A 40-year-old woman accused of stealing a car and fighting with police Friday is the second suspect this month to die after being tased by a DeKalb County police officer.
Autopsies are still pending on both suspects to see if Tasers contributed to their deaths, Chief Investigator Patrick Bailey of the DeKalb Medical Examiner’s Office said Monday.
The autopsies will determine if either suspect had a pre-existing medical condition, or drugs in their system, DeKalb Police spokeswoman Mekka Parish said.
DeKalb County Police added Tasers to their arsenal late last year as a “less lethal” option for unruly suspects, aimed at reducing injuries to suspects and officers, Chief William O’Brien told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in November.
This was the second time DeKalb had turned to the stun guns, which issue 50,000 volts of electricity. In 2005, then-DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones ordered police to surrender their Tasers after the manufacturer issued a warning that multiple or prolonged blasts could impair breathing and lead to death. Jones had said he was also concerned about the death of a Gwinnett County inmate who died following the use of a Taser.
On Monday, DeKalb officials wouldn’t say if they plan to stick with Tasers, only saying that both deaths are under investigation.
DeKalb Police have not identified the woman killed on Friday.
An incident report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows the woman, who was 5-foot-3 and 350 pounds, was tased twice after fighting with police.
The woman ran through the Brannon Hills condo complex on Baynes Hill Drive in Clarkston around 11:30 p.m. Friday, banging on doors and frantically shouting that someone was trying to kill her, according to witness statements.
She kicked in several doors before falling off a second-floor balcony and losing her pants. She then tried to steal a car, and after several unsuccessful attempts at carjacking, she climbed into an unlocked Toyota Previa, according to the police report.
Officers arrived as she was trying to drive off. But she refused to stop, striking two cars before fleeing and crashing into several trees, police said.
Officers ordered her to surrender, but she jumped out of the crashed Toyota and attempted to run, the report stated.
That’s when Officer B. Maxwell deployed his Taser, striking her in the back.
The woman fell to the ground, but she continued to struggle with police and shout obscenities.
Several officers tried to handcuff her, but she continued to fight. Maxwell deployed his Taser again, according to the report.
This time, he used the Taser against her side, which is designed to cause pain but not incapacitate her, police said.
But it still didn’t slow her down. She continued to struggle and swear at the officers as they handcuffed her. A “short time later,” the woman became nonresponsive, officers wrote in the report.
Paramedics rushed the woman to DeKalb Medical Center, where she later died.
It’s unclear how much time elapsed between the woman being tased and becoming unresponsive, and when she was pronounced dead, Parish said.
Police are still investigating what caused the woman to frantically run through the complex, but witnesses said they did not see anyone trying to harm her.
That is the second death this year in DeKalb involving a Taser.
On May 9, Audreacus Davis died after being tased five times and given a medication to calm him down, according to a police report.
Paramedics were treating the 6-foot-4, 375-pound man for a possible drug overdose at the Budgetel Inn on Chamblee-Tucker Road when he became violent. Police arrived and found Davis foaming from the nose and mouth, and defecating all over the hotel room, according to the report.
Officers tried to get him to calm down and allow paramedics to treat him, but he struggled with police. Officers tased him a total of five times, but each time he stood back up and fought police, police said. After paramedics gave him the unknown injection to calm him down, Davis became unresponsive.
He was taken to DeKalb Medical, where he was pronounced dead.
In December, about 1,100 DeKalb officers went through a 10-hour training class. They also were shot with the Taser before being allowed to carry the weapon.
That training class included showing officers to aim for the back, abdomen and thigh areas.
Last fall, Taser International, the stun gun’s manufacturer, issued a warning that the weapons could have an “adverse cardiac event” if used in the chest.
There have been more than 400 deaths involving Tasers in the U.S. and 26 in Canada since 2001, according to a December 2008 study by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The study said medical examiners found that Tasers contributed to more than 30 of the deaths.
Three of the 400 deaths occurred in the Gwinnett County jail after deputies used Tasers on inmates. The deaths occurred in 2003, 2004 and 2007. Autopsies showed two died of heart attacks, but they did not cite causes for the cardiac arrests. The third death was ruled a result of "excited delirium" -- a combination of cocaine, alcohol and physical exertion that excited the inmate's heart too much, according to the medical examiner.
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