Saturday, July 20, 2013

Subdued With Extreme Prejudice

The Australian police has a brochure to explain Positional Asphyxia (restraint asphyxia) as a form of asphyxia (from Greek α- "without" and σφύξις sphyxis, "heartbeat") which occurs when someone's physical position prevents them from breathing adequately.

The following factors are listed as contributors to positional deaths:
Obesity - a large abdomen means that when a person is prone, the contents of the abdomen can be forced upwards under the diaphragm restricting breathing;
Psychosis - stimulation of the heart under drugs can produce cardiac disturbances which combine with difficulty in breathing to lead to fatal results;
Pre-existing physical conditions - any condition that impairs breathing under normal circumstances (heart disease, asthma, emphysena, borobchilities and other chronic lung diseases) will put a person at higher risk when they are physically restrained;
Pressure on the abdomen - even a thin person will have difficulty breathing if there is pressure on the abdomen. The more security officers there are holding a person down in a prone position, the greater the risk that there will be pressure on the abdomen, making it difficult to breathe.

The brochure identifies one of the symptoms and signs of improper restraint as sudden tranquility - an active, loud, threatening, violent, abusive person suddenly becoming quiet and tranquil, not moving.

Slim built 21-year-old Dinesh Raman Chinnaiah had kicked a prison warden while exiting his cell, was subsequently subdued, as they say in the movies, with extreme prejudice by unknown number(s) of officers, before being dumped into the disciplinary housing unit (DHU) cell "in a prone position". You don't need an IQ 0f 180 to appreciate that Dinesh was manhandled with retribution intent in mind. You can read volumes into the startling brevity of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) statement concerning how a young life was snuffed out.

While it was admirable of Deputy Superintendent Lim Kwo Yin to assume personal responsibility for the thuggish tactics of his men - did Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen own up for Private Dominique's death? - there is no account/autopsy of how Dinesh was asphyxiated. If he was conscious and unrestrained while being ferried to his cell, he could have rolled over to gasp for life sustaining breath intakes.

We are simply told the inmate was restrained "according to protocol", left unattended, until Lim re-entered the cell later to check, and found him to be unresponsive.

The family of the deceased is upset that the senior prison officer charged with causing death through negligence received only a $10,000 fine. Three years on, they are still not sure exactly how Dinesh died, and have yet to decide on a legal course of action. If the Shane Todd investigation is anything to go by, the odds are definitely not in their favour. Don't waste money.

18 comments:

  1. Got to watch cti(中天亚洲台/Taiwan) ongoing investigative report on how their media deal with the Death of a conscript who died in a detention camp.

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    1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&client=mv-google&gl=US&v=JzhU-p1W554&nomobile=1

      You mean the protest which saw 30,000 parents, students and soldiers over the dead conscript who was punished to death ?

      Delete
    2. Conscript Hung Chung Chiu died of heat stroke due to excessive physical punishment.
      There are ongoing investigative reporting at on Taiwan cti television.

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    3. Death by heat stroke is the official reason given by the Taiwanese authorities. The independent media in Taiwan has dugged out all sorts of secrets like excessive bullying, gambling, illegal loans, wrongful expenditure claims, etc. as the suspect motives to punish/silence the consript.

      It appears there is more reason to suspect foul play while heat stroke is just meant to cover up the whole incident as in many of their previous incidents.

      Sounds familiar ?

      Delete
  2. The incidents at both countries were great tragedies.
    The families of both victims mustbe suffering unbearable pains.

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  3. How to believed that a man,who has been in Prison for sometimes will go and get the warden with a kick?He's Mad or has he found an armour in the cell?The Bloody press is taking us more like a bloody fool.No witness to called upon?Paid fine case closed,I think this is a job for Mr M.Ravi.

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  4. Well, we have one senior officer taking the rap. End of Part One.

    So have this case, together with many other misadventures, not following procedures all over the place in the Home Ministry woke up the Minister and his very senior Civil Servants , yet ?

    No point asking his predecessor minister. But we sure could ask the very senior officers around, or have they all been "retired" or seconded elsewhere ?

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  5. It's quite normal to cover up in the civil service. They protect their kind. Unless they can't cover anymore. In this case there's a death. So someone got to take a rap. May be the offender already knew what he's getting if he PG. Fast and swift end instead of a nasty trial where more will be implicated. That's part of civil service culture since colonial days. Sigh!

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  6. Sad Singaporean7/21/2013 9:39 AM

    I feel like I'm living in a 3rd world country where the ones in charge can do anything (bully, cheat, lie) and the rest just suffer.

