By Vicky Agnew, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A urine sample taken from a Davie, Fla. man who died after police shocked him with a stun gun was drug-free, the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office said Thursday.
Kerry Kevin O’Brien, 31, was pronounced dead Monday night at Memorial Hospital West after Pembroke Pines police shocked him with the Taser stun gun about 7:32 p.m. at Sheridan Street and 146th Avenue.
Police have refused to talk about the case other than to say O’Brien, dressed only in blue swim trunks, was beating on cars in the intersection.
Family members said they don’t know why O’Brien would have acted so erratically. O’Brien took an anti-depressant and had asthma, but relatives said they don’t have any evidence that he took other drugs or had any other mental or emotional problems.
Broward Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper said a urine test is just one component in his investigation.
“What’s important is the blood toxicology because sometimes drugs don’t move from the blood to the urine, and sometimes there are drugs that urine doesn’t disclose,” Perper said.
Gregory Dell, the family’s attorney, said he plans a private autopsy. He will ask that the medical examiner’s office preserve all blood and tissue samples taken during the autopsy.
Perper said he would not be able to determine how O’Brien died until he gets the results of toxicology tests, which take at least a month. He also needs more information about what happened between O’Brien and police at the intersection.
“This is a case which has many aspects to be checked from the investigative end and from the circumstantial end,” Perper said.
“We have to find out what was his behavior, his medical condition, the police response to his actions, how many times he was Tasered and his response. This has to be integrated with information from the autopsy ... Also we have to check the Taser that was used.”
He said that the time lapse between the application of the Taser and O’Brien’s collapse would be “very crucial.” A Taser fires two electrified probes that emit a 50,000-volt shock for up to five seconds. The shock overrides the central nervous system with electrical impulses.
Also, Perper will look to see whether O’Brien had any heart problems that would make him more susceptible to the Taser’s effects. However, Perper stressed there is no test to measure how much damage a Taser could do to the heart.
“If you have evidence of a person being Taserized, that’s the only thing you know ... You cannot say that the Taser did specific damage to the heart,” he said.
Taser International manufactures the M-26 Taser which is used by more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies in the country. They say they have conducted extensive tests on dogs and pigs, even loading their bodies with toxic amounts of stimulant drugs, and that none died as a result of the Taser, which is marketed as non-lethal.
O’Brien is not the first person to die in Florida after being shocked with a Taser. Last year, a Hollywood man died after police used a Taser on him. His autopsy revealed he had toxic amounts of cocaine in his system. Others in Florida have died after being hit with Tasers and in most cases, autopsies revealed the presence of drugs.