Wrongful Death Suit says East Point Cops “acted with malice and a deliberate intent": Handcuffed Black Man Shocked with Taser 14 times

From [HERE] and [HERE] More than four months after a 24-year-old Black man died following an arrest in which the police used Taser devices on him up to 13 times, his family Thursday filed a wrongful-death suit against the Atlanta suburb of East Point and two of its former officers.

The family of Gregory L. Towns Jr., who was arrested on April 11 after he fled on foot from officers who wanted to question him about a domestic dispute, said in the lawsuit that police officers in East Point had “acted with malice and a deliberate intent to cause grievous bodily injury, pain and death” to Mr. Towns.

Amid national attention to police shootings involving black men, Mr. Towns’s death seemed certain to provoke new discussion about the use in law enforcement of Tasers, which critics have implicated in hundreds of deaths nationwide. The lawsuit came ahead of a decision by a prosecutor here over whether to pursue charges against any police officers in connection with Mr. Towns’s death. Mr. Towns was black, as were both of the officers named in the lawsuit.

But lawyers representing Mr. Towns’s family said they believed they had already gathered enough evidence to file a civil case against the officers, Sgt. Marcus Eberhart and Cpl. Howard J. Weems Jr., and East Point, a city of about 35,500 just south of Atlanta. The lawsuit, filed in the name of Mr. Towns’s estate and his infant son, contends that officers abused and eventually killed a handcuffed Mr. Towns after his arrest by using Taser devices on him up to 13 times in a 29-minute period.

“East Point needs to pay for what they did to my brother because he didn’t deserve to be electrocuted 13 times, or anything more than one time,” Tiarra Towns said Thursday at a news conference. The family declined to say how much compensation they would seek.

The episode began when the police wanted to speak with Mr. Towns about a domestic dispute and he tried to elude officers. The authorities apprehended Mr. Towns after a chase they said stretched nearly a mile, and Mr. Towns, saying the pursuit had exhausted him, said he was unable to walk immediately to a police car.

Corporal Weems said in a report that Mr. Towns did not “display any distress,” and that he warned Mr. Towns that he would use his Taser device if he did not obey instructions from officers. Police officers acknowledged in written statements that Mr. Towns, who was handcuffed in a creek for much of the time in dispute, was ultimately shocked multiple times.

Police records cited in the lawsuit indicate the officers used their Taser devices up to 14 times, including at least one instance when an officer activated his Taser as a warning to compel Mr. Towns to cooperate. (Lawyers representing the family conceded that they did not know exactly how many times Mr. Towns had been shocked, but they said the 14 uses of the Taser devices collectively amounted to more than a minute of actual or threatened electrical stimulation.)

A Fulton County medical examiner listed the cause of death in a May report as hypertensive cardiovascular disease that had been aggravated by “conducted electrical stimulation” and strenuous physical activity.

The East Point Police Department, which asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to review the episode, declined on Thursday to discuss the lawsuit. Sergeant Eberhart, who resigned after Mr. Towns’s death, could not be reached on Thursday, and a lawyer for Corporal Weems, who was fired and is appealing his dismissal, declined to comment.

The lawsuit accuses Sergeant Eberhart and Corporal Weems of violating department rules, which impose restrictions on when officers may use Taser devices.

But Dale T. Preiser, who is representing Corporal Weems, told WSB-TV previously that the “use of drive stun to gain compliance is permitted under federal and Georgia law.”