Mother To Stand Trial for Saving Son's Life

by William Grigg
Aug. 11, 2010

Ana V. Ramirez probably didn’t want to call the police last April when her adult son, Christian Pagan, had what was described as a “violent outburst.” She certainly didn’t want the police to use a Taser on the 25-year-old, who was born with a heart defect and Down’s Syndrome.

“He’s a handicap [sic] kid,” Ramirez told the Miami-Dade Police Department’s 911 dispatcher. “I don’t want them to shoot him with a Taser.”

Within minutes of their arrival at the family’s home in West Kendall, the police had shot Pagan six times with a Taser.

Ramirez and her other son, 21-year-old Hernando Yunis, tried to shield Christian with their bodies, pulling the Taser prongs from his clothing and pleading with the police to stop. Ramirez herself was shot with the portable electro-shock torture device before she and Hernando were arrested for the supposed crime of “resisting arrest without violence.”

According to the Miami Herald, “Prosecutors dropped Ramirez’s case last month, but refiled the charges Thursday [August 4] after police complained….” David Maer, assistant state attorney for Miami-Dade County, told the paper that the case had been dropped “by mistake.”

Christian, who was hospitalized for two weeks, was not charged in the incident. His mother, who quit her job as a manager at Circuit City in order to be her son’s full-time caretaker, says that she “refuses to sleep” -- which may lead to potentially fatal health complications.

Idania Felipe, the officer who initially fired the Taser (although at least one other officer reportedly did so as well) insists that she did so “for my safety” as the agitated -- but handicapped and unarmed -- young man “violently charged at me.” She arrested Ana and Hernando because their frantic efforts to protect Christian from potentially lethal violence obstructed Felipe’s efforts “to perform my lawful duties,” the officer claimed in her report.

What this means is that Ana Ramirez faces the prospect of spending one year minus a day behind bars because she took action to subdue her son without using lethal force -- something the government-trained, taxpayer-subsidized officers either couldn’t or wouldn’t do, because making an attempt would compromise “officer safety.”

Of course, if Christian had been fatally electrocuted, the official account would blame the death on the young man’s congenital heart defect, perhaps coupled with “excited delirium,” rather than a criminal assault that was committed, despite repeated, specific warnings, by a tax-feeder in a government-issued costume.