Original Article Taser use prompts FBI probe in Alexander case Videotape could hold key to abuse claim Jason Brown jasbrown@gannett.com December 9, 2004 Lafayette resident Kevin Alexander said he has experienced a myriad of health problems since police used a Taser to subdue him in August. Alexander said he now has trouble walking and turning his head.In the face of an FBI investigation and possible lawsuits, the Lafayette Police Department remains tight-lipped about how its officers used Tasers against two suspects in recent months. Questions still surround the events of Aug. 25, when Kevin Alexander claims an officer shocked him with a Taser gun 17 times during an undercover drug sting. Police videotaped the operation, and Alexander said he believes the videotape will prove he is telling the truth. The police department refused a request by The Daily Advertiser to view the video, saying it is evidence in an ongoing investigation. Alexander, 27, still remembers what it felt like that night. Every muscle in your body just tightens up, he said. It feels like needles, just billions and trillions of needles sticking in your body. And wherever the prongs are hitting you, you can feel that burn. Lafayette police said at the time that a Taser gun was used in Alexanders arrest, but not nearly the number of times Alexander claims. The FBI office in New Orleans confirmed that it has conducted a preliminary investigation into Alexanders claims. In October, the department again faced questions about Taser use when Dwayne Anthony Dunn died in police custody after officers used a Taser gun to subdue him. Although the coroners office later ruled that the Taser did not cause Dunns death, the police department recalled most of its Tasers for about a two-week period to install new software to track Taser usage and review its policy. Attorneys for both Alexander and the Dunn family said they plan to file a lawsuit against the police and the city. The city and the police department said they wont comment on pending litigation, but strongly defended Taser use by the department. There have been no Taser-related deaths in Lafayette Parish, said Dee Stanley, chief administrative officer of city-parish government. Devices face increasing scrutiny Taser guns are devices that can immobilize a person by emitting an electrical shock from as far away as 21 feet. They have been around since the early 1990s, but the guns have come under fire recently with groups that have called for a halt to their use, such as Amnesty International. Taser International, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based manufacturer of the guns, denies the Taser has ever caused a single death. But a study done by The Arizona Republic showed that since 1999, at least 78 people in the United States have died after the gun was used on them. In only eight of those cases, however, have Tasers been cited as the cause of death, the study said. In Louisiana, the most recent case is in Jefferson Parish, where a 35-year-old man died Dec. 4 after deputies shocked him twice. The Lafayette Police Department introduced Taser guns to its officers in November 2003, touting them as just another tool in the officers arsenal, but no longer is anyone in the department allowed to speak about Alexanders claims or Taser use in general. I felt the life leaving my body More than three months later, Alexander says he still bears the scars from the night he was the target of an undercover drug operation by Lafayette police and the Lafayette Metro Narcotics Task Force. Alexander now walks with a limp. Some of the burn marks have faded slightly, while others, on the back of his neck and at the base of his back, rise off of his skin like dark sores that never heal. On the night of Aug. 25, Alexander said he drove up to the Best Value Hotel on North University Avenue to meet with a friend. He went inside a hotel room and was introduced to his friends cousin, apparently a police informant. Shortly after he sat down, police officers up to 12 of them burst through the door and ordered him to get down on the floor. Before he could comply, he said, they used a Taser on him. He immediately collapsed, the shock of the gun causing his body to flail on the ground, he said. Alexander said officers kept screaming at him not to swallow the dope. He said he told them he didnt have any but they continued to shock him anyway. All I remember is they were shocking me, he said. "I felt the life leaving my body." He said at some point the wire that connects the Taser to the shock prongs broke off. An officer then got down on top of him, he said, and placed the Taser directly to his skin, sending 50,000 volts of electricity through his body with each shock. He claims that is what left the burn marks, about 30 of them in all. Instead of arresting Alexander, however, police dropped him off at a hospital that night. In an interview shortly after the event, Cpl. Mark Francis, Lafayette police spokesman, said it was because Alexanders heart rate was elevated from ingesting crack cocaine. His only reason for going to the hospital, initially, had nothing to do with the Taser, Francis said. Alexander later turned himself in to police and was charged with possession of cocaine, obstruction of justice and resisting an officer. FBI investigating claim Alexander took his complaint of police abuse to the FBI. Sheila Thorn, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans office, recently confirmed it has concluded a preliminary investigation into the case and forwarded its findings to the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. She would not comment further. Now, questions about Alexander must go through the police departments lawyer, Jim Pate, an assistant city-parish attorney. Pate said he was unaware of the FBIs involvement when he spoke to The Daily Advertiser last week. We do not know what the FBI is investigating, he said. I dont know anything about it. No one from the FBI has contacted me. But Pate would not respond to Alexanders claims. Were not to comment on the use of Tasers at the current time, Pate said. The officers version of events is contained in a short affidavit from the Lafayette Police Department obtained by The Daily Advertiser. On the night of Aug. 25, the Lafayette Metro Narcotics Task Force received an informant to contact Alexander and order $100 worth of crack cocaine from him. The informant directed Alexander to the hotel. When Alexander arrived, he was met by the informant and an undercover officer. The officer gave Alexander money in exchange for what was presented as crack cocaine, the affidavit said. Alexander was then arrested by agents. There was no mention of Alexander resisting arrest in the affidavit, although officers later said he did. There was also no mention of the Taser being used. Videotape of incident exists Alexanders arrest record shows a string of drug arrests in Lafayette, beginning in 1996 when he was arrested on a charge of distribution of cocaine. Alexander claims the police have harassed him for years. He served time in jail for negligent homicide in 1996 following the death of his cousin when the two were playing with a gun that accidentally went off. In the affidavit, police wrote that Alexander confessed in a videotaped interview that he had transported crack cocaine to the location for the purpose of selling it, and that he further confessed in an untaped interview that this was not the first time he had done this. They lying, man, Alexander said about the affidavit. Its like they were threatening me to say that I swallowed some dope. Like I told my attorney, I told them anything they wanted to know to let me up out that room. That whole affidavit is a lie. Criminal charges against Alexander are still pending as a result of the drug raid, according to Pate. The police department has forwarded the case to the District Attorneys Office. Repeated attempts to contact the prosecutor in charge of the case were unsuccessful. In accordance with police policy, the drug bust that snared Alexander was videotaped, the police affidavit said. He was videotaped because this was an undercover sting operation, and in all of our sting operations we set up video surveillance to conduct a buy/bust operation to be used in court as evidence later, Francis said in an earlier interview. Alexander realizes that the camera could be a key witness in his case its credibility hard to challenge even if some doubt the story of someone who has had brushes with the law. If they think Im lying, why dont they show the tape? he said. Show the tape. The Lafayette Daily Advertiser December 9, 2004