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Louisville Courier-Journal - L
29 November 2006

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Larry Noles, 52, died Sept. 5

Taser didn't kill man, coroner

An electrical shock from a police Taser did not kill a 52-year-old man in September, according to an autopsy report released yesterday.

But his two sons said they don't believe that and plan to have their own medical assessment done.

Larry Noles died from excited delirium, also known as Bell's mania, which typically affects people with a history of mental illness, alcoholism or drug addiction, according to Dr. Ron Holmes, the county coroner.

"The Taser did not play a role in that," according to the autopsy report, Holmes said.

"The person affected with this, the endorphins and everything, just keeps on going to the point where it shuts your system down and you die," Holmes said.

Noles died Sept. 5 after two Louisville Metro Police officers shot him with Tasers.

Police said Noles was standing naked in the middle of the road at Seventh Street and Algonquin Parkway and was agitated and combative toward the two officers.

Noles' two sons said at a news conference last night that they don't believe the report.

"If it wasn't for that Taser, he and I would be talking right now," said one, Lenny Brown, 35. "They didn't have to do what they did to him."

Brown acknowledged his father's mental illness but said that he had lived just fine before being shocked and that the Taser had to have triggered his death.

Taser technology
Tasers fire two probes attached to 21-foot wires that send 50,000 volts of electricity into a person. If the probes connect properly, the shock causes the person to lose muscle control during the five-second jolt.

The weapon, carried by all metro patrol officers and sergeants, also can be applied directly to someone to deliver a shock that might cause an aggressive person to step back long enough for the officer to get control.

A direct stun is painful but does not incapacitate muscles as the probes do.

The autopsy report says Noles was hit by the Tasers twice, with three wounds from the probes on the chest and in the neck area, Holmes said. The autopsy also found no drugs or alcohol in Noles' system.

Holmes said excited delirium is rare, and he has seen none in his four years as coroner.

The two officers -- Michael Campbell, a 10-year veteran, and Matthew Metzler, a five-year veteran -- are on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the internal police investigation.

Mark Miller, the attorney representing Campbell, said neither officer will comment on the case while the investigation continues.

Metzler is represented by Mary Sharp, who works in the same office as Miller.

The police department's public integrity unit will use the autopsy as part of its investigation, said Officer Dwight Mitchell, a police spokesman. Public integrity investigates whether police actions might have been criminal acts.

Once its investigation is complete, the case will go to the department's professional standards unit, which investigates whether officers followed department policies.

The department's training unit also will review the incident to see whether anything needs to change in the way officers are trained to use Tasers, Mitchell said.

'Never once tried to fight'
Chief Robert White initially said the officers' actions appeared to follow police policies and training.

But a witness, Brandy Oliver, said during last night's news conference that the police did not need to resort to Tasers.

"He (Noles) never once tried to fight them," she said. "He just didn't put his clothes on."

Noles had a history with the law. In 1980, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 1979 stabbing death of Alicia G. Coleman in the apartment they shared.

He also was arrested in 2003 after he was accused of threatening to shoot someone at a Bardstown Road gas station, according to a police report. A disorderly conduct charge eventually was dismissed.

Court records indicated that he had been admitted to Ten Broeck Hospital for 10 days. His family has said that Noles suffered from depression related to his time in the military.

After Noles died, several local activists called for police to stop using the Tasers until it could be determined whether the jolt from the weapon caused the death.

Beth Wilson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said yesterday that she hopes metro police will carefully review the policy because she believes sometimes the weapons are used to compel compliance in situations that aren't life-threatening.

"There remain a lot of unanswered questions," Wilson said. "The safety of it needs to be more scrutinized."

Wilson said the autopsy report doesn't change her organization's stance that Tasers should be used only when there is an immediate threat to human life and "where deadly force would be the only other option."

The incident involving Noles was the 317th time a Taser had been used by metro police since they were issued in January 2005.

It was the first fatality after an incident involving a Taser.

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Louisville Courier-Journal - L29 November 2006

Taser didn't kill man, coroner

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Louisville Courier-Journal - L
29 November 2006