By Akilah Johnson and Shahien Nasiripour, Sun-Sentinel (Florida)
Delray Beach, Fla. -- A 31-year-old man died less than two hours after police shot him early Thursday with a Taser outside his house, where he was found banging his head against a metal fence post.
Timothy Bolander was not supposed to be at the Satin Leaf Court home Thursday because his wife had filed a restraining order against him, so she called 911 when he showed up about 3:30 a.m., police said.
Officers arrived, a struggle ensued and he was shot twice with darts carrying 50,000 volts because he wouldn’t stop resisting arrest, police said. Then while walking to a squad car, Bolander, who police and his wife say had a history of drug abuse, collapsed.
He was taken to Delray Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Police are awaiting toxicology results, but said they are confident that Bolander’s death was drug related and not a result of the Taser charge.
“Thirty minutes after his death, his body temperature was 102 degrees,” police spokesman Officer Jeffrey Messer said, indicating that there may have been drugs in Bolander’s system. “Once you die, your temperature is immediately starting to drop.”
The death comes on the heels of several controversial Taser incidents in South Florida, including the Dec. 15 death of a Coral Springs man.
Since 2002, three other people have died in the region after being hit with the electrical charge, bringing the total to five. Two of those deaths involved drug use and the third was ruled accidental.
Miami-Dade County police have recently been criticized for using the weapons on a 6-year-old boy and 12-year-girl.
It’s the first time someone in Delray Beach died after being struck with a Taser, and police said it would have no bearing on the department’s continued use of the weapons.
“The use of the Taser was the right use, and the Tasers are going to continue being used in Delray Beach,” Messer said. “We’re confident that the Taser was not the cause of the subject’s death.”
The officers involved were not named because of a pending investigation and will remain on active duty, Messer said. The case was handed over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
At 3:37 a.m., police got a call from Lidia Bolander, 23. She said her estranged husband was in the yard hurting himself and he wasn’t supposed to be there because she had gotten a temporary restraining order against him Tuesday.
Minutes later, officers arrived.
Timothy Bolander ran across the street, then back into his yard, Messer said.
“I heard the police yell, `Get down. Get down. Get down,’” next-door neighbor Kathy Coons said. “They were loud enough to wake me.”
Bolander continued to resist, police said. Twice he ran past his silver Cadillac CTS, which remained parked in front of the house Thursday afternoon.
Within 21 feet of Bolander, one of the officers fired his M26 Taser, which incapacitates suspects for at least five seconds. It’s unclear if the fishhook-shaped prongs, which are linked by wires to the Taser, struck Bolander because he continued to struggle, police said.
One of the officers stunned Bolander again by driving the gun directly into his side, officials said. He complied and the officers were able to handcuff him, police said.
Walking to the patrol car, Bolander collapsed. Paramedics responded, loaded him in an ambulance at 4:18 a.m. and hurried to Delray Medical Center.
Eight minutes later, Bolander was wheeled into the emergency room and was pronounced dead at 5:01 a.m. An autopsy was expected Thursday or today.
“I really want to blame [the police] but I don’t have all the information,” Bolander’s mother, Jody Hersey, said while working at the family’s Boca Raton dog training business, Man’s Best Friend.
She declined to comment on her son’s alleged drug abuse.
“He was a good guy, a really good guy,” she said.
In court documents, Lidia Bolander describes her estranged husband as a paranoid, abusive, crack and heroin addict. She said he came home in the middle of the night with suspicious-looking people.
“I am afraid every day that he will come to my house and hurt me or my daughter,” she said in the restraining order petition. The couple’s daughter, Victoria, is 2.
In the petition, she said Bolander became violent after accusing her of a having an affair on Nov. 19. He hit her in the head and choked her, but left the house before police arrived when she called 911, she said in court documents.
That incident was one of six that police have handled involving Bolander since Oct. 4, when he was charged with DUI. Police said Bolander crashed into the Sabal Lakes sign at the development’s entrance.
According to the arrest report, Bolander was too intoxicated to take roadside tests. He told police that he had a couple of drinks and snorted some heroin about 45 minutes before the 2:17 a.m. crash.
Taser shocks are supposed to stimulate the neuromuscular system in a way that stops movements, said John Wikswo, a Vanderbilt University biomedical engineer. The debilitating pain, coupled with the inability to move, makes it an effective non-lethal weapon.
But a lack of research on the gun’s effect on the human body has been disconcerting, he said. In addition to stimulating skeletal muscles, a Taser shock may interrupt the heart’s normal rhythm.
“The physiological effects of the Taser are not sufficiently understood,” he said.
Officials at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International could not be reached for comment Thursday, despite several attempts by phone.
While non-lethal, the Taser is not a tool of first resort in Delray Beach. It falls between giving a verbal warning and hitting somebody with a baton in the department’s use-of-force continuum.
“The Taser comes before that because it doesn’t leave any marks,” Capt. Ralph Phillips said. “In a normal situation, a few seconds after the Taser [the subject’s] fine.”