Richard Kevin Karlo

Autopsy Shows Man Died From Drugs, Not Taser

AP 15sep04

[More on Tasers]

Autopsy results show that the man who died after being stunned several times with a police Taser gun last month died because of cocaine in his system and not because of the electric charge.

Richard Kevin Karlo, 44, died in police custody Aug. 19 after officers used a Taser gun to try and restrain him after he had attacked them.

The autopsy report released Wednesday show that Karlo's cause of death was "acute cocaine and nortriptyline toxicology." His injuries were "sustained following agitated delirium with subsequent restraint by law enforcement," the autopsy said.

Officers were called to South Raleigh Street and West Tennessee Avenue after Karlo's girlfriend reported that he was behaving erratically. Others in the neighborhood had called to say that there was a man walking in the middle of the street, frothing at the mouth and swinging a pipe.

Witnesses said that the man had been banging on, tampering with and breaking into cars parked on the street. Two officers who responded to the scene said when they tried to talk to him, Karlo became combative and charged at them. That's when they tried to subdue him with a baton and a Taser gun. Four attempts failed, as the man pulled the barbed Taser probes from his clothes and charged at the officers again and again, police said.

The officers were only able to take Karlo to the ground and get him under control after other officers arrived at the scene.

Karlo was taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. Karlo's family said that the officers overreacted to the situation but Police Chief Gerry Whitman disagreed, defending his officers.

"They showed great restraint. They were overpowered by this person. They lost control of this person in hand-to-hand attempts to take him into custody, and then they resorted to the next level, which I thought was appropriate given the circumstances," Whitman had said.