“He was definitely making a racket and making it loud intentionally… he was trying to get people’s attention.”
— John Henry Dale, a witness to the Phil Sano Tasing incident
On Tuesday night, 31 year-old John Henry Dale was waiting for a bus at SE 7th and Morrison when he heard screaming and the buzzing of Tasers.
Looking north, he noticed a bike in the road and two police officers surrounding Phil Sano. Once Dale realized what was going on, he pulled out his cell phone and started recording.
Dale captured the incident just after the Tasing had stopped.
Dale’s video is below. You can’t see much, but the screams of Phil Sano cut sharply through the footage.
The only words I could make out were,
“You’re knee is in my f***ing neck and that’s wrong!… This is ridiculous… You’re jackasses… I dropped to my knees and begged, I begged and then you both f***ing shot me… it’s terrible… this is f***ing ridiculous.”
Dale says it was clear that Sano made his protestations loud on purpose. “He was definitely making a racket and making it loud intentionally… he was trying to get people’s attention,” recalled Dale. He added, “Once he had gotten pulled down, if he wanted to end it as quickly as possible, he would have made less of a fuss.”
But Dale also feels that it was a good thing Sano screamed so loudly, “because it’s pretty messed that the cops were using Tasers.” Dales feels that Tasers should not be used for that kind of interaction. “No matter how much noise he’s making, this is just messed up.”
Here is Dale’s footage:
[If anyone can make out more of what Sano said (a professional linguist perhaps?), please feel free to share in the comments.]