News Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE               
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

ELON – The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation (ACLU-NCLF) today announced the successful resolution of a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of John W. Paylor, a resident of Elon and a 55-year-old grandfather who was shot twice with a Taser by Elon police officers on June 18, 2006. The officers had surrounded the home of Mr. Paylor in order to serve him with a misdemeanor arrest warrant for using profanity on a public highway and for reckless driving. A videotape of the incident shows that Mr. Paylor was unarmed, in his underwear, and presented no threat to the officers. Nevertheless, an Elon police officer shot Mr. Paylor with a Taser, causing him to fall from his porch. Then, while Mr. Paylor was lying on the ground, unable to move from the shock of being tased and from the fall down his steps, the officer tased him a second time. Mr. Paylor has sustained permanent physical scarring from the incident. The ACLU-NCLF filed a lawsuit against the Elon Police Department and the individual Elon police officers involved on behalf of Mr. Paylor for excessive use of force in March 2009.    

A settlement agreement was finalized and executed this morning, and cooperating attorneys for the ACLU-NCLF have filed papers in court ending the lawsuit. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the Elon Police Department will implement measures designed to prevent excessive and unnecessary use of Tasers in the future. In particular, Elon police officers will undergo improved annual training on a new Taser policy and on Elon's more general use-of-force policy.  Elon's new Taser policy must be consistent with policies in place in other North Carolina localities that include protections the ACLU believes are important to safeguard against excessive use of Tasers. For example, these policies prevent the use of Tasers against individuals, such as Mr. Paylor, who are not actively resisting officers. These policies also prohibit the use of Tasers against individuals, such as Mr. Paylor, who could potentially receive a secondary injury resulting from falling off an elevated location, and they also limit the number of times an individual can be tased.  Other settlement terms include the following: (1) the officer who tased Mr. Paylor will undergo additional use-of-force and Taser training at the North Carolina Justice Academy; and (2) the Elon Police Chief will instruct all officers that anyone with a personal interest relating to the subject of a misdemeanor warrant shall refrain from serving such warrant in person, unless safety or exigent circumstances require that person to be present. Additionally, the Elon Police Department made a $50,000 settlement payment to Mr. Paylor for his physical, emotional and constitutional injuries.

"I am happy with this outcome," said John Paylor. "What these officers did to me was wrong, and my hope is that this settlement will prevent others from having to suffer what I suffered at the hands of Elon police."

The lawsuit named as defendants certain individual police officers of the Elon Police Department, including Officer Harold T. Dunn, and contended that the officer used his Taser to retaliate against Mr. Paylor for a verbal exchange that occurred between him and Mr. Paylor the day before. The lawsuit further alleged that the other officers who were present failed to intervene to stop Officer Dunn's unlawful actions and therefore likewise violated Mr. Paylor's constitutional right to be free from excessive force. Finally, the lawsuit contended that the Town of Elon bears responsibility for its failure to properly train its officers in the use of Tasers and for a pattern and practice of permitting its police officers to employ Tasers in an excessive and reckless manner. After the lawsuit was filed, other Elon residents came forward and described instances in which they too had been tased unnecessarily by the Elon Police Department.

"We are happy with the settlement, as this was a flagrant abuse of authority by members of the Elon Police Department," said attorney Mark J. Prak, Cooperating Attorney for the ACLU-NCLF, who represented Mr. Paylor. "John Paylor did nothing to deserve this treatment as the police videotape clearly demonstrates. This was a case of an officer abusing his position as a police officer to satisfy his own ego."

The ACLU-NCLF is a founding member of the North Carolina Taser Safety Project, a coalition of nonprofit organizations advocating for the proper use of Tasers by law enforcement and for better training for officers on the weapons' potential risks. These risks are especially pronounced when used on certain vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly, the disabled, obviously pregnant women, and people in certain situations that place them at greater risk of harm, such as people standing atop a flight of stairs – as Mr. Paylor was here – who are at risk of injury from falling if shot with a Taser. The Taser Safety Project produced a report in 2008 which can be found online at http://acluofnc.org/files/NotThereYet.pdf.
 
"Tasers are becoming increasingly common in North Carolina and across the country," said Katy Parker, Legal Director for the ACLU-NCLF. "It is important that as officers employ these potentially deadly weapons, they do so only when necessary and that they exercise restraint. These weapons are not toys."

Mr. Paylor was represented by Mark J. Prak, Charles E. Coble and Charles F. Marshall of Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P. in Raleigh, North Carolina, and C. Scott Holmes of Brock, Payne & Meece, P.A. in Durham, North Carolina, as Cooperating Attorneys for the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, as well as by Katherine Lewis Parker, Legal Director of the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation. A copy of the settlement agreement is available upon request.

