Original Article
Aug 3, 3:03 AM EDT
Federal officials looking into Taser death
ATLANTA (AP) -- Federal officials are looking into the death of a man who was shocked multiple times with a Taser at the Gwinnett County Jail.
Meanwhile, another Georgia law enforcement agency has decided to stop using the stun gun.
Frederick Williams died in May 2004 after deputies stunned him five times within a minute at the jail.
On Tuesday, Gwinnett Chief Medical Examiner Steven Dunton said he received a letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Plummer, who said he had been assigned to "review" Williams' death.
"They must be investigating it," Dunton said. "Why would he write this letter?"
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Atlanta refused to confirm or deny if there is a federal investigation of the incident.
Dunton had announced Monday that he would reevaluate the autopsies of Williams and Ray Charles Austin, another man who died after being repeatedly shocked with a Taser. That announcement was in response to a new safety warning by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International Inc. that said multiple shocks from the stun guns could cause death.
And as concern over the safety of Tasers grows, the DeKalb County Police Department has decided to stop using the 125 Tasers the department had. County CEO Vernon Jones said the company's new safety warning "just nailed the coffin" on the use of Tasers by DeKalb County police.
Deputies with the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office, a separate department, will continue to use Tasers in the county jail, Sheriff Thomas Brown said. But the department will revise its policies to conform with Taser International's new warning.
The Macon Police Department and the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office stopped using Tasers last year.
But Taser International maintains the stun guns are safe.
"The warning never indicated that our technology has caused death," Steve Tuttle, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail Tuesday. "The media has somehow managed to misrepresent this commonsense guideline into sensational and misleading headlines that could have serious adverse effects on the safety of law enforcement officers and citizens.
"Statistics from agency after agency show beyond a shadow of a doubt that an officer armed with a Taser device is far less likely to injure or be injured than one without this lifesaving tool."
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