UPDATE- This post has been edited at Alexa’s request. Obviously she was distraught when she wrote it. Since she has a clearer head now, she asked for some changes, which I have made April 20, 2012
NL- I am so sorry for the loss of a sweet man. My heart goes out to family & friends. This seems very much to be a case of LAPD not knowing how to deal with a mental illness. In all the stories I am reading and all the emails I am receiving, I can find no reason that Sledge needed to be tazed.
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This is an email from Alexa, Sledge Hammer’s Girlfriend-
I want to put to rest the rumors and speculation that have been going around about this tragedy. I called the police because Sledge was in a bad state and attempting to take his own life. I believe it was a cry for help more then anything because he kept letting me take belts off of his neck and take the knives he was trying to use away (keep in mind that I was doing this one-handed while on the phone with the 911 dispatcher). I did cut my left pinky while grabbing one of the knives by the blade, and I want to be clear that this was an accident and Sledge dropped the knife and felt terrible when he saw that I was bleeding.
When he got to the hospital he was in cardiac arrest and due to that he suffered brain damage. The police never told me how bad off he was, and I was led to believe that he was in the mental facility getting the rest he needed. I went to the hospital to visit and was shocked to see him in ICU in a coma. He passed on a few days later *********** He did not have any previous health problems and he was not on any drugs besides marijuana (which he had recently quit smoking) sleeping pills and some alcohol. He never took steroids, he ate a healthy diet and worked out regularly. His only problem was his mental issues and insomnia. I don’t want this to happen to someone else. I want mentally ill people to get the help they need, not a tazer.
Thank you for running this, Cindi. This is truly sad and my prayers go out to his gf and family. I didn’t know him, but everyone loved him, that’s for sure.
Sorry Alexa, It’s too bad there’s not someone else you can call besides the cops in situations like these.
I am so sorry that this happened, and my prayers and thoughts to his family and friends and especially you Alexa…
You did the right thing… The Police are the one that did the wrong thing….
I am so sorry
Calling the cops to deal with an African-American?
Come on – let’s be real. What did you expect would happen? That racist-driven police brutality would disappar magically once Obama became President?
Abuse and brutality is across all color lines, especially with the domestic policies Obama has passed and/or approved of.
According to this blog from a black perspective, Sledge would be taser victim #172 since 2009 and #523 since 2001 (victims are of all races):
http://electronicvillage.blogspot.com/2009/05/taser-related-deaths-in-united-states.html
I spoke over the phone with Alexa. She explained that Sledge’s problems were almost non existant before the insomnia. She surmised that since he was taking over the counter sleep medication for a while he might have developed a tolerance. He got progressively worse within the last month, hearing voices.
Actually,Jeremy, according to the website you cited:
“For example, we see that at least 71 (70 men and a 62-year old woman) of these taser-torture killings occurred against African Americans. Black people are only 13.6% of the total population, yet 41% of the 2009-2012 taser-related deaths in America are Black people.”
The point is, Sledge Hammer would more likely be alive if he had been white.
Ok, so when cops kill whites its not racism and when they kill blacks it is. I’m aware of the shitty sewer justice system targeting blacks. I won’t get into my conspiracy theories of how blacks are targeted, given dope and guns as representative Maxine Waters has shown. Tazing is evil. I therefore would not make it a race issue when all races have suffered and died from it. That’s my point.