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Jury Awards $100M To Man Paralyzed From Neck Down After Police Tased Him
Elderly Man Awarded $100M After Atlanta Police Tased Him, Causing Him To Fall & Break His
A man who was tased by an Atlanta Police officer who caught him panhandling is suing the officer, city and police department after the incident left him a paraplegic.
In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Georgia, 66-year-old Jerry Blasingame claimed he was panhandling near an on-ramp for I-20 on the west side of the city when he was tased by Atlanta Police officer J. Grubbs and suffered a traumatic fall that resulted in a severe spinal cord injury.
“What happens when those who swore to protect us, hurt us?” said Letitia Knox, Blasingame’s daughter. “An innocent, healthy man has been turned into a paraplegic.
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According to the lawsuit, Grubbs witnessed the panhandling and demanded Blasingame to stop. Blasingame reportedly moved out of the street toward a guard rail and wooded area and Grubbs exited his car and ran at him, then deployed his taser. In the Atlanta Police incident report, Grubbs wrote that he exited his patrol car and yelled “police.”
He said he chased Blasingame while he crossed traffic, at which point he went over the metal barrier into a wooded area. officer deployed his taser because there were vehicles traveling at highway speeds and he wanted to stop Blasingame from entering the highway, he wrote in the report. The incident caused a severe spinal cord injury and Blasingame is now a paraplegic who can no longer live on his own and needs round-the-clock care
“Mr. Jerry is a good man. He didn’t deserve any of this,” said Kevin Carmouche, Letitia Knox’s husband. Other police officers see it, know about it and keep quiet about it, and it only encourages more police brutality.” Blasingame has been homeless on and off throughout the past few years, and his family would come by and take care of him “to the best of their ability.”
“He was panhandling and asking for money. It might be illegal, but the fact of the matter is, being tased and paralyzed is not something that should happen as a result,”
“Panhandling by people in need, including homeless people who are hungry might be illegal, but it is not a capital offense,” Carmouche said. “This could have killed Mr. Jerry, and it almost did.
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