again, you have to assume the dude is going to have a big fall and be seriously hurt -- which then makes the taser somewhat lethal yes?
Next time they need to get Luke Skywalker and his light saber to deal with this type of situation.
@3
or 'Star Wars Kid'
police are totally in the right. The man was on a ledge with a flourescent lightbulb and was clearly a danger to the public. If you walked under that ledge he could have shattered the lightbulb and blinded a lot of people or hurled the jagged edges at someone. definitely dangerous.
I bet they will say tasers aren't lethal. The concrete killed him.
"The man was on a ledge with a flourescent lightbulb and was clearly a danger to the public"
I'm sure the area was already cordoned off by the time he got tasered.
Crazy naked man says: Dont tase my little dude!
Funny (but petty) story: Somebody in my building figured out that this Gothamist nickname was me. So they sifted through all my old comments, excerpted them, and posted them on my door with their own commentary. In particular, they thought I was a "cop hater" for saying that arming officers with tasers would "give NYPD a new way to fuck up."
Hope you enjoy this story, anonymous moron.
Wow. Have you ever handled a fluorescent tube, BH? Apparently not. The glass is very thin and can't be thrown if the tube is broken. Does it look like anybody was going to be walking under that fire escape? It looked pretty well cordoned off to me. The only vaguely dangerous thing about flourescent tubes is the small amount of mercury inside.
What else was going to happen when he got hit with a taser? Techno-magically get un-crazy and dismount the metal ledge?
Nope... his body did what any body would do when electrocuted: spaz out.
Unfortunately being on the second floor and on a ledge, it perhaps should have occurred to someone that the taser would cause him to fall.
anta baka!
Don't tase me bro!
bklynd: kinda creepy... sounds like someone in your building needs a life! here's a quarter, perhaps you'd like to buy 'em one.
what happened to nets? I say throw a net on the crazy people and take them to the looney zoo.
The fact that someone from the NYPD ESU couldn't have the slightest forethought that that tasering someone standing on a ledge would lead to their death is amazing. On 2nd thought, screw prosecuting the ESU officers with manslaughter, charge the 2 with murder in the 2nd degree.
Clearly he was going to fall when they tased him, why the f couldn't they put something to soften the landing?
Those photos on the post website are sickening.
This is some pretty disturbing footage. I would have hoped there was a more humane way of dealing with this person.
What in the hell did the NYPD think would happen once the guy got tasered? That he was going to fall gently from the ledge? I don't hate the police but this was a bone-headed move, and one that will probably cost them $$ when the family decides to sue.
you get out of his reach and wait him out, something. as my gut reaction and everyone else here said, he was on a ledge, OF COURSE he was going to fall when tased.
clear evidence of the NYpidD murdering someone in broad daylight.
you don't tase a suicidal guy on a ledge & you don't tase a crazy naked guy off his meds. unless you are the biggest gang in nyc, then you tase or shoot or knock down or sodomize with a broomstick, whomever you want.
the annoying thing is that there will always be some moron who defends them.
He was wielding a chemical weapon. The mercury could have escaped and poisoned people.
Sad that his mother--along with the neighbors-- had to see this.
Cops ARE pigs...they love death, and then they love to lie about it when they are caught. They can rationalize it until the cows come home, but bottom line: deathlovingpigs.
5 seconds of watching Looney Tunes tells you to at least throw down a mattress.
My 3 month old daughter grasps 'cause and effect' more. The officer in charge should be the one to take the fall, pun intended.
Tasers KILL!! There are reports every week of the Police Tasering someone, and Killing them!! The police in this country are Out of Control!!! They afraid of handling citizens in a humane manner, and simply choose to shock them into submission.
We must all protest the increasing use of Tasers before it is too late.
how quickly Gothamist forgets...
white woman described as beautiful and a "fallen angel" by cops, gently lowered to the ground by ladder....
http://gothamist.com/2007/07/21/park_slopes_run.php
The video from The Post says that it was a metal rod. Maybe that seems more dangerous than a florescent light bulb to some, but I still can't say that I think that it's any sort of justification for taking the action that the cops did. Either by ignorance, negligence or lack of common sense they killed that man.
