Hurricane police officer Ken Thompson must be having nightmares. Thompson is the officer that made the decision to electrocute Brian Cardall last week out on the side of a southern Utah highway earlier this month. The nightmare for Officer Thompson is that his actions are documented on audio tape.
Thompson was one of the multiple officers called to the scene by a 911 call placed by Brian Cardall's wife. Anna Cardall tells a dispatcher that her husband didn't have weapons on him. She states he hadn't been drinking and wasn't under the influence of drugs, outside of his Seroquel (prescribed to deal with his bipolar disorder).
Thompson took all of 42 seconds to fatally shoot an unarmed Cardall with his taser gun. 42 seconds. Listen the the police audio tape and judge for yourself.
ll again. He says in the recordings Cardall had tried to get up.
Officers struggle to get Brian Cardall into handcuffs. You can also hear Brian Cardall's wife yelling at him to comply. Almost immediately, they notice something wrong.
What is your take on this taser-related death?
Thompson was one of the multiple officers called to the scene by a 911 call placed by Brian Cardall's wife. Anna Cardall tells a dispatcher that her husband didn't have weapons on him. She states he hadn't been drinking and wasn't under the influence of drugs, outside of his Seroquel (prescribed to deal with his bipolar disorder).
Thompson took all of 42 seconds to fatally shoot an unarmed Cardall with his taser gun. 42 seconds. Listen the the police audio tape and judge for yourself.
Thompson arrives on the scene at 1:17 pm and begins to yell, "Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground!" Brian Cardall responds twice in what sounds as a panicked voice, "Is this a standoff! Don't shoot."Thompson is heard on the tape to say, "He went down, he tried to get up and I told him to stay down. I tased him again and then after the second time..." You can hear Brian Cardall moaning and screaming for about five seconds after Thompson first deploys a Taser on him. Following a two-second pause, Thompson deploys the Taser on Carda
About 42 seconds after arriving on scene the officer deployed his Taser yelling, "Taser deployed! Stay on the ground! Stay on the ground!"
ll again. He says in the recordings Cardall had tried to get up.Officers struggle to get Brian Cardall into handcuffs. You can also hear Brian Cardall's wife yelling at him to comply. Almost immediately, they notice something wrong.
"He's not breathing," an officer said on the tape. They also notice he is pale. More than three minutes after the Taser was deployed, someone can be heard saying, "no pulse."The officers and paramedics on the scene know immediately Thompson messed up as they realize he shot Cardall twice with a Taser, once when Cardall -- in the midst of a psychotic episode -- was already on the ground.
"Did he come after you?" an officer whispered at taser-happy officer Ken Thompson.Brian Cardall died at the scene. Hurricane police have declined to comment as to why the Thompson chose to use a Taser instead of attempting to subdue Cardall with other methods. Multiple officers were on the scene. Yet, they could only afford 42 seconds to assess the situation before getting busy with their so-called 'non-lethal' taser on a confused man.
"Huh?" Thompson replies on police and 911 dispatch recordings.
"He went right at you?" another officer asks Thompson again, later.
"Yeah," Thompson flatly replies.
What is your take on this taser-related death?
