Arizona Highway Patrol (DPS) Taser, Murder Unarmed Mark Morse

By | February 8, 2010

by Brian A. Wilkins
2/8/2010 (links and photos updated December 11, 2018)

It seems several “police agencies,” especially those within the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Federal Court Of Appeals (like Arizona), didn’t get the memo regarding excessive force claims when Tasers are used on American citizens without good cause.

That court’s groundbreaking decision did not deter an unnamed Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) thug cop, who murdered Mr. Mark Andrew Morse early in the morning last Thursday, February 4, by shooting him with a Taser.

Details of the murder are very sketchy at this time. One news outlet is reporting that Mr. Morse, 36, “became combative” and “took a fighting stance” against the cop while walking down Interstate 17. This prompted the police thug to use his federally mandated electrocution toy, according to AZCentral.

Another news outlet, KPHO, is reporting that Mr. Morse “fought back” when the cop tried to arrest him on the interstate, which was his justification to use the Taser. DPS has reported two different versions of what happened to these news agencies, which obviously means they are lying about something.

Federal courts and police departments across the country still refer to this spontaneous, unjustified electrocution as “non-lethal force,” despite the fact Tasers have claimed the lives of at least 400 Americans since 2001, according to Amnesty International.

Mr. Morse is a Moon Valley (Phoenix) High School graduate and was in town from Arkansas to visit family.

Our thoughts are with the Morse family. We will try and contact family members and update the story as we learn more.

15 thoughts on “Arizona Highway Patrol (DPS) Taser, Murder Unarmed Mark Morse

  1. Nika

    It is very sad that my cousin was killed by a cop. I am sure there are other ways he could have been stopped.

    Reply
  2. David Morse

    It’s a sad day when the people that are paid to protect and serve the public have turned into the “thugs” that they are supposed to protect us from and the media agrees with all that they say, which scares the HELL out of me and should every American citizen. My brother was innocent and on vacation, here to introduce his fiance’ to our mother and wound up DEAD at the hands of those who uphold the law! Does that make any sense to you? Because I’m at a loss! YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN MY BROTHER! Rest in Peace! I love you! Your brother, Dave

    Reply
  3. Leslie

    To define what happened to Mark at the taser wielding hands of Arizona law enforcement as tragic is a gross understatement…The astounding sadness caused by this horrific act is inexpressable and is compounded by the knowledge that the truth of what occured will most probably never be known…
    Be at peace Mark..I pray that your mother, father and brother may find some themselves. I will for always carry you in my heart.

    Reply
  4. Heidi

    The U.S. is now a police state

    21/02/2010 11:30:00 AM GMT Comments (64) Add a comment Print E-mail to friend

    (draafia.org) Dr. Siddiqui was convicted by a New York jury for Just an accusation.

    By Paul Craig

    Americans have been losing the protection of law for years. In the 21st century the loss of legal protections accelerated with the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” which continues under the Obama administration and is essentially a war on the Constitution and U.S. civil liberties.

    The Bush regime was determined to vitiate habeas corpus in order to hold people indefinitely without bringing charges. The regime had acquired hundreds of prisoners by paying a bounty for “terrorists.” Afghan warlords and thugs responded to the financial incentive by grabbing unprotected people and selling them to the Americans.

    The Bush regime needed to hold the prisoners without charges because it had no evidence against the people and did not want to admit that the U.S. government had stupidly paid warlords and thugs to kidnap innocent people. In addition, the Bush regime needed “terrorists” prisoners in order to prove that there was a terrorist threat.

    As there was no evidence against the “detainees” (most have been released without charges after years of detention and abuse), the U.S. government needed a way around U.S. and international laws against torture in order that the government could produce evidence via self-incrimination. The Bush regime found inhumane and totalitarian-minded lawyers and put them to work at the U.S. Department of Justice (sic) to invent arguments that the Bush regime did not need to obey the law.

    The Bush regime created a new classification for its detainees that it used to justify denying legal protection and due process to the detainees. As the detainees were not U.S. citizens and were demonized by the regime as “the 760 most dangerous men on earth,” there was little public outcry over the regime’s unconstitutional and inhumane actions.

    As our Founding Fathers and a long list of scholars warned, once civil liberties are breached, they are breached for all. Soon U.S. citizens were being held indefinitely in violation of their habeas corpus rights. Dr. Aafia Siddiqui an American citizen of Pakistani origin might have been the first.

    Dr. Siddiqui, a scientist educated at MIT and Brandeis University, was seized in Pakistan for no known reason, sent to Afghanistan, and was held secretly for five years in the U.S. military’s notorious Bagram prison in Afghanistan. Her three young children were with her at the time she was abducted, one an eight-month old baby. She has no idea what has become of her two youngest children. Her oldest child, 7 years old, was also incarcerated in Bagram and subjected to similar abuse and horrors.

    Reply
  5. Heidi

    Siddiqui has never been charged with any terrorism-related offense. A British journalist, hearing her piercing screams as she was being tortured, disclosed her presence. An embarrassed U.S. government responded to the disclosure by sending Siddiqui to the U.S. for trial on the trumped-up charge that while a captive, she grabbed a U.S. soldier’s rifle and fired two shots attempting to shoot him. The charge apparently originated as a U.S. soldier’s excuse for shooting Dr. Siddiqui twice in the stomach resulting in her near death.

