The Region - News from March 30, 1986

The family of a man who died after being subdued by police using a Taser weapon has filed a wrongful death suit claiming the City of Los Angeles should have known the officers it had hired and trained “were dangerous and violent” and “prone to the use of unnecessary . . . force.” According to the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, Cornelius Smith, 35, was shot repeatedly with the weapon, which delivered a 50,000-volt electrical shock with each shot. The police reported that Smith struggled with officers after they found him writhing and screaming on the ground near 110th Street and Avalon Boulevard last April 11. He was restrained and taken to a hospital where he suffered cardiac arrest and died, police said. The district attorney’s office ruled that the officers acted legally to subdue a man suffering from PCP intoxication.