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PrintMOBERLY — A Howard County prosecutor says no criminal charges will be filed in the death of a suspected drunken driver killed after a police officer fired a Taser at him.
Prosecutor Mason Gebhardt says Moberly police officer J.J. Baird was justified in using a Taser to try to arrest 23-year-old Stanley Harlan of Moberly during a traffic stop in August.
Gebhardt says he reviewed reports and a video of the incident to determine Harlan was resisting arrest.
Baird made the stop, suspecting Harlan was driving drunk and placed him under arrest. Police say when Harlan resisted, the officer deployed his Taser twice to subdue him.
The first Taser shock lasted five seconds and the subsequent shock was only one second. Harlan became unresponsive soon thereafter.
Officers started CPR until an ambulance arrived.
Harlan was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Comments
That is such B.S.! I hope Stan's mom gets a real high quality lawyer and takes Moberly to court for everything she can get.
She should demand a second investigation by the State and the F.B.I. as well.
If he hadn't resisted arrest, then that wouldn't have happened...
Witnesses on the scene said he was not resisting. Once any suspect is in cuffs there is really no valid reason to have to Taser them. This has been proven many times over.
Chuck, any word on if Mason Gebhardt based his decision on the Missouri Highway Patrol investigation and maybe his recommendation came from such a report?
Oops, looks like I should have read the Tribune's story first:
"Gebhardt reviewed all evidence collected by Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators and watched video of the arrest."
I can't elaborate much... But, I can say that here are usually two courses of action in a case like this, and they can be pursued simultaneously. One is to file for criminal charges and the other is to file a civil suit.
Let me just say this; just because one course of action seems to have run it's course, does not mean that the other course of action has.............
Rick.
John Schultz people can come to biased decisions in these cases as has been proven too many times over in the past in relating to these types of incidents.
How many times has this happened now across this nation? Over 300 deaths plus or minus last I researched.
It is time for authorities higher up than some state patrol office to get into the foray and investigate these incidents themselves along with other outside international advocacy groups.
Anyone know what the level of drugs and alcohol were?