Pubdate: Sat, 21 Aug 2004
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2004 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Kirk Mitchell, Denver Post Staff Writer

MAN HIT BY TASER 4 TIMES, POLICE SAY

Relatives say the victim was on cocaine and had heart problems. Police
say the officers used restraint.

Denver police officers used a Taser stun gun four times on a man who
was high on cocaine Thursday night before he started breathing heavily
and later died, according to the police chief.

But Chief Gerry Whitman said the man attacked the two officers
ferociously and the officers tried a variety of nonlethal tactics to
subdue him, including wrestling with him and hitting him with a police
baton.

"I think they used great restraint," Whitman said Friday at a news
conference at police headquarters. "They were overpowered by this person."

But family members of Richard "Kevin" Karlo, 44, said he would have
survived had authorities treated his case as a medical emergency
rather than a crime.

Karlo had a heart condition and was overdosing on cocaine when police
arrested him, said Karlo's stepdaughter, Jacklyn Long, 21.

"All they should have done is take him to the hospital," Long said. "I
know in my heart he was scared. It makes me sick to think how he died."

Mayoral spokeswoman Lindy Eichenbaum Lent said whether the Taser
played a role Karlo's death won't be known until an autopsy is completed.

Family members say Karlo, a brick mason who lived with a menagerie of
exotic animals, including a boa constrictor, an iguana and tarantulas,
used cocaine to counter chronic back pain.

Karlo's back was broken when he was 20, and the only thing that
controlled intense pain was the illegal stimulant, according to Long.

He had overdosed on cocaine three times before, Long
said.

Karlo was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance on
June 26, according to Denver County District Court records. Police
arrested him at Denver Health Medical Center after a medical
technician found drugs and a cocaine pipe in his pants, records say.

Long said that during that case, she held his hand as he was
overdosing and talked him into going to the hospital for medical
treatment. He was docile, she said. The same would have happened had
police taken a different approach Thursday night, she said.

Police were called at 7 p.m. Thursday about a man who was frothing at
the mouth, looking into cars and swinging a pole near West Tennessee
Avenue and South Raleigh Street in southwest Denver.

Whitman said two police officers, one with nine years' experience and
the other with one, responded to a report of a man who had overdosed
on cocaine.

When they arrived at 1011 S. Raleigh St., they saw a man making
threatening gestures to a woman on the other side of a fence. They
ordered him to step back, but he lunged at them instead, Whitman said.

One of the officers used a Taser on the man, he said. With the probes
still attached to Karlo, the officer sent two more five-second
charges into him, Whitman said.

Karlo yanked the two probes off and grabbed a metal fence post to use
as a weapon, according to Whitman.

An off-duty parole officer joined in, striking Karlo in the leg with a
baton to force him to the ground, the chief said. He said the man was
struck only once with the baton.

Meanwhile, a police officer reloaded his Taser with another cartridge
and shocked Karlo again.

The officers handcuffed Karlo. When he had trouble breathing, an
ambulance transported him to Denver Health, where he was pronounced
dead.

Steve Tuttle, spokesman for Taser International, which manufactures
the stun guns used in Denver, said the company's products have been
used more than 40,000 times throughout the country, and only four
autopsies have concluded that Tasers contributed to a death.

However, the company previously acknowledged to The Denver Post that
44 people have died after being shot with a Taser.
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