Death by Taser: Police Accused of Cover-Up in Death of African American Man Shocked Nine Times While in Handcuffs
------------------------------------
Police in the city of Winnfield, Louisiana are being accused of covering up the death of twenty-one-year-old Baron Pikes. He died in police custody on January 21 after being shot nine times with a taser gun while in handcuffs. The city police chief initially claimed that Pikes was high on crack cocaine and PCP at the time of his death. But the coroner recently ruled Pikes' death to be a homicide, after an autopsy determined there were no drugs in his system. The coroner also determined that the police shot Pikes twice after he lost consciousness.
AMY GOODMAN: Nearly a year has passed since tens of thousands of protesters marched in Jena, Louisiana in one of the largest civil rights protests in years. The march condemned racism in the small town and the prosecution of six black high school students known as the Jena Six who were jailed after a schoolyard fight. The fight occurred after white students hung nooses from a tree in the schoolyard.
Now another racially explosive story is unfolding in a nearby Louisiana community. It involves a close relative of Mychal Bell, the lead defendant in the Jena Six case.
Police in the city of Winnfield are being accused of covering up the death of an African American man named Baron Pikes. Pikes was twenty-one-year-old. He was Bell's first cousin. Baron Pikes died in police custody on January 21st after being shot nine times with a taser gun while in handcuffs.
The city police chief initially claimed Pikes was high on crack cocaine and PCP at the time of his death. But the coroner has just ruled Pikes' death a homicide, after an autopsy determined there were no drugs in his system. His death certificate states he died after being "electro shocked nine times while in police custody and restraint." The coroner also determined the police shot Pikes twice after he lost consciousness—tased him twice.
Scott Nugent, the white police officer who tased Pikes, has been fired from the police department, but no charges have been filed in Pikes' death.
We are joined right now by three guests. Howard Witt is the Southwest Bureau Chief of the Chicago Tribune. He wrote the first articles in the national press about both the killing of Baron Pikes and the Jena Six. Howard Witt was a finalist this year for the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his wide-ranging examination of racial issues in America. Kayshon Collins is also with us, on the phone from Winnfield, Louisiana. She is the stepmother of Baron Pikes. And we're also joined on the phone from Winnfield by the police lieutenant and spokesperson, Charles Curry.
We're going to begin, though, with Howard Witt. Howard Witt actually today is in Chicago for the UNITY conference, the largest gathering of journalists in the United States, journalists of color, the four major journalists of color organizations, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association, Asian American Journalists Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. We'll broadcast from there in Chicago tomorrow. Howard Witt, can you lay out this case?
HOWARD WITT: Yes. This incident happened last January, as you mentioned. Pikes had—there was an arrest warrant out for Pikes for possession of cocaine, I believe. The police officer Nugent spotted him walking on the street downtown in Winnfield. Pikes started running. They chased him down near a shopping center, near a grocery store in a little shopping center. Nugent subdued him, handcuffed him.
And then, after Pikes was on the ground and handcuffed, Nugent began ordering him to get up and walk to the police car. Pikes either wouldn't or couldn't, and so Nugent then began a series of taser shocks to [Pikes], which continued for a period of about fourteen minutes. And over the course of this fourteen minutes, both on the ground and later in the police car and at the police station, they delivered nine of these electroshocks to Pikes, as witnesses said he was pleading for them to stop tasering him. And by the way, everything I've just told you comes directly from the police report that Scott Nugent, the officer himself, wrote about the case.
AMY GOODMAN: When you say "they," in terms of the tasering of Pikes, who do you mean?
HOWARD WITT: Well, according to all the police reports, there were three officers present. Nugent was the one actually delivering the taser shocks, and there were two other officers there at various times during this incident. One of them was a supervisor of Nugent and the guy who had actually taught him how to use the taser. And those other two officers were present, as I say, at various times during this incident.
Tags: Baron Pikes Mychal Bell Scott Nugent Police Corruption NWO New World Order Bilderberg Conspiracy Taser
