After doing a little more reading, I've learned that Jarrel Gray, the 20-year-old Maryland man who was killed after being tasered during a fight just a few days ago, was hearing impaired, leading some to question whether this played a role in his death.
Officials said it is too early to say why Gray died, or if the Taser is to blame.
[...]
Gray was deaf in one ear and his mother suspects that may have played some kind of role in all this.
She wonders if he was able to hear what the officers were saying.
Gray's family said they were not aware of him having any heart problems and say he was not a drug user.
Well, "officials" can say whatever they like, can't they? You'd think it would be rather clear to anyone with an I.Q. higher than room temperature that Gray would be alive today if a police officer (who enjoys the benefits of anonymity) hadn't electrocuted him. I'm no doctor, but I'd guess that 50,000 volts running throughout the body is enough to create a health condition in itself.
But that aside, perhaps it's the officer who tasered Gray who needs to be given a hearing test. According to Tom DiLorenzo, writing at the LRC blog (my emphasis):
A Baltimore TV station (WJZ) interviewed an eyewitness to the latest taser killing by a cop, that of a teenage boy in Frederick, Maryland two days ago. The middle-aged woman who witnessed the incident said on live TV that the boy, who was simply involved in a fistfight, was already on the ground. She said she heard him say, "My hands are on the ground, officer," three times, after which the cop tasered him, killing him on the spot.
And after the hearing test, maybe the officer could be charged with murder. But of course, you know that will never happen. Instead, Gray's murderer is on paid leave while the Frederick police department brushes this atrocity under the rug.
Amnesty International has reported that, since 2001, more than 150 people have died in the U.S. after being subdued with a stun gun.
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