Police Taser Blind Man Mistaking His White Cane For Samurai Sword

Posted on: January 22nd, 2013 4 Comments
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Police of the town Chorley, North West England, made a mistake that nearly cost 63-year-old Colin Farmer his life. The blind man was shot in the back with a 50,000 Volt taser gun after the officers mistook him for a suspect carrying a samurai sword.

Farmer has suffered two strokes and is partially paralyzed and blind, so he carries a white cane to help him walk and let others know of his visual impairment. He was walking down the street around 6 p.m. to meet his friends at a local pub when one of the police officers shouted at him to stop. Farmer, who walks at a very slow pace due to his condition, didn’t assume the officer was addressing him and continued to walk. That’s when he got shot in the back with a taser gun, falling to the ground in shock and pain thinking he was dying from another stroke.

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A samurai sword of the type that Mr Farmer's stick was mistaken for by a police officer

It turned out that someone had called the police claiming there was a man walking downtown with a samurai sword, and one of the cops somehow confused Farmer’s white cane for a martial arts weapon. The real suspect, a 27-year-old man was arrested later, but charged were dropped since there was no weapon found.

Farmer is now suing the police claiming damages for assault, false imprisonment and a breach of his human rights.

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4 Responses

  1. terry wagar says:

    I have a question to all the readers, how can a citizen get help when cops are the criminals and covder up the victims 911 calls?
    Because my wife was having an affair with a cop I am not welcome to emergency services and my 911 calls get covered up and or ignored!
    No attorney will even discuss my case because of the treatment I get from police!
    I have already tried contacting all agency’s within this jurisdiction and I even contacted FBI and INTERPOL for good measure, I don’t get responses from them but I do get death threats in my email afterwords.
    Where can victims of cops turn to when the people in the system itself refuses emergency services?

  2. shanna says:

    Terry Wager… I noticed this website is completely inundated with long and repetitive comments about your bad experience with police. I am curious as to why you post the same thing over and over and also on just about every story I have looked at here on the site? I have pretty much given up on reading comments here or commenting because they seem cluttered and confusing to follow with your flood of comments. Have you recieved help for your issue with your constant commenting and have you tried finding a

  3. shanna says:

    Different means to garner information for yourself…like say in a chat room or forum online?

  4. Roxie says:

    That’s a shrewd answer to a tricky quesoitn

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