The wingnuts here will say she doesn't deserve a dime because her son was drunk or high or both and may have resisted arrest.

NOnE OF THESE CRIMES CALLS FOR THE DEATH PENALTY or "death by overzealous police", who, after dislocating his shoulder pile so many people on top of him as to make him suffocate.

I cannot understand police today that feel compelled to try and completely immobilize a suspect to gain control. You take 'em down, slap on cuffs, flexicuff the knees and ankles of the really violent, then you throw them into a squad car, paddy wagon, whatever, and get them to the jail for booking.

But to crush a man so badly he suffocates is police brutality per se, and I am glad Mom got the $1.5-million THAT CAN NEVER REPLACE HER SON and she is incredibly kind and compassionate enough to offer to educate young officers regarding the real affect they can have on people, especially if they are so negligent as to cause a death.

But then again, I have never understood why so many of these incidents go on so long and increase the odds of someone getting hurt.

The Fed lawsuit was 'dismissed' because that was part of the terms of the $1.5 mil settlement. According to Police spokesman Tom Layne

the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and the City have reached a settlement dismissing all seventeen defendant officers and the City of Chattanooga.

Layne goes on to say:

The officers present feared Mr. Prater would get into his vehicle or walk into the roadway unless he was taken into custody.

The cop still goes on:

After several minutes, the officers were eventually able to handcuff Mr. Prater behind his back despite his continuing resistance.

The cop continues to lie when he says:

Mr. Prater?s regrettable death was certainly an unanticipated and unintentional consequence of trying to help him when officers were dispatched and requested medical assistance during this call

And while nitpicking my post, Patrick continues to ignore that the DoJ says Murder and homicide are defined as the reckless or intentional taking of a human life by another individual.

Fact is that he was drunk, high on coke and running around naked and I believe he was resisting arrest.
Acts like that lead to bad happenings.

And since she says:

Leslie Prater's mother said money was not the goal of the suit.

If you jaywalk and the police shoot you, there should be no recovery?

Uh... the guy was drunk, high on coke, running around naked an resisted arrest. And that's equivalent to jay walking?

Damn. If I ever commit a serious crime I want to be tried in Atlanta and have you as my lawyer!

;-)

Look. His actions were a major contributor to his death. No money should have been paid. But, if you want to use a lawsuit to make a point to the city, then the money should go to a charity. How about a halfway house for recovering addicts?

After all, the mother is quoted as saying:

Leslie Prater's mother said money was not the goal of the suit.

Is it just me or does anyone out there other than Sailor see where he addressed the "Problems" in my post?

And while nitpicking my post, Patrick continues to ignore that the DoJ says Murder and homicide are defined as the reckless or intentional taking of a human life by another individual.

I wouldn't call pointing out glaring errors and baseless assumptions nitpicking.  Additionally, Murder and Homicide are defined in your link for the purpose of that article...Not a legal definition of either.  Don't believe me...Ask TL for her opinion or someone else.  

So I just have one question: Patrick, do you think the cops did the right thing here?

I think they did the best they could given the circumstances, and there's certainly no where near the evidence needed to pursue a criminal case against anyone in the same set of circumstances, even the police.  

Interestingly enough, the article linked in the main post talks about how the use of a taser might have prevented this.  I agree.  

Another part of the pact is that the victim's mother, Dr. Loretta Prater, will create a video explaining the loss of her son which will be shown to new recruits in several upcoming training academies or Ms. Prater will personally appear for a training session during the next three upcoming training academies for new police officers.

"On Dec. 13, 2004, Loretta Prater, as Natural Mother and Administratrix of the Estate of Leslie Vaughn Prater, Dwight Prater, as father of Leslie Prater, and Stefan Prater, as brother of Leslie Prater filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee against the City of Chattanooga and seventeen police officers alleging various claims arising from the death of Mr. Prater on Jan. 2, 2004.

