Frenzied School Intruder Dies After Officers Use Taser Guns

A deranged man who broke into a Van Nuys school died Thursday after police shot him several times with electrical Taser guns and struck him with their night sticks, Los Angeles police said.

The man, whose identity was being withheld, was the fifth person to die after being shot with Tasers since Los Angeles police began using the weapon in 1980, according to police and coroner’s investigators. However, the Taser was a contributing factor in only one of the four previous deaths, coroner’s spokesman Bill Gold said.

An autopsy was scheduled for today, police Lt. Charles Higbie said.

Higbie, who investigates all police shootings, said Officers John J. Corrigan, 34, and John J. Carter, 38, confronted the man shortly after 1 a.m. in a darkened classroom at the French American School, a private bilingual institution operated out of a renovated home in the 14700 block of Victory Boulevard.

The officers went there after a telephone complaint that a man was “repeatedly striking his head on the curb” in front of the school, Higbie said. The man later climbed a wire mesh fence, broke into the school and was “kicking and cursing an imaginary individual or individuals” when the officers discovered him, Higbie said.

Trying to Evade Officers

The man, in his 30s, was trying to elude the officers, Higbie said, when Corrigan and a third officer, Sgt. Leroy Riley, 49, each shot him twice with Taser guns, devices that fire needle-like darts designed to stun but not kill.

The stun guns did not stop the man, Higbie said, so the officers subdued him with their batons. When the man lost consciousness and could not be revived by the officers, he was taken to Valley Hospital Medical Center, where he lapsed into a coma and died at 2:36 a.m., Higbie said.

The man suffered “minor scalp and facial injuries,” but investigators did not know if the injuries were self-inflicted or inflicted by the officers, Higbie said.

The Taser, developed in 1974 by California inventor Jack Cover, shoots a pair of barbed darts into the clothing or skin. The darts drag fine wires behind them that deliver a 50,000-volt shock from a battery pack in the weapon.

Meant to Daze

According to a Taser Industries International brochure, the charge causes involuntary muscle contractions and a resulting loss of balance, “dazing” the individual for a few minutes but not causing unconsciousness or physical damage.

Drugs were a factor in three of the four previous deaths after Taser shootings by Los Angeles police, Gold said.

The first victim was Raul Guevara Jr., 30, of San Fernando, a burglary suspect who died in the Van Nuys Jail in January, 1984, after being shot twice with the Taser and subdued when a civilian jailer applied a bar-arm hold across his throat, a controversial restraint forbidden by the Police Department in 1982.

A coroner’s investigator ruled that a heart problem aggravated by the effort Guevara exerted during the struggle caused his death, Gold said, and not the Taser.

The second victim was Vincent Alvarez, 27, of Glendale, who died in August, 1984, after being shot twice with the device. Gold said a coroner’s investigator ruled that Alvarez died of heart failure caused by the hallucinogen phencyclidine, or PCP.

Lannie Stanley McCoy, 34, of Los Angeles, died in August, 1985, when, according to police, he was shot three times with a Taser gun after refusing orders to drop a knife and screwdriver. Gold said a coroner’s investigator ruled that McCoy died of acute cocaine intoxication.

The one death at least partly attributed to the Taser was that of Cornelius Garland Smith, who was shot twice with the device in April, 1985, by officers who found him writhing and screaming on the ground near 110th Street and Avalon Boulevard in Los Angeles. Gold said Smith, 35, died from a combination of the Taser, PCP and a congenital heart problem for which he had been taking medication.

‘Combination of Things’

“The cases up to now have always been a combination of things, the Taser with something else involved,” Gold said. “We have never had a case where the Taser was the direct cause.”

A physician who has studied the effects of the Taser said the device is safe and “only in very rare occurrences” is fatal to people with heart problems. A recent, unpublished study at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital in Los Angeles found that 70% of the people on whom the Taser was used had PCP in their system. That drug can give those who consume it added strength to break handcuffs or kick open doors of squad cars.

Toxicology tests will determine if the man killed Thursday had been taking drugs or alcohol, but the results will not be known for several weeks, Gold said.

Attorney Barry Resnick, who represents Taser Industries, said the device is used by 350 police departments, prisons and other law enforcement agencies. The Los Angeles Police Department, which has about 600 Tasers, uses the device three to five times daily and has found it successful in subduing suspects 85% of the time, Resnick said.

Resnick said the Taser will only malfunction if its batteries are not charged and can only be fatal if the user continues pressing the button releasing the electrical charge for several minutes.