Civil Rights Panel Urges U.S. Probe of Barber’s Death : Investigation: Michael James Bryant was shot with Taser and hogtied in back of police car. Coroner ruled case a homicide.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted Friday to ask for a Justice Department investigation into the death of Pasadena barber Michael James Bryant, who died in police custody last month after he was shot with a Taser gun and hogtied.

Commission Chairman Arthur A. Fletcher said in an interview from Washington that after some resistance by two commissioners appointed by former President George Bush, the vote to go to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno was unanimous.

“The colloquy was around the civil rights implications of the case,” Fletcher said. “I was able to indicate that the use of force was the same as the police use of force against (Rodney G.) King.”

He said that Commissioners Constance Horner and Robert P. George, both of whom were appointed to the commission in the final days of the Bush Administration, had initially questioned the need for action by a civil rights body.

“Once the new members were satisfied that it was a legitimate inquiry, all resistance to sending it over (to the Justice Department) melted,” Fletcher said. Neither Horner nor George could be reached for comment.

Police gave the following account of the incident that began March 8 when Bryant hailed a San Marino police officer: The officer said he suspected Bryant was on drugs. When the officer tried to stop Bryant from driving, he sped away. Bryant led police on a chase through three jurisdictions to a Highland Park apartment complex, where he fell into a pool. Los Angeles police shot him with a Taser shotgun, then hogtied him as he continued struggling. Bryant stopped breathing in the back of a police car.

Last week, the Pasadena City Council asked for Fletcher’s assistance in seeking a federal investigation because of community outrage over Bryant’s death. Residents of the northwest Pasadena neighborhood where Bryant was a popular figure have compared his case to that of King.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has found the cause of Bryant’s death to be acute cocaine intoxication and “asphyxiation from restraint procedures.” The coroner classified the death as a homicide.

Los Angeles police officers restrained Bryant with handcuffs and a “cordcuff,” a hobble that ties wrists and ankles behind an individual’s back, and--with officers from Pasadena and San Marino--placed him on his stomach in a San Marino police car.

An LAPD policy bans officers from placing hogtied suspects on their stomachs. Pathologists have warned that the pressure from placing a suspect on his stomach while he is cordcuffed can interfere with his breathing.

Fletcher said that he expects to ask the attorney general and the civil rights division of the Justice Department to report on the use of Taser guns and cordcuffs. In the last five years, 35 people have died in custody after they were cordcuffed, files from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office indicate, although in only five of those cases was the cordcuffing tied to the deaths.

The commission did not investigate the King case, Fletcher said, because it was unable to win a supplemental appropriation to do so. But the commission has scheduled three days of hearings in Los Angeles in June to examine racial and ethnic tension and poverty, Fletcher said.

“We have directed staff to look at some way to include the (Bryant) case in those hearings,” Fletcher said, adding that the commission lacks the money to investigate Bryant’s death on its own.

Pasadena Mayor Rick Cole said Friday that he was happy that the commission had responded to the City Council’s appeal. “I’m pleased that this will ensure that the federal government plays a role in a full and fair investigation,” he said.

The council had also appealed to city officials from Los Angeles, including Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Chief Willie L. Williams, to release all information about the involvement of Los Angeles officers in Bryant’s death.