Friday, January 09, 2009

Another Taser Death-- No Charges Filed Against Officer J.J. Baird

MOBERLY, Mo.

A Howard County prosecutor says no criminal charges will be filed in the death of a suspected drunken driver killed after a police officer fired a Taser at him.

Prosecutor Mason Gebhardt says Moberly police officer J.J. Baird was justified in using a Taser to try to arrest 23-year-old Stanley Harlan of Moberly during a traffic stop in August.

Gebhardt says he reviewed reports and a video of the incident to determine Harlan was resisting arrest.

Baird made the stop, suspecting Harlan was driving drunk and placed him under arrest. Police say when Harlan resisted, the officer deployed his Taser twice to subdue him.

The first Taser shock lasted five seconds and the subsequent shock was only one second. Harlan became unresponsive soon thereafter.

Officers started CPR until an ambulance arrived.

Harlan was pronounced dead at a hospital.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Stanley Harlan was not under the influence. If you have followed this case at all you would know that he was not drinking or on drugs. When the autopsy was completed they found no alcohol or drugs in his system. So people before you start calling someone a drunk KNOW THE FACTS!!! This was incident was a traffic stop where the individual was not under the influence and had no weapon. Why was a taser even pulled? Do we all need to be afraid that when we get pulled over by an officer that we could be tasered and die? People are dying due to Tasers!! They do cause the heart to stop and people do DIE!! It is a lethal weapon!!!! We need to get them off the streets or get stricter regulations on the use of them.