D.A. Faults Officer in Stun Gun Incident : Weapons: A report says the sergeant used unjustified force in repeatedly jolting a psychiatric patient who died. Officials are not planning to file charges.

A Ventura police sergeant used “inappropriate and unjustified” force by repeatedly jolting a 24-year-old psychiatric patient with a stun gun shortly before the man’s death in February, county prosecutors conclude in a report released Thursday.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, however, said he will not file criminal charges against Sgt. George Morris for continuing to use a 50,000-volt Taser weapon on Duane Johnson of Oxnard even after he posed no threat to officers.

Manslaughter charges could not be proved because the cause of Johnson’s death is unknown, and it is unlikely that a jury would conclude that Morris acted “without due caution and circumspection,” the report said.

“Considering that Sgt. Morris was acting in the line of duty and at the request of hospital officials in attempting to restrain, move and subdue Duane Johnson, his conduct clearly would not constitute” a crime, the report said.

“While we conclude Sgt. Morris’ use of the Taser was unjustified and inappropriate, his use of it is understandable under the circumstances,” the report said. “Police were confronted with a difficult situation.”

Also, prosecutors said they found no evidence that Morris or the other officers were told by hospital officials that Johnson had heart disease.

Johnson, a muscular former athlete, was a cardiac patient at Ventura County Medical Center when he died Feb. 13 at the end of a 45-minute incident that began when he threw himself into windows and walls to protest a transfer back to a mental hospital.

Officers first shocked him during a scuffle in his hospital room, then to stop him from grabbing at people and door frames while tethered face down on a gurney and finally to get him to submit to handcuffing. He died within minutes of the final application.

“What we’re given in hindsight is that the force used clearly was excessive,” Kevin McGee, chief deputy district attorney, said Thursday. “It was unreasonable to use the Taser just to gain compliance. But that doesn’t mean it was criminal. Reasonable people certainly could disagree on that given the circumstances.”

Indeed, the Police Department found days after the incident that Morris and another officer who had shocked Johnson once had acted within policy. None of the witnesses to the incident “was explicitly critical of the police conduct,” the district attorney found.

Two mental health workers who saw Morris jolt Johnson told investigators that they did not believe the sergeant needed to use the Taser to make the patient follow orders. But the consensus of all the witnesses “was that, given the situation presented to the officers and their lack of knowledge of Duane Johnson’s background . . . the police acted reasonably and in good faith,” according to the report.

During its investigation, the district attorney’s office studied not only the Johnson incident but stun-gun use by police agencies.

In his 53-page report, Bradbury concluded that the weapons are far more dangerous than advertised by their manufacturers and should be used only by officers with formal training, and only when suspects threaten to seriously injure or kill officers or the public.

The current Ventura Police Department standard, though tightened in July after a second stun-gun controversy, is less strict. It still allows use of the electric guns if minor injuries, not just serious ones, are deemed a possibility.

McGee said the distinction is important.

“It’s a change we feel strongly about, given the evidence that stun guns can be dangerous to a small percentage of the population. They ought to be used very conservatively,” he said.

Particularly susceptible to adverse reactions are people with heart disease, those under the influence of drugs and others who are extremely agitated, the district attorney said.

“If two or three of these factors are present, the risk appears greater,” the report said.

That was the case with Johnson. The county coroner ruled that Johnson had died because of heart disease, from his frenzied condition and because of electric shocks from the Taser. He also had been injected with a heavy dose of medication.

Ventura Police Chief Richard F. Thomas, who was on vacation and unavailable for comment Thursday, has reviewed drafts of the district attorney’s findings. He said last month that he will adopt Bradbury’s recommendations if they are reasonable.

Bradbury’s report emphasizes that stun-gun training is imperative. Although the Ventura department says it requires officers to be formally trained on the weapon, the district attorney report said Sgt. Morris received his training during an informal and unplanned session that lasted 10 minutes.

There was no record of Morris having received training, and Bradbury recommends that written records be kept to show when officers are certified to use the Taser.

About 50 of the 130 Ventura police officers use either the Taser weapon, which shoots darts, or a smaller, hand-size Nova gun. Both emit the same voltage.

In Ventura County, police in Ventura, Oxnard and Port Hueneme use stun guns, though Oxnard and Port Hueneme use only the Nova weapon.

The district attorney’s study, which took five months to complete and led to the hiring of an independent medical expert, was so extensive partly because Johnson’s death was the second fatality involving a stun gun in Ventura County in three years, McGee said.

Thomas Harvey died in 1987 after Port Hueneme police, responding to a domestic disturbance, shocked him. The coroner ruled that the death was caused by cocaine intoxication, but that repeated shocks from stun guns probably contributed to the death.

“Together, these two incidents kind of demanded that a thorough inquiry be done,” McGee said.

Robert A. Anderson, police chief in Port Hueneme, said he was not sure what to think about Bradbury’s recommendation that stun guns be used only by officers faced with the threat of serious injury.

“I have no idea how anybody can determine whether or not an injury is going to be minor or serious,” he said.

His department’s policy prohibits the use of stun guns to force suspects to comply with officers’ orders, Anderson said. “They are strictly for defense.”

Oxnard Police Chief Robert Owens could not be reached for comment.