A Tribute to Iman Morales - Tasered to Death

Iman Morales, 35, died Sept. 24, 2008. He did not die a natural death. He was tasered while he was on a ledge outside his apartment building and fell 10ft, headfirst to his death. He was a disturbed man who had not taken his medication and according to reports "freaked out". The circumstances, especially the actions of the police, surrounding his death are being investigated.

I posted the facts concerning his demise on this blog. One of his longtime friends happened to read my blog and contacted me. His name is Raul Anthony. I invited Raul to write me and give us all a better understanding of who Iman Morales was. Raul wrote back and I am posting his letter and pictures of Iman here without any further comment, except to say: Thanks to Raul for caring and giving us all an insight into a human being who so tragically lost his life. You are a good friend. God Bless you.

Raul Anthony's Letter

Iman was one of the best friends I ever had...I rarely used the term"best friend" however with him I did.
We had so much fun together dancing and laughing at ourselves  and each-other...we had our own language...some of the most memorable times of my life were spent with Iman.he was so silly and goofy...he was very much like a little boy.he LOVED going to the movies.we had movie nite every Tuesday...rain or shine. he also LOVED Twizzlers and Dr Pepper...that was a must have. he was always stopping to say hello to dogs and cats out on the streets...sometimes he even carried cat food in his bag to feed to strays... he was always concerned about my well being and constantly told me that he believed in me and that I was "super talented" in his own words. he was so generous to me with his kind words and encouragement. I am a make-up artist and have always been one ever since I have known Iman.

I was signed to be represented by Ford artist a few days ago.It has been a dream of mine to be represented by a big agency for the last 10 years...and it finally happened just days after Iman passed away.

I moved to NYC to live with Iman in Sept of 2007...it was his thought that living in NYC and working on my portfolio would be very good for me...I was ready to leave back in March...it was very tough for me to be in NYC...very little money sometimes eating one pack of Ra men noodles a day...extreme whether and the general hostility in the air were we were living in Brooklyn was just too much for me.It was Iman the talked me into staying and finishing what I had started so that when I did go back I would be more "valuable" as an artist and have a really strong book to show...I stayed and worked my ass off to complete my portfolio and came back home to San Francisco on Sept 11 2008...  Iman died on Sept 24 2008 and on Sept 29 2008 I was signed to Ford.

Getting signed was a bit confusing for me because I was happy however I was also very sad that I was not able to call Iman and tell him the great news. because of all the people I know in this world...he would have been the happiest to hear that news....and it would made him smile really big.

Iman wherever you are I want to to know that because of you and your unconditional love for me my future looks brighter than it ever has. I thank you for that from deep down in my heart. thank you for the gift of friendship...it will be cherished within my soul forever. I love you. I miss you.

Always your friend...your brother and one of your soul mates.

Raul

P.S.Thank You Shaun.

Another Taser Death

Iman Morales, 35, is dead after falling 10ft headfirst onto the sidewalk in front of his Brooklyn home. This was no accident. He was tasered by a police officer, under orders from lieutenant Michael Pigott, a 21-year veteran of the force. The officer, a 10-year veteran of the force, who fired the taser, which can deliver a five-second jolt of 50,000 volts of electricity through two wires, has not been identified.

"When they Tasered him, he froze and pitched forward. He fell on his head," said witness Ernestine Croom, 40. "They didn't put out a mattress or a net or anything."

"They didn't try to brace his fall. They did nothing. I've seen a lot of things in my time. But what they did was wrong," said neighbor Kirk Giddens, 39, a mental health worker.

According to neighbors Morales, who was emotionally disturbed, had "freaked out" earlier in the day, and his mother called the police at 1:52 p.m., saying he was threatening to hurt himself and had stopped taking his medication. An Emergency Service Unit (ESU) police truck showed up around 2:05p.m. at Morales' third-floor apartment at 489 Tompkins Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Morales refused to open the door of his apartment for the police and instead opened a window and crept naked onto the fire escape. As the police forced their way in, Morales made his way up to the 4th floor apartment, occupied by Tanya Wright.

"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," said neighbor Tanya Wright, 40.

Unable to gain entry to Tanya's apartment, Morales crawled down the fire escape, screaming and posing for the crowd, which by now had gathered outside, as he went.

"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,'" said neighbor Sean Johnson, 43.

With the police close by, Morales left the fire escape and stepped onto the 2-foot-wide metal top of a roll-down security gate for a ground-floor business. He then ripped an 8-foot fluorescent light bulb from the business' sign and used it to swing at the police.

“He was naked and he kept screaming,” said Joseph Adrien, who works at a nearby dry cleaners. Another witness said Mr. Morales’s mother was kept off to the side, pleading with the police to let her calm her son’s nerves, but being told repeatedly that it was now a police matter.

It was at this point that lieutenant Michael Pigott, gave the order to an ESU officer on the ground to taser Morales. The officer complied and half an hour after his mother called the police, Morales hit the ground at 2:27 p.m. headfirst and died.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU_lI3o_WgI]

Here is a videotaped recording of Iman Morales as he was tasered by the police.

