Fort Worth Man Dead After Police Use Taser
By ASHANTI BLAIZE
Updated 7:43 AM CST, Mon, Apr 20, 2009
A mentally ill man died after Fort Worth police used a Taser on him, and his parents are questioning the use of the device.
The man's parents called police Saturday morning to their home in the 6000 block of Alva to help them control him. Charlotte Jacobs told police her 24-year-old son, Michael Jacobs Jr., was off his medication.
"They was trying to convince him to go to John Peter Smith, to get in the ambulance, but he wouldn't get in there," Jacobs said.
Officers said as they tried to detain him, he became confrontational.
"Officers' intentions were to do a mental application on the subject -- to take him to a hospital and get him back on his medication," police spokesman Sgt. Pedro Criado said. "Obviously, the situation escalated, and officers had to Tase the adult."
Family members told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that police officers used excessive force to subdue him.
Charlotte Jacobs said she watched as officers struggled with her son and then used a Taser gun on him.
"He was laying flat on his stomach like that, shaking, and he was foaming out the mouth," she said. "I came out and said, 'Ya'll are killing him.'"
Paramedics transported him to JPS Hospital, where he later died.
His family said they wonder if different circumstances could have saved his life.
"They didn't work fast enough," his mother said. "They let him lay there 20 or 30 minutes before they called the ambulance back."
The police officer who used her Taser on Michael Jacobs Jr. is now on standard paid administrative leave while police investigate the incident.
The Tarrant County medical examiner's office will determine what caused his death.
Jacobs had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC Dallas-Fort Worth
First Published: Apr 18, 2009 11:25 PM CST
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