US citizens: call on the Senate to pass a law (approved by the House) requiring factories to switch to the safest feasible process, to avoid dangerous chemicals.

Here's background on the bill.

The government spares no expense to have TSA goons harass travelers because it can point to that harassment and say, "See how we protect you." If half of what they do is for show, they can pretend it protects us.

Measures like this, that would protect us without harassing us, appeal to the government less. If we are not harassed, how would we know how safe we are?

With preemptive war and assassination as acknowledged policies, we can imagine the havoc the US will wreak with superdrones now being developed.

I take issue with one small point: the use of drones in Afghanistan against Taliban fighters may be lawful under international law, since the US troops are there with permission of the Afghan government and are fighting an armed rebellion. The same might be true in Yemen. I don't know what to think about Somalia, which has no effective government because the US had Ethiopia destroy the one that did exist.

However, I don't think this invalidates the overall conclusions.

Rea Dol established her school in a former prison with no help from the international NGOs that supposedly exist to fund such activities.

Now that the school building is ruined, she cannot get tents to hold classes in. The US is supposed to be providing aid — why is it hard to bring in enough tents?

The US plans to "rebuild" Haiti with sweatshops that will pay even less than sweatshops in other countries. Haitians have already gone on strike against sweatshops, and the UN "peacekeepers" crushed the strike.

Other countries need to recognize that the free exploitation treaties that the US offers them are intended to keep them poor and struggling, and say, "Even if other countries let you do this, we will not." Even better, they should sign treaties binding each other to reject these offers.

Texas voted that school textbooks should praise Joe McCarthy and say less about Thomas Jefferson — and that's just the beginning.

Since Texas buys a lot of textbooks, these changes may affect other schools too.

Kucinich says he will vote for the health care bill.

Despite my respect for Kucinich, and my agreement with him on what really ought to be done (a national health system), I might not agree with his decision. For me, it depends on whether the bill to be passed includes a public option. This article does not explicitly say, but I think the answer is no, and that means the bill is a change for the worse.

US citizens: phone your senator saying, "Break up the banks so they are not 'too big to fail'."

Here's more info on what's good and what's bad in the Senate bill.

For-profit schools in the US charge a lot of money and may not deliver what they hint that the student will get.

Chris Floyd: the "War on Terror" is a system, and its purpose — to the extent it has one — is to concentrate power for those who gain power from it.

Unlike Mr Floyd, I am not a pacifist. There is a war in Afghanistan; that the US military try to kill Taliban does not seem outrageous to me, though given the nature of Karzai, continuing the war seems futile. However, whether the CIA should join in the fighting is a different question.

Starbucks set up an official-looking site to disinform the public about World Water Day.

Do you really want to buy from Starbucks?

The UK is considering a radical limitation on trash; among other things, discarding food in the trash would be prohibited.

I am in favor of recycling what can be recycled, but I don't see how composting is either feasible or useful for people living in apartments in the city. And from the little I know about composting, not all food waste can be composted.

There is an irrational clamor to ban mephedrone in the UK because it has been linked with a handful of deaths, even though it is not yet clear whether that was a coincidence.

Even if there is a small danger in using mephedrone, is that a reason to ban it? Is it more dangerous than alpinism? Perhaps that too should be banned. Is it more dangerous, for teens, than driving a car?

Some Muslims have been accused of conspiring to murder cartoonist Lars Vilks after taking offense at a cartoon.

I have often felt offended by criticism of my views, but people have a right to criticize and even insult ideas they disagree with, so I learned to live with it and Muslims must learn it too. Nothing that people do or say is entitled to immunity from criticism — not even the Church of Emacs.

An executive whistleblower at Lehman Brothers was laid off a month after telling the accountant about dishonest practices.

Everyone: sign the petition for libel reform in the UK.

Utah has made it a crime for a woman to intentionally cause a miscarriage. Since there would rarely be clear evidence of intention, this means persecution of any woman who has a miscarriage in Utah and that the public does not like.

Colonel Nicholas Mercer tried to prevent the torture of prisoners in Iraq, starting shortly after the Bush forces' invasion, but his commanders silenced him and threatened to punish him. Another article has some additional information.

Clinton acknowledged that the onus is on Israel to make concessions for peace. This is a big step forward in US policy. If the US follows up on it with due pressure, it could lead to peace.

A Chinese local government, which arrested people on the way to get medical tests, tried to excuse the injustice by saying it thought they were planning a protest. Although China continues to call itself "Communist", this sort of collusion between government and business, combined with disrespect for human rights, is more accurately known as Fascism. Fascism occurs in many countries, including the US, but the authorities are usually ashamed if people find out. In China their are often totally brazen about it.