By Chad Smith
The Gainesville Sun
A 29-year-old man died in police custody Monday morning after he was shot twice with Taser stun guns during an altercation with deputies and staff at Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, police said.
Nehemiah Lazar Dillard went into cardiac arrest and died either en route to a hospital or shortly after arriving, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Todd Kelly said.
Kelly said it was not immediately clear whether Dillard died as a direct result of being subdued with the Taser.
“There’s no evidence that it is or isn’t (related),” Kelly said. “That’s part of what the investigation hopefully will unfold.”
But, he added, “There’s usually some other factor involved.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy, while detectives will investigate as they would with any “unintended death,” Kelly said.
Dillard, who lived in Spring Hill in Hernando County and was reportedly going through a divorce, was detained Sunday under the Baker Act after displaying strange behavior in a stranger’s yard on Southwest Sixth Terrace near Micanopy, Kelly said. He was apparently in the area to visit his mother.
The agency tracked down his wife, Yolene, to tell her that her husband died.
Dillard said while he was in Micanopy that “he was going to meet his maker and he’s going to take someone with him,” Kelly said.
He was taken to Meridian, on Southwest 13th Street, where at about 8:45 a.m. Monday deputies arrived after he stripped down to his underwear and started “tearing apart” the facility, Kelly said.
Dillard was 6-foot-3 and weighed 276 pounds and was not easy for the deputies to subdue, he said.
Deputy Carlos McWatters deployed his Taser first with “little or no effect, but it diverted (Dillard’s) attention,” Kelly said.
Kelly said Dillard charged McWatters and punched him in the eye, leaving a small cut.
Deputy Joel Coppock then deployed his Taser and was able to subdue Dillard.
Meridian staff then administered a dose of an unidentified medication to calm him, Kelly said.
“A short time later Dillard began to show signs of deteriorating health and went into cardiac arrest,” according to a Sheriff’s Office news release.
He was transported to Shands at the University of Florida, where he was pronounced dead.
Dr. David A. Meurer, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at UF, said some researchers have linked the seemingly unexplainable deaths of agitated individuals like Dillard to “excited delirium.”
The researchers, like ones at the University of Miami Department of Neurology, have found that cases in which police use force or Tasers that result in death can be attributed to a central nervous system disorder.
“It’s not an obvious cause and effect,” Meurer said of Tasers and death, noting that the research on excited delirium is controversial in the medical community. “Is it an established fact that everyone agrees on? No.”
Steve Tuttle, a spokesman at Taser International Inc., which manufactures and sells the devices, said in a statement, “Until all the facts surrounding this tragic incident are known, it is inappropriate to jump to conclusions on the cause of death.”
"(Taser) technology has proven to reduce excessive use of force claims and these highly publicized cases represent a small percentage of arrests where it has saved numerous lives, dramatically reduced injuries to both officers and suspects while reducing excessive use of force litigation,” Tuttle wrote.
Some organizations, though, have been pushing for restrictions on the devices in the wake of reports of deaths in cases in which they’re used.
Last month, Amnesty International, a worldwide organization promoting human rights and documenting abuse, urged stricter limits on police use of Tasers, reporting that at least 500 people had been killed in the United States after being shocked with Tasers while being arrested or in jail.
Of the deaths, the most — 92 — were in California, followed by Florida, where 65 occurred, according to the organization’s statistics.
Dillard’s death brought Florida’s total up to at least 66.
While he had no previous criminal history in Alachua County, Dillard had been arrested at least four times in his hometown in recent years.
On Jan. 30, he was arrested after an argument with his wife, whom he allegedly grabbed by the hair, threw to the floor of their living room and hit in the face with his hand.
According to a Hernando County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, Yolene Dillard said she and Nehemiah were “in the beginning of a divorce and they had been arguing over marital assets.”
He was charged with domestic battery.
Hernando County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Cinda Moore said Nehemiah Dillard had been arrested three times in 2010: once for violating a court injunction, once for domestic battery and once for violating a pre-trial release agreement.
He was scheduled to appear in court on the most recent case on March 13.
Copyright 2012 New York Times Company