UPDATE 7/28: The Bolivar Commercial has substantial new information the case.
Jermaine Williams, a 30-year-old African-American man from Bolivar County, MS, died in police custody on July 23, 2010. Little has been released about the circumstances of his death—except that the local deputy coroner is calling it a homicide by taser.
On Saturday, Bolivar County Deputy Coroner J.O. Trice said he considered the death of Williams a homicide and attributed it solely to the TASER.
“The cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia that was induced by the electrical tasing device (TASER),” he said on Saturday. “The young man was quite healthy for a 30-year-old fellow.
“Most of it is still pending,” he said. “We’re just waiting on the results from the toxicology but it has not changed my opinion about the cause of death. The toxicology report may take a month or so before we get all the results back.”
Trice's superior, Bolivar County Corner Dr. Nathaniel Brown, has told the press that there was alcohol in Williams blood and cocaine in his urine.
“The blood/cocaine level is still pending,” Brown said. “Cocaine can cause heart arrhythmia and death by itself. The cocaine coupled with an electrical shock ... that combination could have caused his death.”
Regardless, Williams’ death could still fall under accidental or justifiable homicide, according to Brown who said that was just his opinion as he is not an attorney.
It is notable that Tasers are quite new to the Cleveland, MS police department in Bolivar County. According to the Bolivar Commercial:
The Cleveland Police Department recently started using TASERs as a way to subdue resistive and combative individuals.
The department underwent training as well as having to be on the receiving end of a TASER before they were allowed to use them on the street.
The newspaper also reports that the taser used was TASER X26 Electronic Control Device (ECD), which has "a recording device built in that cannot be tampered with." According to the 2008 Amnesty International report Less Than Lethal: The Use of Stun Weapons in U.S. Law Enforcement, the X26 is
programmed to be activated in automatic five-second bursts, although the officer can stop the charge at any time by engaging the safety switch. The charge can also be prolonged beyond five-seconds if the trigger is held down continuously. The operator can also inflict repeated shock cycles with each pull of the trigger as long as both barbs remain attached to the subject. The only technical limit to the number or length of the electrical cycles is the life of the battery, which can be ten minutes or more.
It will therefore be important to establish how many times the device was used on Mr. Williams, at what interval if more than once, and whether the electrical charge put into Mr. Williams body was prolonged beyond the 5 second default. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigations is investigating, according to the local news report.
I am talking to local sources and will be reporting more information about this case soon.
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Lasers are so overused and misused by police that I believe they should be barred from using them. This is hardly the first death by taser. It’s used on inappropriate subjects (I read of a 10 year old being tasered not long ago), and it’s used in dangerous and inappropriate ways as was done in this case. Radley Balko covers this subject extensively, but I haven’t had a chance to see if he’s picked this one up yet or not. Also, in this case, other factors need to be considered – because of where it happened (in the Mississippi delta) and what color the deceased was. It’s unfortunate but true that this has to be factored in.