[wpvideo hPt04XYr]

The police said an officer at the scene had radioed for an inflatable bag, and it was not clear why the bag had not arrived when Mr. Morales fell, or why the officers had not waited for it before using the Taser on Mr. Morales.

According to a statement by the department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne:

“None of the E.S.U. officers on the scene were positioned to break his fall, nor did they devise a plan in advance to do so,” the statement said, referring to the elite police Emergency Service Unit.

Michael Pigott, the lieutenant who gave the order to use the Taser, was placed on modified assignment without his gun and badge. The 37-year-old officer who fired the weapon was put on administrative duty. An investigation by the Police Department and the Brooklyn district attorney is ongoing.

Officers in the Emergency Service Unit receive intensive training for exactly the kind of crisis depicted on the video. Their training includes how to deal with emotionally disturbed people and the use of nonlethal restraints. They are taught how to use air bags and how to deal with would-be jumpers.

Last year, members of the unit helped respond to most of the 80,000 calls the Police Department received for reports of emotionally disturbed people, the police said. Stun guns are used about 300 times on average. So far this year, stun guns have been used 180 times. No other deaths have been reported.

The use of the taser in the Iman Morales case appears to have broken departmental guidelines. The order not to use tasers in certain situations appears in a 10-page interim order issued by the Police Department in June.

The order discusses types of people the Taser should not be used on, including children, the elderly and pregnant women, and instructs officers not to use them “in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface.”

Spokesman Paul J. Browne said that the Brooklyn district attorney's office has asked that the NYPD not question either officer - leaving open the possibility that criminal charges may be applied later.

City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said in a telephone interview that the situation could have been handled better by the police.

“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, ” Mr. Vallone said on Wednesday evening.

“A situation like that is never going to end in a good way,” Mr. Vallone said after watching the video. “The most important thing is that no innocent bystanders or police got hurt. But clearly, it could have been handled better.”

Mr. Vallone said a public hearing on the department’s use of Tasers might be needed to fine-tune its policy on using them.

One frequent critic of the Police Department, State Senator Eric L. Adams of Brooklyn, said that the death of Mr. Morales underscored its continued inability to deal with the mentally ill. Standing in front of Mr. Morales’s building, Senator Adams said, “You can give someone desk duty, you can suspend someone, you can fire someone, but these are Band-Aids.”

“His mother called 911,” said Sharonnie Perry, a community advocate who lives down the street. “She called for assistance and the assistance she got was her son being killed.”

Godinez Gets 5 Years

Edson Godinez, 17, of the city of Newburgh, NY went before Orange County Court Judge Robert Freehill to be sentenced for assaulting police officer, Richard Hammer on Feb. 16, 2008. He had been charged with 3 felonies: Two counts of second-degree assault and a single count of attempted aggravated assault on a police officer. He also faced misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and resisting arrest.

It all began about 1:45 a.m. on Feb. 16th on Mill Street, Newburgh when police officer Richard Hammer saw a gang of at least twelve Hispanic males chasing another unidentified 23-year-old Hispanic male. They caught up with the fleeing man and began a vicious assault. That was when officer Hammer attempted to intervene. While trying to arrest the two ringleaders who led the attack, he was also assaulted by 5 or 6 others in the gang. During the altercation Hammer was stabbed by one of the two men (Godinez) he was trying to arrest. The other one and the rest of the gang escaped. The fight was believed to have stemmed from a dispute between two street gangs in Newburgh, the Barrio Benkard Kings (BBKs) and La Eme. In his defense Godinez claimed he didn’t know that a police officer was the one who was trying to break up the brawl.

In court Godinez pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted aggravated assault on a police office. The prosecution recommended 9 years in prison but Godinez' lawyer, Gary Abramson of the Orange County Legal Aid Society, argued for a lesser sentence.The maximum sentence was 15 years. In the end Judge Robert Freehill sentenced Godinez to five years in state prison. The judge also denied Godinez youthful offender treatment, which would have sealed his record. Godinez apologized for his actions in a barely audible voice, wiping his eyes as he spoke.

Millionaires Convicted of Slavery

Varsha Sabhnani, 46, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She was convicted with her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, 51, in December 2007 on a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harboring aliens. In other words human slavery.

The Sabhnani's of 205 Coachman Place East, Muttontown, Long Island were rich, in fact they were millionaires, who ran an international business distributing perfume. They were arrested in May 2007 by federal agents on charges of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves, since 2002, in their posh Long Island home.

