Palm Beach County deputy tasers boy after father attempts suicide

[Judi Lynn]

Published Sunday, May 29, 2005

Palm Beach County deputy tasers boy after father attempts suicide

The Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.
A deputy shocked a 16-year-old boy with a stun gun after the teen protested when authorities handcuffed his bleeding father who had just slit his wrists in a suicide attempt.

Josh Welch, a high school dropout, was zapped after Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies handcuffed his father, Leslie Welch, who had attempted suicide. Leslie Welch, 38, suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, The Palm Beach Post reported Sunday.

The father and son had been waiting for an ambulance, but deputies arrived first and handcuffed the bleeding man, Josh Welch said.

"They were just talking to him. The ambulance wasn't here. So I called 911 again," Josh Welch said. "I asked for cops who could do their job."

In a sheriff's report, the deputy wrote that Josh Welch "came at me with a lit cigarette in a threatening manner."
(snip/...)

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050529/APN/505290933

[LiberalVoice]

1. "Uncuff him or I'll wave this cigarette in your general direction!"

Fascist dogs.

[tkmorris]

2. Oh man Judi Lynn

And these are the people I have to call if anyone ever breaks into my car, or threatens my kids. This same Palm Beach County Sheriff's office.

I cannot understand what has happened to my country. Truly I cannot.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Greatest sympathy, tkmorris. All this and creative elections, too.

If you smoke, this might be a good time to stop, lest you upset the local police gentlemen.

[tkmorris]

7. I already have upset them, a few years back

A local teenage thug, proudly preening for his admirers, told my oldest daughter that if she didn't comply with some silly thing he had said that he and his buddies would rape her.

I got in his face. Mind you, I only did so AFTER attempting to go through his maternal parental unit and finding that she was a typical Boca Ratonian Floridiot; in short, her darling son was apparently the reincarnation of a Greek God and could not possibly do wrong. So I informed the young Adonis that if he threatened such a violent act to my daughter again that there would be perhaps more violence than he had bargained for, and perhaps going in a different direction than he had planned. I am not a violent man mind you, but this is my DAUGHTER and she was petrified.

Somehow the local gendarme determined that I was the problem and this young man was the "victim". This in spite of the fact that I was the one that called them. I got off easy, (Tasers were not standard issue yet and I am not stupid enough to look threatening to the police) but it still sticks in my craw.

The last I heard the young man was in jail. I guess he eventually did something the police could no longer ignore. Life in Florida. Just another day in paradise.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. A deadly weapon for sure...

and one that no cop had ever dealt with before.

Maybe it's a good thing they had the taser, or they might have shot him.

[Fridays Child]

5. Why was it necessary to say that he's a high school dropout?

Is that supposed to be a mitigating circumstance? Had he been enrolled in school would he not have deserved to be tasered?

[Richard Steele]

6. Only if it was a good XTIAN school!!!

"So far as ye TASER the least of them,
ye have tasered ME":
(J. Christ, unemployed homeless liberal pacifist rabble-rouser; disturber of the peace; AKA 'The Son of GOD')

[pnorman]

8. I'm going to use that!

"Plagiarize" it, if you will.

pnorman

[brentspeak]

9. I was wondering that myself

It's like the cops went out of their way to inform the reporter that "this was a high school dropout".

[meegbear]

10. Josh Welch, a high school dropout ...

what relevance does him being "a high school dropout" have to do with the situation? Is it legal to tazer drop outs in Florida?

[China_cat]

11. It's legal to tazer 6 year olds having a tantrum.

So why not drop outs.

They handcuffed a man who had slit his wrists? How stupid is THAT?

[Benhurst]

12. Look to Florida, BushAmericans, if you want to see this nation's

future.

[prole_for_peace]

13. i guess i need to carry cigarettes as personal protection

since they are so dangerous.

i have been accidentaly burned a few time (dance floors, dumb ass friends) and it hurts but i didn't want to tazer them. maybe just shake them a little.

i know that at some (or all?) police academys they now spray the candidates with pepper spray or mace to show them what it is like. i wonder if they do that with the tazers and if not they should. especially those vetern cops that think they are hot sh**.