The police seem to be very afraid of situations that they don't fully control. That fear leads to tragic and unfortunate events like this.
What they didn't realize is that they already had the upper hand: all they had to do was stick an air bag under him and wait! They already had control of all the other variables, so I don't see any harm in letting the poor guy control the clock.
They were clearly dealing with someone mentally disturbed. I hope they have different protocols to follow in these circumstances...it's not the same thing as collaring some roustabout.
This was clearly a situation where the first thought of the cops, after cordoning off the street to protect the public, should have been to consider this man a suicide threat. That would mean de-escalation the situation to calm the man, especially considering he didn't have a weapon that could reach anyone more than 10 feet away, and try to talk him off the ledge.
Instead the cop did the equivalent of ending a suicide attempt by preemptive murder.
Let's give the FDNY tasers so they can shock kittens out of trees!
if those fluorescent tubes are dangerous, someone better tell sanitation because I see them throwing them in their trucks javelin style.
anyway, now it's all on tape.
They should have put something soft down and got an even bigger stick and poked him off. American Gladiator style.
caption: don't take pictures of us killing people
The police have never known how to deal with the mentally ill even though a huge of amount of their daily workload is just that. I often wonder if these scenes aren't deliberate, if the cops see these situations as opportunities to "clean up the genepool". It would be useful for a psychologist to thoroughly interview those cops afterwards and get to the root of this vicious brutality.
Fuck the NYPD.. serioussly are this guys human beings? 4 policeman dressed up for a riot tasering a mentally ill person standing on a 2nd floor?? WTF!
For real. FUCK COPS.
jeez, this happened just down the street from me. this story, coupled with the one from last week or the week before about the cop hitting the young girl...what the fuck is up with the cops in bed stuy. jesus christ.
Leave it to the NYPD to find a way to kill a guy with a non lethal weapon. When a naked man is waving a light bulb and you are wearing body armor, I don't think you are in any real danger. It really amazes me that there are so many stories of cops doing stupid things lately.
This is what happens when you put stupid people in charge of safety.
Watching the video, it's clear that one of the officers could have caught the guy or at least cushioned the fall a bit.
The NYPD is on a roll this year!
Talk about a colossal fuck up. Nice work NYPD.
I hope the NYPD uses as much care when dealing with the drunks in downtown manhattan on a fri/sat night.
Did the fluorescent bulb light up when he was tased, like Uncle Fester? That would've been a sight to see.
Does an officer need instruction or permission to use the damn thing? Who decided when to use the taser? There are many more questions to be answered.
#10 - You SEE The police guys right under the dude. He could have hurt the police. He could have went back into the apartment building and hurt the tenants. The dude was a loose canon. If he had broken of the end of the flourescent light and thrown the thing like a spear at someone impaling their asses then you'd be like "why didn't the police do anything?"
You know, a trampoline would have solved all of this:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1085/bear_trampoline/
If he goes back in the apartment, then taze him. The threat of a fluorescent light spear does not merit the use of force in this situation.
Statement released by the NYPD, they did screw up:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/nyregion/25taserletter.html
Well, NYPD stated the obvious: they screwed up.
It's pretty disturbing to see how some Ghotamist commenters are ready to defend any action by NYPD, no matter how obviously wrong it is. This is a special brand of losers, I think. Seems like they just want the cops to arrest and murder off the rest of the humanity, so that being a loser can be a bit more bearable to them.
There is a name for that sickness: misanthropy.
what is wrong with NYPD, he was naked and had no hidden weapons. what is really wrong with these cops???
New
York
Pricks &
Dicks
Horrendous that it had to end with a fatality. I'm sure they could have coerced him down eventually without making him fall on his head.