Taser Death: Daniel Sylvester (Crescent City, CA)

We are sad to report another taser-related killing in America. This time it happened in Crescent City, CA on June 22, 2010. Two unidentified Del Norte County sheriff's deputies shot 35-year old Daniel Sylvester with their taser. Sylvester was handcuffed and had trouble breathing. Sylvester was given CPR at the scene and in the emergency room at Sutter Coast Hospital, but he could not be revived. Sylvester was pronounced dead by emergency room staff.

The Sheriff's office came to Sylvester's home as a result of a 911 call that described him as a man with a history of psychological problems who was “out of control”. The reporting party said that he or she and the other residents were scared and had left.

Sylvester's mother tells a different story [SOURCE].

Elaine Sylvester -- who said she witnessed Daniel Sylvester's exchange with deputies -- said the accounts by Del Norte Sheriff's Office officials in the local paper are not at all what she saw.

Elaine Sylvester says that Daniel Sylvester had mental health problems and that his medication had recently been changed. On June 22, he was acting frustrated, she said, and began yelling. Elaine Sylvester said that she and others in the house left, and that she tried to reach mental health workers, but the department was not open at 6:30 a.m.

Elaine said she called 911 and told the dispatcher that she was concerned for Daniel's well-being, but that he was not a threat to anyone else.

”I wasn't at any time afraid he was going to hurt me,” Elaine Sylvester said. “I just wanted someone to calm him down.”

Elaine Sylvester said she met the responding officers down the street and reiterated the message, and said there was no one else in the home. When the deputies got to the house, Daniel Sylvester was in the front yard near the door, she said. When officers tried to talk with him, Elaine Sylvester said, her son said they were scaring him and to go away. He backed into the house and tried to close the door, Elaine Sylvester said, and the officers followed him inside, where they began to taser him.

For hours she didn't know whether her son was dead or alive, she said.

It seems that the police used poor judgement. The young man was not armed. He was not in attack mode ... he seems to have been retreating back to his home. Was it really necessary for this pre-judicial electrocution by the unidentified police officers?

Please let our blog know if you have any additional insights or information to share on this taser-related death.