A man in his 20s died Wednesday night after being shot with a Taser by a San Jose police officer who was attempting to take him into custody.
It is the sixth instance of someone dying after San Jose police deployed the electric stun gun on them.
The man resisted arrest, tried to grab the officer's gun from its holster and fought with two police officers for several minutes before one of the officers shot him with a Taser, according to police.
After he was shot with a Taser, the man went into medical distress, police spokesman Enrique Garcia said. Officers performed CPR, but the man died at the scene. His name was not immediately released.
The officers, whose names were also not released Thursday, were treated at a hospital for injuries incurred in the struggle; one suffered facial lacerations and the other had a leg injury, Garcia said.
They had been dispatched to Story Road and Adrian Way at 10:24 p.m. and approached the man, who ran away. A resident in the 2200 block of Amador Drive reported someone in the backyard.
Garcia said the officers located the man and tried to take him into custody. He "resisted and got into a violent struggle with our officers," Garcia said.
The officers used their batons during the struggle, which lasted several minutes. One of the officers shot the man with a Taser.
In 2004, the San Jose Police Department armed every officer with stun guns, devices capable of temporarily disabling
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suspects by sending 50,000-volt jolts through their body, as an alternative to deadly force. The move came after San Jose police shot and killed a Vietnamese woman after they mistook her vegetable peeler for a large knife.
In four San Jose incidents where suspects died after being shot with a stun gun, family members filed lawsuits over the deaths. In December, San Jose officials agreed to pay $70,000 to the wife and child of a man who died in 2005 after being shot with a Taser by police, marking the city's first settlement over a fatality linked to the stun guns.
In mid-December, a San Jose man with psychiatric problems died outside of Valley Medical Center when a Campbell police officer fired his Taser while he was helping Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies control the situation.
The San Jose Police Department Homicide Unit is investigating Wednesday night's death, Garcia said. The Santa Clara County medical examiner's office will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
Investigators from San Jose Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit and the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office are also monitoring the case.
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