Nashville police fired stun guns repeatedly after maker’s warning
The Nashville police are still investigating whether the Taser stun gun was fired according to department policy when a man using drugs died after being repeatedly shocked.
Authorities say Patrick Lee, 21, died of “excited delirium” in September after he wrestled with police and was shocked up to 19 times by two officers.
Taser International warned police in a training bulletin issued June 28, about three months before Lee’s death, to avoid repeatedly using Tasers against people showing symptoms of “excited delirium.”
“These (people) are at significant and potentially fatal health risks from further prolonged exertion and/or impaired breathing,” the training bulletin states. “Repeated, prolonged, and/or continuous exposure(s) to the Taser electrical discharge may cause strong muscle contractions that may impair breathing and respiration … “
After the advisory, police department officials said they sent e-mails ordering Taser-equipped officers to read the bulletin and abide by its warnings.
Whether the manufacturer’s warning was ignored in Lee’s case is part of a police department review.
“In my mind, we want to go that extra step, to be sure that we are doing what we say we’re doing and that we are accurate,” said Capt. Mike Hagar, a supervisor in the department’s training division.
Part of the probe will focus on electronic records downloaded from the internal memory of each Taser. Among other things, the devices record the duration of each jolt and the time of day.
The Tennessean newspaper examined the Taser downloads and identified at least 35 occasions since the advisory in which police stun guns were activated repeatedly within minutes or allowed to emit energy for more than five seconds at a time.
The records don’t tell whether the Taser uses occurred during training, test firings or in encounters with suspects.
“What that download report won’t tell you,” Hagar said, “is whether or not I touched the person with it ? whether or not I launched the probes in a person or not.”
But Nashville lawyer Tommy Overton, who is investigating the death for Lee’s family, said the downloads call into question past assertions by Nashville police that Taser uses were being carefully scrutinized and shows “just directly opposite of what they are wanting the public to believe.”
Police tried to arrest Lee after he had been kicked out of a bar for bizarre behavior. He told officers he had taken hallucinogenic drugs and, according to police, had LSD in his wallet.
Lee died in a hospital two days after his Sept. 22 arrest. He was the second person to die in Nashville this year after being shocked by police Tasers.
Within weeks of Lee’s death, Police Chief Ronal Serpas ordered Tasers be taken away from rank-and-file officers and placed solely with supervisors, who must undergo a new Taser training program.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have campaigned to suspend the use of Tasers by police. At the very least, they say, use of the devices should be subjected to closer scrutiny.
“If departments like the Metro Police Department feel like it’s OK to shock people 11 times within a minute, even after receiving information from the manufacturer that says they shouldn’t do that, the public has a right to know what justification there is for that,” said Ed Jackson, spokesman for Amnesty International.
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Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com