CJOnline: (h/t J & Scarce)



The Shawnee County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday released the identity of a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. employee who died Sunday after being tased by a sheriff's deputy.

The man who died was Walter E. Haake Jr., 59, of Lawrence. However, the sheriff's office released no other details about what led to the tasing at the Topeka Goodyear plant. Early reports indicated Haake had been suffering from a medical condition and had resisted emergency personnel's efforts to subdue him. The sheriff's office said after several attempts to control Haake, a deputy used a Taser on him. Haake was taken by ambulance to a Topeka hospital and later pronounced dead. Read on...

Here we go again. We've covered some of the recent incidents involving tasers, and just last week an 11 year old girl was tased in school to "stop a violent temper tantrum." This one ranks right up there with the worst of them and is sure to reignite the taser debate. I realize that all the facts of this incident haven't been released, but it was known that this man suffered from a medical condition that was serious enough that his employer was trying to keep him from driving himself home -- this should have been a no-brainer and the deputies should have found a better way to handle this situation.

*Update: New details have been released and it appears Haake had fallen down some stairs at home before going to work that day and he was actually tased 3 times before being thrown to the ground and handcuffed. He quickly became unresponsive and they performed CPR for 20 minutes before they removed his handcuffs.