Taser Death: Rodney Brown (Cleveland, OH)

Rodney Brown, a 40-year old man was stopped by police officers on New Year's Eve in Cleveland OH. For some reason the routine traffic stop turned into an effort by the police to arrest the man. Brown resisted arrest. The unidentified police officers pumped Brown with 50,000 volts of electricity from their tasers. He went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at nearby University Hospital.

His mother, Shirley Brown, indicates that her youngest son was a mild-mannered guy who rarely left the house.  She indicates that he suffered in 2005 when he was diagnosed as bi-polar and schizophrenic.   The diagnosis came after two of his older brothers died just months apart, one in a motorcycle accident and the other from a ruptured aorta.

There is obviously much more information to come on this taser-related death. My point of view is clear ... the death penalty is inappropriate for a charge of resisting arrest. Something is clearly wrong when a 40-year old man is killed by the police for simply being disrespectful.