Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 16, 2012

After Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Cole shot 19-year-old Danielle Maudsley with a Taser, the fleeing detainee struck her head on the concrete sidewalk, leaving her in what appears to be an irreversible coma.

At the time, Maudsley ? who had been arrested on misdemeanor traffic charges ? was handcuffed, which prevented her from breaking the fall. Cole told an inquiry that the Taser strike was appropriate because ?she was already outrunning me.? A dashcam video of the September 19 incident documents that Maudsley was, at most, a couple of feet away. While she was running in the general direction of a highway, she could have been stopped had the officer been willing to exert himself just a little bit.

Cole?s decision to use a Taser against a tiny, handcuffed, non-violent female misdemeanor suspect violated the Florida Highway Patrol?s policy manual, which specifies that ?Fleeing cannot be the sole reason for deployment of the [Taser]).? It likewise dictates that the Taser cannot be used ?On a handcuffed or secured prisoner.?

Nevertheless, Cole was cleared by both the Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida State Department of Law Enforcement ? and, thanks to the legal fiction called ?sovereign immunity,? it?s doubtful a lawsuit by Maudsley?s family will succeed.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.