"Pursuant to this settlement the city will (1) pay the plaintiffs $1,500,000.00; (2) have an independent expert conduct an audit of the Police Department's Office of Internal Affairs regarding existing and recommended policies and procedures for Internal Affairs investigations; and (3) consult with an independent expert regarding existing and recommended policies and procedures for current training on positional asphyxia and related topics. In addition the settlement will allow, Loretta Prater, a college professor, to create a video explaining the loss of her son which will be shown to new recruits in several upcoming training academies or Ms. Prater will personally appear for a training session during the next three upcoming training academies for new police officers.

The report describes Prater's death as a homicide.

Police said the death of Leslie Prater was an accident, and no one was charged.

In addition to multiple fractured ribs and a dislocated shoulder joint with a fracture, the 5-foot-11, 232-pound Prater suffered multiple abrasions and ``acute hemorrhage of the pubic and lower abdominal wall soft tissues and scrotal sac, consistent with blunt trauma impact,'' according to the report.

From the lawsuit:

gave Mr. Prater twenty-one (21) rib fractures on sixteen (16) of his ribs and dislocated and broke his left shoulder. The Defendants bruised Mr. Prater?s right upper chest, right lower chest, right arm and forearm, left shoulder, left arm and forearm, left thigh and both his wrists. The Defendants cut Mr. Prater?s lower back, right leg, and cut his wrists with handcuffs. The Defendants struck Mr. Prater?s groin, causing acute hemorrhaging. A true and exact copy of autopsy reports are attached hereto as Exhibit ?A? and Exhibit ?B?.
[...]
The defendant police officers ignored the CPD?s policies and minimally acceptable police practices concerning face-down and ?hog-tie? restraints, the handling and protection of EDP?s and the appropriate use of force.

No money should have been paid.

When it gets expensive enough police departments generally have their behavior modified the controlling gov't bodies. BTW, the city settled so that the Feds wouldn't come after them.

And  ppj, if he'd have bother to look at my links, could have seen that there is only one 'homicide' that is not a crime, and that's 'justifiable.' Not even these lying cops claimed that. They said it was an 'accident.' If anyone else had 'accidentally' caused fatal asphixiation, 21 rib fractures and severely hemorrhaging scrotum over 10 minutes does any sane person think investigators would have said 'hey, accidents happen'!?

No, I don't see a problem with it.  Happens all the time.  Coroner's rule a death a homicide if the death is at the hands of another person.  It is up to the prosecutors, based on the circumstances to determine if there's a crime.  In otherw words, they are not mutually exclusive terms.  

The statistic alluded to by Sailor in the link is misleading.  It is a DOJ survey of a specific subset of justifiable homicides.  

Also Sailor links to a 2004 federal suit (Since dismissed) as evidence the police lied.  I hope I don't need to point out the fallacy in that argument.  

Sailor also points out that "only the cops say he 'resisted arrest'", well I don't think the fact that he resisted arrest was at issue, but still there's no evidence that they are the only ones claiming that, just Sailor's perception.  

BTW, the city settled so that the Feds wouldn't come after them.

This is also a faulty assumption.  Many cases are settled to avoid costs associated with defending the suit.  Defending this suit probably would have cost the city (Defending 17 of their employess) quite a bit of money and they still might have paid.  As it is, if the plaintiff thought the settlement wasn't fair, she was under no obligation to settle.  A settlement by its very nature is an agreement between the two sides...Sailor seems to miss that point.  

And  ppj, if he'd have bother to look at my links, could have seen that there is only one 'homicide' that is not a crime, and that's 'justifiable.' Not even these lying cops claimed that.

I can't speak for Tennessee, but the California
penal code states in PC 195

195.  Homicide is excusable in the following cases:
   1. When committed by accident and misfortune, or in doing any other lawful act by lawful means, with usual and ordinary caution,
and without any unlawful intent.
   2. When committed by accident and misfortune, in the heat of passion, upon any sudden and sufficient provocation, or upon a sudden
combat, when no undue advantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used, and when the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual anner.

*Emphasis mine

So it would seem that once again Sailor doesn't really have any expertise to making such wild claims.  

