Dick Cook, Staff Reporter
Copyright 2006 Chattanooga Publishing Company
CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- Bradley County Sheriff’s Department investigators downloaded information from a computer chip in the Taser used to shock Christopher McCargo last month and turned the data over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday.
“The device was applied one time, briefly,” Sheriff Dan Gilley said of the information taken from the computer chip. “It was used within a minute of him getting to the jail.”
Mr. McCargo, 42, went into “seizure-type activity” about three hours after being shocked on Feb. 24, officials said. He was taken to Cleveland Community Hospital, where he lapsed into a coma, officials said.
Two area pastors and the local NAACP president represented the McCargo family when investigators downloaded data from the stun gun and turned it over to Agent Stanley Ruffin.
“I’m a skeptic,” said Harry Johnson, one of the observers for the family. “I came in with a few questions. Did the firing of the Taser cause his condition, or were there other causes? I don’t think that has been resolved.”
Officials said several hours of a digital video recording of the booking area where Mr. McCargo was shocked could not be retrieved from a computer hard drive.
“That (video) disc will be analyzed, and it will show if it’s been tampered with,” Sheriff Gilley said.
“We want to know what happened, and we are being wide open and forthright,” he said.
Cleveland police were called to Mr. McCargo’s Randolph Drive address and found him lying in the road, a police report states. Officer Matt Ruth reported that Mr. McCargo told him he had “been drinking and smoking marijuana and crack cocaine,” the report states.
Mr. McCargo was arrested for public intoxication and taken to the Bradley County Jail, officials said. In the booking area, Mr. McCargo became combative, and an M26 Taser was applied to his neck to control him, officials said.
Three hours later, after going into a holding cell, Mr. McCargo began having seizures, and emergency medical help was called, officials said.
E-mail Dick Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com
March 7, 2006