Springfield Police Department news release:
The Springfield Police Department is investigating the death of a suspect who was arrested Sunday morning just before 10:00 a.m. for burglary. Michael D. Hawkins, 39, of Springfield was arrested at the Eagles Lodge Motel, 2611 N. Glenstone, after police were called there reference a person hiding in a storage room and refusing to come out.
After police arrived they found Hawkins hiding in a crawl space just above the storage room. Police attempted to talk Hawkins down, but he refused to leave the crawl space. Officers entered the crawl space, along with a police service dog. The dog engaged the suspect in the crawl space. During the engagement the dog broke through the ceiling and fell on to the balcony. The suspect was able to hold on to a rafter and climb back into the crawl space.
After Hawkins got back into the crawl space officers located him, and after he refused to obey several police commands to surrender a Taser was deployed. Hawkins then was taken into custody.
Once in custody police had Hawkins transported by ambulance to the hospital for the dog bite that he received on his upper thigh. After arriving at the hospital Hawkins died.
An autopsy is pending to determine the cause of death.
9 p.m. Update:
Motel guests say they could hear someone crawling through their ceilings just before the confrontation with police. "From what I gathered he was hopped up on drugs," motel tenant Rob Perakis said. "He was on a no-rent list he had been here before."
Hawkins family says he was not an angel but he did just as much good as he did wrong. "I'm sure a lot of these days I’ll look over my shoulder and not see him, wishing he was there," said Greg Hawkins, the dead man's brother.
He says he wishes police just would have waited for his brother to come out. He says he saw the spot his brother's body was Tasered at the hospital. "It was about two inches below the heart," Hawkins says.
According to a training bulletin from the company, Taser International, officers should avoid chest shots to avoid controversy about whether or not the Taser caused a cardiac event.
In the same bulletin the company says those events are rare. “The available research does not support the idea that a TASER ECD can cause ventricular Fibrillation (VF) and demonstrates that while it may not be possible to say that an ECD could never affect the heart under any circumstances, the risk of VF is extremely rare and would be rounded to near zero,” according to the bulletin. It also states in changing situations an officer isn't always able to hit the preferred stomach and leg target areas.
"I just question the location I'm sure with all that voltage it caused his heart to beat irregular," Hawkins says. Police haven't confirmed where Hawkins was Tasered or details leading up to the deployment of the device. They aren't releasing more information until the autopsy is complete. "Whatever crime he was committing was it causing the officers a life and death situation, the dog a life and death situation...no,” Hawkins says. “The thing is he had no where to go."
The family says Hawkins did have some drugs in his system. They say they don't know how much. They, too, are waiting on autopsy results to know the exact cause of death.
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