"No one would ever think that human beings were being brought into the United States and held for slave labor, and beaten, and tortured in a beautiful mansion right here in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods on Long Island," said federal prosecutor Demetri Jones

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=M7eMD52dCSA]

The case began to unfold when Samirah, one of the two women being held in the house, wandered away from the home and came across a Dunkin Donuts shop at 52 W. Jericho Tpke., Syosset, early Mother's Day morning. The manager, Adrian Mohammed, who initially thought she must be a homeless person, realized that something was wrong and called the cops. When the police arrived, Samirah led them back to the Sabhnani mansion, where Nona was found, cowering in a 3-by-3-foot closet under the stairwell leading to the basement. With the help of an interpreter they told the police their story of the horrible abuse they had suffered at the hands of their employers. The Sabhnanis were arrested and eventually released on $3.5 million bail.

The women were physically abused on a regular basis, with beatings administered by Varsha in one of the house bathrooms with Mahender looking on. Varsha Sabhnani liked to mix it up a little, dealing out beating with a wide variety of instruments. Rolling pins and broomsticks were her favorite, but she wasn’t above using bamboo canes in a pinch.

Varsha threw scalding water on Samirah at one point, cut the woman behind the ears with a paring knife another time, and forced the women to eat chili peppers until they vomited - then made them eat the vomit. The women were starved, given barely enough food to survive on. Eventually things got so bad for Samirah and Nona that they started hoarding food, keeping snacks that she was able to sneak out of the kitchen in a spot above a drop-ceiling panel.

These women were forced to work 21 hour days from 4 a.m. to 1 a.m. "seven days a week" according to prosecutors. When they were allowed to sleep, they had to sleep on 3-by-6 foot mats that were kept on the floor of one of the Sabhnanis two kitchens. If they slept late, they got a beating. Caught stealing food from the trashcan? That’s a beating. Looking master in the eye? Oh you can bet that’s a beating.

"In her arrogance, she treated Samirah and Enung as less than people," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Demetri Jones. "Justice for the victims: That's what the government is asking for."

"This did not happen in the 1800s," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko said during the trial. "This happened in the 21st century. This happened in Muttontown, New York."

Federal sentencing guidelines had recommended a range of 12 to 15 years in prison for Sabhnani, who was identified as the one who inflicted the abuse. In addition to prison, she will serve three years probation and pay a $25,000 fine.

Mahender Sabhnani, 51, who is free on bail while awaiting his own sentencing, wept as he watched his wife's punishment pronounced. He was charged with the same crimes because he allowed the conduct to take place and benefited from the work the women performed in his home, prosecutors said. He is expected to receive a much shorter prison term.

State Charges Dropped in Hope Steffey Case

According to a grand jury, Stark County deputies committed no criminal acts while arresting Hope Steffey two years ago. Nancy H. Rogers, Ohio attorney general, issued a statement saying that a Stark County grand jury did not hand down any indictments after reviewing the evidence presented by the state's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation Special Prosecution Sections.

The Steffey case was investigtated by Paul Scarsella, the Chief of the Special Prosecutions Section for the Attorney General’s Office where he manages 4 attorneys and support staff. He was assisted by Bridget Carty, Public Integrity Unit Coordinator, and an Assistant Attorney General in the Special Prosecutions Section.

The Special prosecutors, Paul Scarsella and Bridget Carty, said the incident, in which male and female deputies forcibly removed Steffey's clothes at the Stark County jail, was a suicide precaution. They said the deputies were only following a medical order given by a doctor on duty to remove her clothes. Though the jail has suicide suits for inmates to wear, prosecutor Scarscella said Steffey was not immediately given one because even the suit was deemed too dangerous for her to have.

The Special prosecutors presented the results of their investigation to the grand jury without interviewing Hope Steffey. They said they were unwilling to interview her with her lawyers present, as she requested. Steffey did however appear before the grand jury. The grand jury declined to indict the deputies involved.

Steffey denied that she was suicidal or was given the opportunity to remove her clothes herself. There is no policy that prevents men from removing a female inmate's clothes during a suicide precaution situation. Men are however prevented from strip-searching a female inmate.

However, the findings of this grand jury will have no bearing on the federal lawsuit that Hope Steffey filed on Oct. 2007, accusing Stark County deputies of violating her civil rights by assaulting, strip-searching and leaving her injured and naked for six hours in a Stark County jail cell. She had to use toilet paper to cover herself. Defendants in the case are Swanson, Deputy Sheriff Richard T. Gurlea Jr. and one to 15 other "John and Jane Does" employed at the Stark County Jail, and the Stark County commissioners. That case is scheduled to go to trial in December.

Below is the video (in 2 parts) which documents Hope’s experience at the hands of the Stark County Sheriff’s Dept. The video is graphic (you’ve been warned!!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daYBjfvEjfQ&eurl=http://shadmia.com/2008/02/14/innocent-woman-strip-searched/]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDuuo0k9xXw&eurl=http://shadmia.com/2008/02/14/innocent-woman-strip-searched/]

Whether or not the videotape was presented to the state grand jury will probably never be known, since the deliberations of grand juries are held in secret. But it is certain to be part of the civil case to be heard in federal court. Steffey's attorneys are now under federal court order to not discuss the case. But they have argued that the force used by deputies, and seen on the videotape, was brutal and unnecessary.