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  7. Second Minister for Home Affairs S. Iswaran says the community expects the highest standards of professionalism in its prison officers, but the superintendent of prisons was given only a slap on the wrist. Sigh......

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  8. Sylvester Stallone (Rocky) shows what it feels like to try and get something (like your CPF money) from the PAP gahmen:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN4Y6WSzS1Y

    This 2 minute youtube scene is where the elderly Rocky applies to get his professional boxing license re-instated.

    And the Commission of Boxing that Rocky faces reminds me a lot of the PAPigs.
    Don't you feel like Rocky in this scene when the PAPigs keep increasing your CPF withdrawal age limit?

    Rocky VI - The final installment.
    Arguably the best Rocky movie of the series.
    It tells the story of Rocky in the twilight years ... trying to finish some unfinished business in his life.
    Like so many of us Singaporeans.

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    Replies
    1. Singaporeans finding the courage to collectively deliver the knockout punch to the MIW.

      Delete
  9. Potential Cost Of A Nuclear Accident? So High It’s A Secret! (Excerpt)
    ===============

    Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima No. 1 in 2011, are very rare, we’re incessantly told, and their probability of occurring infinitesimal. But when they do occur, they get costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates, kept them secret.

    But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at a single reactor at the plant chosen for the study, the plant at Dampierre in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, would amount to over three times the country’s GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it.

    Source & Complete article:

    http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/3/13/potential-cost-of-a-nuclear-accident-so-high-its-a-secret.html

    Be very careful of any nuclear power policy papers from the PAPigs.

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  10. In India, extra-judicial killing is common when police execute their nemesis (and occasionally suspected criminals) in covered up "accidents". In communist chinese or russian gulags, "officials" is well known for doing a "David Copperfield" vanishing act on inmates. Now the world knows it has been happening right inside your "corrective arm" of justice. Everyday the civil service plumb new depths of abuse and incompetence, and the island sleeps peacefully in propaganda.

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  11. Shouldn't an inquest by the coroner, at the least, be carried out, ala Shane Todd, to determine if police brutality, excessive use of force, etc., is the cause of his death? Just brushing it off as death by "positional ashyxia" is totally unsatisfactory as it doesn't show culpability. We want accountability, please raise this issue in Parliament!

    But then who are Dinesh's parents, just your average sinkie! If the deputy superintendent was fined for negligence (?), will the eight thugs get their just deserts? I am not too optimistic, because they have this "protocol" escape route, again. And aren't Dinesh's parents entitled to compensation?

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  12. According to the AGC's statement on 25 July: "4. Consequently, where a finding has been made in criminal proceedings as to the cause of and the circumstances connected with the death, the Coroner has a discretion to discontinue the proceedings before him if he determines that there is no longer a need for an inquiry to take place to determine the cause of and circumstances connected with the death. This discretion conferred on the Coroner by section 39 of the Coroners Act...."

    Dinesh died in custody on 27 Sept 2010
    The MHA conducted a COI in March 2013

    According to Today report of 20 July 2013 titled "Prison officer fined S$10K for causing inmate's death", "A coroner’s mention will be held next Tuesday (23 July 2013) but an inquiry will likely be vacated, Mr Mahendran said."

    In other words, there was no Coroner's Inquiry anytime from Dinesh's death on 27 Sept 2010 until the prison officer was charged and fined on 19 July 2013.

    So AGC, how do you "discontinue" or "adjourn" an inquiry which never started. It is very clear that Section 39 of the Coroner's Act refers to an "Adjournment of inquiry when criminal proceedings commenced". The criminal proceedings were almost 3 years after the incident!

    What is really relevant is Section 25 "Duty of Coroner to hold inquiry" Subsection (3) In deciding whether to hold an inquiry, a Coroner may have regard to the following matters: (C) the desire of any member of the immediate family of the deceased that an inquiry should be conducted

    The AGC trying to pull a fast one? I think Dinesh's parents are entitled to a closure with an Inquiry by the Coroner, notwithstanding what the AGC said.

    http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/agc-clarifies-why-no-coroners-inquiry-was-held-prison-inmates-death-20

    http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/agc-clarifies-why-coroners-inquiry-prison-inmates-death-was-discontinued

    http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/aol/search/display/view.w3p;page=0;query=CompId%3A579818c1-d172-463e-8fe8-4acae0edd33b;rec=0;whole=yes#pr39-he-.






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  13. Correction:
    So AGC, how do you "discontinue" an inquiry which never started, and cannot have been adjourned.

    ReplyDelete