Widow Files Suit: Baltimore County Police Tasered Black Man having Diabetic Seizure

From [HERE] and [HERE] A Baltimore widow is suing police for allegedly beating and Tasing her husband to death when he was on his way home from Bible study. One thing is not in dispute, Carl Johnson was alive before he was Tased by police, but afterwards was not.  Johnson suffered a diabetic reaction and crashed his car in May 2010, Courthouse News Service reported. 

Police who responded to the scene hit Johnson at least five times with their clubs, threw him over the guardrail, applied pressure points to his ears and armpits, and Tased him twice, Johnson's wife Linda Johnson alleges in her lawsuit. Linda Johnson is suing the Maryland State Police and Baltimore County Police, as well as the departments' top commanders and the officers she holds responsible.

The suit describes several officers continuing to struggle with Johnson, including punching him in the face and using "excessive force" but failing to look at the medical alert card in his wallet. Several officers placed Johnson in leg shackles and continued to "forcibly hold Mr. Johnson down to the ground even though the body of Mr. Johnson was no longer moving," the suit says.

According to the suit, a witness said at one point Johnson "was laying on his back with his hands up in the air, shouting, 'help,' numerous times."

By 9:31 p.m., Johnson was unresponsive and an officer noticed he was not breathing, the suit says. He was taken to the Northwest Hospital in Randallstown, where he was pronounced dead at 10:10 p.m.

Johnson had no arrest history in Maryland, according to public documents.

A Baltimore County police spokesman at the time said Johnson did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

He was an accomplished architect and religious man, his brother said, not the type of person who would challenge police and wind up dead after receiving a shock from an electronic stun-gun.

Responding to concerns about deaths, the U.S. Justice Department has conducted several studies and determined that the darts are trouble-free in the vast majority of cases. The leading manufacturer of the devices, Taser International, has stood by their safety, but last fall issued a recommendation that officers avoid shots to the chest.