Personal Injury Law

Waukegan Man Dies After Police Shock Him with Taser

Waukegan police are investigating the death of a suspect who suffered cardiac arrest after he was Tasered by police on Saturday. Jose Martinez was 53.

Details as to exactly what happened are unclear, and as of now, police are refusing to comment because they don?t want to ?cloud? the probe. However, there are reports that Martinez may have been wrongly identified as a suspect when police apprehended him with a Taser.

According to a Dave?s Liquors clerk, police were called over for a panhandling incident. However, the woman says that it was another man and not Martinez who had been causing problems. Yet Martinez is the one that the police pursued in the parking lot.

After they stunned him with a Taser, they couldn?t revive him. He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. Autopsy results indicate that he had a heart condition and that getting stunned contributed to his passing. Meantime, Martinez?s wife, Sue Martinez, wants to know why no one told her that he had died until Wednesday.

Police and Tasers
Considered less fatal than an actual gun, Tasers have led to injuries and deaths. Last December, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the stun gun cannot be used merely to make a non-compliant person who isn?t a threat obey a police officer?s order.

Tasers can cause electrical injuries, dart entry wounds, eye injuries, cardiac arrest, and even death. In one known Taser incident, a pregnant woman who was stunned by corrections officers suffered a miscarriage one week later. No direct causal link was discovered, but a jury still awarded her personal injury damages for the excessive use of force.

If police used unjustified force when apprehending you or someone you love, you may have a Chicago police brutality case on your hands. Not only is excessive use of police force against the law, but it is a violation of your civil rights.

Man dies after shock from police Taser, News-Sun, June 4, 2010

Court to Cops: Stop Tasing People into Compliance, Wired, January 4, 2010

Related Web Resources:
After the Zap: Taser Injuries and How to Treat Them, National Commission on Correctional Health Care

Waukegan Police Department

Full post as published by Chicago Injury Attorney Blog on June 05, 2010 (boomark / email).