This article is more than 1 year old

Oz cops in Taser fatality

Victim naked, armed and now dead

A north Queensland man has died after being tasered by police officers during a "domestic incident", Australia's ABC News reports.

Police were called to deal with "a naked man was acting aggressively and destroying property at a residence at Brandon", according to a statement. He was allegedly armed with an iron bar and covered in blood.

ABC continues: "The 39-year-old man had allegedly assaulted another occupant of the residence and had damaged property and sustained cuts to his arm.

"It is believed that a Taser was deployed and that police managed to physically subdue the man. However, before the ambulance could arrive at the scene the man stopped breathing."

The statement concludes that attempts to resuscitate the man failed. Police are treating the incident as "a death in custody".

Queensland Police Minister Neil Roberts said the Ethical Standards Command was probing the death and the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) and the Coroner had been notified.

Roberts added that "the investigation into the man's death will examine whether a stun gun was used appropriately". He concluded: "We need to allow the full investigation of all of those agencies to take place and they will be focusing, I'm sure, very critically on the appropriate use of the taser." ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like