Subject:  Toledo lawsuit - taser death |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 02/ 3/06 2:40pm
Article published Tuesday, January 31, 2006
County, city, 12 officers sued over Taser death
Mother says 9 shocks were wrongful assault
The mother of a man who died after he was shocked nine times with a Taser is suing the Toledo police officers and Lucas County sheriff's deputies involved in the incident.
Betty Turner claims in a lawsuit filed yesterday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court that police officers and deputies engaged in misconduct and wrongfully assaulted her son, Jeffrey Turner, causing his death a year ago today.
The city, county, nine police officers, two deputies, and a jail corrections officer were named as defendants in the complaint, which seeks more than $25,000 in punitive and compensatory damages.
Turner was shocked five times with a Taser as he was being subdued by Toledo police and four more times by deputies after he became violent in the county jail. The shocks occurred about three hours apart.
Dr. James Patrick, county coroner, said Turner had preexisting heart disease, but the multiple Taser shocks contributed to his death. The death was ruled a homicide.
Richard Steinberg, a Detroit attorney who is licensed to practice law in Ohio, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Michigan attorneys, Geoffrey Fieger and William McHenry, who are representing Ms. Turner, the administrator of Turner's estate.
Toledo police approached Turner outside the Toledo Museum of Art on a loitering complaint and shocked him to subdue him because they said he refused to identify himself or comply with police instructions and fought being taken into custody.
He was carried to the jail and later struggled with officers when they tried to restrain him. He was shocked four times with a different Taser model. A nurse sent to his cell found him unresponsive; he died a short time later at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center.
Officers Brian Young, Julio Ramirez, Michael Haynes, Douglas Lewis, Michael E. Murphy, Michael Mugler, James Cornell, and Kevin Konz, and Sgt. Daniel Ray of the Toledo Police Department were named as defendants.
Sheriff's office employees, Sgt. Jonathon Leach, Deputy Joe Villanueva, and Corrections Officer William Ginn also were sued.
The lawsuit alleges that Turner was holding the Bible and praying silently near the museum when Officers Lewis and Young used Tasers, sending 50,000 volts of electricity into his body.
Other officers and deputies used Tasers weapons or other instruments to inflict torture, and Sergeant Ray and Sergeant Leach, as supervisors of the police officers and sheriff employees, respectively, failed to intervene or stop the misconduct, the lawsuit said.
The police department's internal affairs bureau concluded officers did not use excessive force in arresting Turner, and the use of the Taser was justified.
The FBI agreed in April to review requests from former Toledo NAACP president and civil rights activist David Tayor III for an investigation into the death.
The lawsuit has been assigned to Judge Gary Cook.
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