Stun gun leaves man critical: Sister, witness criticize Colonial Beach police for using Taser on man with brain condition.

The Free Lance-Star
Sep. 10, 2005

A 43-year-old man was in critical condition in a Richmond hospital last night with a fractured skull after Colonial Beach police shot him with a Taser stun gun.

Police did not identify the man, citing his "degenerative brain disease." But they said in the news release that he was suicidal and threatening officers.

The man's sister, who did not wish to be identified, said her brother "wasn't doing anything to threaten the police" when he was shot on Irving Avenue around 9:45 a.m. Tuesday after spending three hours in the Potomac River evading police and rescue boats.

"He was nonviolent when he came out of the water," she said. "His legs were shaking and he could barely climb up the rocks to the street. All he wanted was a cigarette."

The woman, who said she was at the scene, said her brother "put his hands up. At least five officers were standing there. They could have tackled him. They didn't warn him or order him to get down. They just shot him."

The 50,000-volt shock of the Taser knocked the man "backwards like a tree," she said.

"I heard his head hit the pavement so hard. As soon as he hit the ground, blood came out of his nose," she said.

A Colonial Beach Police Department news release said the man suffered "minor injuries." An officer used the Taser when the man "took a fighting stance," the release said.

The woman said her brother had undergone surgery in 1989 to remove a brain tumor and was taking anti-seizure medication. She said he had been unable to sleep for several days.

He fled his Eleanor Trailer Park home about 6:45 a.m. after his family called police for assistance. Barefoot and wearing only shorts, the man entered the river at Castlewood Beach and began to walk in the water up the shore.

"We were trying to get a temporary detention order to put him in an institution for three days. If he had gotten medication and some sleep, he would have been fine," she said.

Instead, he spent the next three hours walking nearly a mile in chest-deep waters of the Potomac River while police and rescue boats from Virginia and Maryland tried to coax him to shore.

The woman denied assertions in the police release that said the man issued "threats against officers as well as threatening his own well-being."

"He's not mentally ill. He didn't threaten suicide. The police were provoking him and antagonizing him. He's a good decent man. He's just having a hard time medically" she said.

On Irving Avenue, a parade of family members, onlookers, police and emergency workers and vehicles followed the man's slow progress offshore as he evaded police and fire boats from Maryland and Colonial Beach.

The man's sister said family members repeatedly told police of the man's medical history.

Finally, near the intersection of Ball Street, she said the pastor of the man's church in Colonial Beach grabbed his hand at the foot of a revetment and helped him climb up the rocks to Irving Avenue, where he was shot with the Taser by a police officer.

"My understanding is that you're not supposed to move someone with head trauma," she said.

But, she claimed, the police rolled her brother on his back, handcuffed him, rolled him back over on his stomach, sat him up and put a brace on his neck and head.

"We're outraged at the Colonial Beach Police Chief and the Colonial Beach officers," an Irving Avenue resident who witnessed the police action wrote in a letter yesterday to the Virginia attorney general demanding an investigation of the incident.

"There was absolutely no cause to use a stun gun. There was absolutely no cause to manhandle an unconscious young man," said the woman, who also asked to remain anonymous out of concern over possible police reprisal.

Colonial Beach Police Chief Courtlandt Turner could not be reached yesterday for additional comments on the incident.

An ambulance took the man to Mary Washington Hospital. When his sister got to see him about 2 p.m., she said an emergency-room nurse said his brain was hemorrhaging and doctors didn't know his head had struck the pavement.

The man was transferred Tuesday afternoon to an intensive care unit of the Medical College of Virginia hospital at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where doctors managed to stop the bleeding, she said.

Her brother was in critical condition last night, but was conscious and expected to recover, she said.

The Colonial Beach Police Department purchased about a half-dozen Tasers this year for its small police force and trained officers in their use.

Although the Taser manufacturer claims the weapons are nonlethal, Amnesty International has charged that 129 people have died since 2001 after being stunned by the guns.