    On February 4, Dr. Siddiqui was convicted by a New York jury for attempted murder. The only evidence presented against her was the charge itself and an unsubstantiated claim that she had once taken a pistol-firing course at an American firing range. No evidence was presented of her fingerprints on the rifle that this frail and broken 100-pound woman had allegedly seized from an American soldier. No evidence was presented that a weapon was fired, no bullets, no shell casings, no bullet holes. Just an accusation.

    Wikipedia has this to say about the trial: “The trial took an unusual turn when an FBI official asserted that the fingerprints taken from the rifle, which was purportedly used by Aafia to shoot at the U.S. interrogators, did not match hers.”

    An ignorant and bigoted American jury convicted her for being a Muslim. This is the kind of “justice” that always results when the state hypes fear and demonizes a group.

    The people who should have been on trial are the people who abducted her, disappeared her young children, shipped her across international borders, violated her civil liberties, tortured her apparently for the fun of it, raped her, and attempted to murder her with two gunshots to her stomach. Instead, the victim was put on trial and convicted.

    This is the unmistakable hallmark of a police state. And this victim is an American citizen.

    Anyone can be next. Indeed, on February 3 Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence told the House Intelligence Committee that it was now “defined policy” that the US government can murder its own citizens on the sole basis of someone in the government’s judgment that an American is a threat. No arrest, no trial, no conviction, just execution on suspicion of being a threat.

    This shows how far the police state has advanced. A presidential appointee in the Obama administration tells an important committee of Congress that the executive branch has decided that it can murder American citizens abroad if it thinks they are a threat.

    I can hear readers saying the government might as well kill Americans abroad as it kills them at home–Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Black Panthers.

    Reply
  6. Heidi

    Yes, the U.S. government has murdered its citizens, but Dennis Blair’s “defined policy” is a bold new development. The government, of course, denies that it intended to kill the Branch Davidians, Randy Weaver’s wife and child, or the Black Panthers. The government says that Waco was a terrible tragedy, an unintended result brought on by the Branch Davidians themselves. The government says that Ruby Ridge was Randy Weaver’s fault for not appearing in court on a day that had been miscommunicated to him, The Black Panthers, the government says, were dangerous criminals who insisted on a shoot-out.

    In no previous death of a U.S. citizen by the hands of the U.S. government has the government claimed the right to kill Americans without arrest, trial, and conviction of a capital crime.

    In contrast, Dennis Blair has told the U.S. Congress that the executive branch has assumed the right to murder Americans who it deems a “threat.”

    What defines “threat”? Who will make the decision? What it means is that the government will murder whomever it chooses.

    There is no more complete or compelling evidence of a police state than the government announcing that it will murder its own citizens if it views them as a “threat.”

    Ironic, isn’t it, that “the war on terror” to make us safe ends in a police state with the government declaring the right to murder American citizens who it regards as a threat.

    — Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, “HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST”, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: [email protected].

    Reply
  7. Laura

    What this unnamed DPS officer did was Murder PERIOD! Anyone who met Mark even once knew that he was not ‘combative’ to anyone! My heart goes out to you Cora and Dave. It is my sincere hope that this man gets what he deserves! all my love Laura

    Reply
  8. Villager

    Has the name of the officer been released?

    What is the race or national origin of Mr. Morse?

    peace, Villager

    * ****ADMIN******
    Thanks for checking in, Villager. Keep doing it like you’re doing it over there.

    Reply
  9. David Morse

    No the name of the officer has not been released,as a matter of fact they released the autopsy report to AzCentral.com before they told us it was done.To top it off they lied and how can it be that a man who holds the title of medical examiner can say that there was no drugs or alcohol in his system,We buried him and there was still no cause of death but all the sudden he didn’t did from the taser he had a heart attack due to meth use. They also for got to mention he was brutally beaten not just tasered I could hardly recognize him even after the mortuary cleaned him up. I will post a picture sometime next week it’s pretty graphic. My brother was white and born in Phx. Az. U.S.A. Thanks for your attention R.David Morse

    Reply
  10. David Morse

    No the name of the officer has not been released,as a matter of fact they released the autopsy report to AzCentral.com before they told us it was done.To top it off they lied and how can it be that a man who holds the title of medical examiner can say that there was no drugs or alcohol in his system,We buried him and there was still no cause of death but all the sudden he didn’t die from the taser he had a heart attack due to meth use. They also for got to mention he was brutally beaten not just tasered I could hardly recognize him even after the mortuary cleaned him up. I will post a picture sometime next week it’s pretty graphic. My brother was white and born in Phx. Az. U.S.A. Thanks for your attention R.David Morse

    Reply
  11. Villager

    @R. David Morse — thank you for the answer to my query. My prayers are with you and your family. My family just buried my younger sister last month … so the pain of loss is still fresh. As such, I empathize very much with you. Stay strong and have courage!

    peace, Villager

    Reply
  12. Tobler Law

    I don’t think different accounts means they’re lying. Honestly, one sounds like a more detailed report than the other. makes sense to me.

    Reply
  13. David Morse

    This I understand but once you’ve seen the lack of professionalism and detail in the reports you would understand it’s to cover up their mistakes.Which is a poor and sorry effort making them guilty of something criminal and lying to cover it up.

    Reply
  14. David Morse

    The truth will set you free Tobler Law if your an attorney wanting to take a case I have the police reports and pictures to change your opinion.
    David Morse

    Reply

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