WSB TV 2EAST POINT, Ga. — Only Channel 2 Action News has learned that police Tased a man in handcuffs up to 13 times before he died.
We’re learning about the department policies the officers allegedly violated during this deadly encounter.
Police records show two officers used their Tasers repeatedly to try to make Gregory Towns get up.
Towns family attorney Chris Stewart plans to file a lawsuit this week.
“This is a direct violation of their own rules,” Stewart said. “You cannot use a Taser to escort or prod a subject.”
The lawsuit comes after the April death of Towns after he was repeatedly “drive-stunned” with Tasers by East Point police in an apparent effort to make him get up and walk after a foot chase.
Stewart said he is using copies of the city’s own documents to piece together what happened in behalf of Towns’ family.
Stewart alleges records combined with eyewitness accounts show two officers violated the city’s standard operating procedures for Tasers.
“He wasn’t cursing. He wasn’t being abusive. He was saying, ‘I’m tired,’” Stewart said.
Stewart said Taser logs, combined with other information from the city, show two officers triggered their Tasers 13 times around the time in question: 10 for Sgt. Marcus Eberhart and three times for officer Howard Weems.
Stewart acknowledged the documents don’t show the Taser made contact for each of the 13 trigger pulls. He said officer accounts vary, but none comes close to 13 Taser stuns.
“This situation is indefensible,” Stewart said.
Dale Preiser, one of Weems’ lawyers at the Police Benevolent Association, said Weems continues to appeal his firing and Weems’s actions did not cause Towns’ death, but he does not wish to respond to the Towns’ family attorney’s comments.
In a statement, Weems’ lawyers have maintained, “use of drive stun to gain compliance is permitted under federal and Georgia law.”
A spokesperson said the city does not comment on pending or potential litigation.
Channel 2’s Mark Winne spoke to a man he believed to be Eberhart by phone and he did not comment on the case.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/attorney-east-point-police-used-taser-against-man-/ng9RG/
SO…..
TAZING SOMEONE CAUSES THEM TO DROP TO THE GROUND IN PAIN UNABLE TO MOVE, AND KOPS USE THE “GET UP EXCUSE” TO TAZE UNTIL DEATH….
AGAIN, ITS MURDER….
I hope the kops get tazed 13 times each before going to jail for murder.
If they can dish it out, they should be able to take it…..
don’t ya think?
Is anyone in Vegas taking bets on how many people will be murdered by cops in a given week? I’d like to put $100 on 4 dead in the first week of September, and parlay it with 6 dead in the second week.
statewide, or national?
official figures nationally = one every 28hours!!!
Was not the idea of tasers to keep the police from murdering so many on the street. Now that they have them they use them to tourcher people to death. In such case is not death by prolonged tourcher a much more serious crime? And a human rights violation. If ISIS was doing this it would be headline news. Oh Well Life in America were the police are the good guy’s. And the bad guy’s are better than the police. But still the charge should be so much more than just murder here. As the police who do this are very depraved persons. Unfit to ever be allowed back in civilization any were. Turn the animals loose on a island of S America and tell them to live with the snakes.