Font ResizeLAS CRUCES - The Las Cruces Police Department is investigating whether an officer acted properly by using his Taser on a 49-year-old man who was being transported to the hospital, department spokesman Dan Trujillo said Wednesday.
The officer was dispatched just before 4:30 a.m. Monday to assist medical personnel in the 4900 block of South Fork Road, where the man's wife said she believed her husband had had a stroke or a seizure and was possibly foaming at the mouth, according to the police report.
The man, who was found moaning, incoherent and unresponsive, had started acting strange at around 3 a.m. - seemingly hallucinating and staring at the wall - after an evening of bad headaches, according to the report. After tensing his arms, squirming and fighting with medical personnel who were trying to take his blood pressure, authorities were able to persuade the man to walk outside, to a waiting stretcher.
But the man again became "combative," the officer reported, flailing his arms when authorities tried to restrain him and prompting the officer to draw his Taser.
The officer "placed it in the center of his chest and advised him that he needed to relax and allow the medical personnel to do what they needed to do or he would get Tased," the report states. When the man "continued to resist," the officer stunned him twice, allowing workers to grab the man's arms and strap them to the stretcher.
"We are aware of this incident and it's under administrative review
The officer who Tased the man graduated from the LCPD training academy in June 2009, according to Sun-News archives.
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462.
