Vol. 78/No. 5      February 10, 2014

Shekleton was recounting his experience of being shocked with a cop Taser, a torturous and sometimes deadly practice. Police across the U.S. have killed more than 540 people with the weapon since 2001, according to Amnesty International.

In September 2008, deputy sheriff Ryan Eichenberger accused Shekleton of being in an argument outside a bar. When Shekleton said he hadn’t been in an argument, Eichenberger and other cops ordered him to put his hands behind his back. Shekleton, who is disabled and has limited use of his left arm, was unable to comply. Cops said he was resisting arrest and shocked him with a Taser.

Shekleton, a used car dealer, fell to the ground, injuring his head and neck. As he was being handcuffed, people who knew him told the police about his bad arm. Charges against Shekleton were dropped a few weeks later for lack of evidence.

Some 265 police agencies in Iowa deploy Tasers. According to the Des Moines Register at least eight lawsuits accusing cops of excessive or unnecessary force involving the stun guns have been filed since 2007, including one by Shekleton. The paper has run a series of articles exposing the widespread Taser use.

According to the world’s leading stun gun manufacturer, Taser International, the devices “carry fine wires that connect to the target and deliver the TASER into his neural network. These pulses … overwhelm the normal nerve traffic, causing involuntary muscle contractions and impairment of motor skills.”

In the last six months of 2013, two Iowa men — Michael Zubrod, 39, in Worth County and Thomas Martinez, 40, in Coralville — died after receiving Taser shocks.

Zubrod’s September death was ruled a homicide, but none of the cops are being charged. In July Martinez was having seizures in a restaurant when police said he had become combative to medical personnel, and used the Taser on him. His mother, Martha McKee, is seeking to obtain the police records. “They’re just trying to cover their butts, that’s what I think is going on,” she told the Register in December. “My god, it’s been since July and they’re still waiting for the examiner’s report?”

On Oct. 7, a Muscatine County jailer used a Taser four times on Marie Franks, 58, a mentally disabled inmate. The following day jail nurse Ashley Smith sent in a report on what she had witnessed. For months jail officials and County Attorney Alan Ostergren said there was no such report. On Jan. 10, however, Ostergren notified the Register that the report does exist. But county officials have since refused to release it on the grounds that it’s confidential.

At least three of the cases reviewed by the Register involved people with mental disabilities and two others had seizures just before they were shocked. In four of those incidents, cops were aware of this before they used the stun gun.

Of the eight lawsuits, five were settled before going to a jury. Two are ongoing and one was dropped. Shekleton received $150,000 in damages in a settlement in 2013.
 
 
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