I also have to disagree with Bill, a death by positional asphyxia is not per se brutality.  Positional asphyxia deaths were more common back when law enforcement was using hobbles (As Bill himself refers to as flex-cuffing the knees and ankles), and which are used very differently today as a result.  

I also have think the Hong Kong police analogy with repsect to the 30 second fight rule is faulty.  I don't know how you can determine how long your going to have to fight someone until you're actually engaged in the fight.  Sometimes additional units may be further away than 30 seconds.  That's not to say I think it's a bad idea, I'd be glad never to have been in a physical struggle for more than 30 seconds, but it's just not possible to avoid sometimes.  

It appears some good will come from this.  $1.5 Mil to the mom doesn't seem overly heavy, especially when considering the lawyers will take a pretty hefty cut...That's the unfortunate part, I'd like to see her get it all.  

The best part of all is the offer by the mother to teach at the academies.  That's going to be a very powerful presentation and I hope it is cathartic for her as well.  

Second... and most disturbing to me is the trend for LEOs to use deadly force in more, not fewer, circumstances or situations. They are being trained to use it whenever it can be argued that  a threat existed, however remote the actual possibility of death may be to them. IOW, their lives are no longer there as the selfless hero who risks life and limb to "Serve and Protect" the citizens; as is still the case with Game Wardens, Firemen, and  many others whose jobs may actually be dangerous, unlike the policemans, which is way down the list of dangerous jobs as demonstrated by stats showing on-the-job fatalities across the workplace spectrum. And yet this "danger" they are rarely ever in is still being trotted out as the reason why they must act in such a selfish manner. Hypocrisy. Sheer death-dealing, citizen-murdering, I-love-being-a-cop hypocrisy.

Just compare the behaviour of a "city cop" to that of a Fish and Game Warden or other Wildlife Protection Officer. These people (women do this too tough guys!) get up in the morning and by themselves head up into the bush, miles from any help, looking for men who are always armed with high-velocity rifles, not to mention the booze and boxes of extra ammo that litterally fall out of the truck whenever you open the door. They are out there by themselves actually looking for people who are armed and have also got an out-of-season doe strapped across the hood of the jeep.

And get this....

Having found such men, these Game Wardens approach without their own weapon drawn! Why? The idea behind this is that they want to do nothing that might illicit a violent response from the people they are soon inform of their intent to confiscate both weapons and vehicle from. That's no small request. And yet they do it all the time!!

Yet City cops wouldn't consider doing this withot a hundred man SWAT team. NO. They wouldn't consider doing it at all, period! And that is the difference between the majority of city cops and a real man. One has balls to go with their brains, (Wildlife Management is not an easy course to finish). More often than not their city counterpart possesses neither. And given the comments of a few here, it seems that they may never be required to "git some..."..

Anyhow....At least this threads provided me with some insight into the mind that has accepted the hoax called the "War On Terror". I see that it really isn't such a big leap for an authority freak to go from thinking that the threat posed by the real nuclear-tipped ICBMs on board the thousands of high-tech naval and air-craft of 2 standing Armies and devastation that would surely cause a collapse of life not seen since the K-T extinction episode.......how they could go from that to imagining that an unorganized, unsophisticated, un-trained, un-armed (they may or may not even have 1 (one) dirty bomb!) group of wingnuts who pose the relative threat of a stink-bomb....how on earth did nuclear annihilation become washed out of our consciousness to be replaced by cave-hopping religious kooks whose danger we are told to the nation is so grave that, despite having faced down  all the Cold War nukes, the KGB with its poisons, powders and assorted gadgetry without ever having to resort to torture, secret prisons, wholesale shredding of Constitutional protections, etc. etc,?? Simply because Dadda Dubya says he needs them to face down this new threat.......And you believed any of it for even a flash of a moment???!!

Stop and absorb these words for a minute, and please then ask yourselves "What'n the Hell are you thinking??!!? Shameful. Two buildings collapse and suddenly it's "War Of the Worlds" hysteria all over again. Snap out of it!