Free Talk Live

FORT WORTH, Texas — A mentally ill man's death after he was shocked twice by a police Taser was a homicide, a medical examiner's office ruled Thursday.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office was justified in shooting Andrew Lee Scott, the state attorney's office said Tuesday. Scott died in July after deputies opened fire when the 26-year-old answered a knock on his door in the middle of the night with a gun in his hand.

The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff's office of any wrong doing

Back on June 19, Howard led police on a brief chase before crashing his car and running from officers. They said they had to use force to take him into custody behind a house in northeast Oklahoma City. Officers turned away an ambulance and took him themselves to Southwest Medical Center, where he died four days later. The medical examiner ruled that Robin Howard died from acute pneumonia due to blunt force trauma to the chest; the manner of death has been ruled homicide.

Multiple witnesses say an officer investigating drugs grabbed Anderson from behind, hoisted him into the air and slammed him down on the pavement, leaving him unresponsive. “They even got to the point they was trying to tell him to get up and they was kicking him. He never moved,” said a witness. The official cause of death: massive internal bleeding from blunt force injuries, including a ruptured spleen and multiple fractured ribs. His family’s attorney says that justifies second-degree murder charges against the officer and a civil lawsuit.

The case of a 26-year-old Maryland man with Down syndrome who died last month in police custody after he was removed from a theater for refusing to leave a movie he had already seen has been ruled a homicide after an autopsy revealed he was asphyxiated.

A U.S. Army reservist twice charged and eventually acquitted of a 2005 homicide has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city of Altoona, two police officials and a video expert of "willful, wanton and reckless" violation of his civil rights.

Man with Down syndrome suffocated to death in police custody

A Maryland court has ruled that police are responsible for the death of a mentally disabled man. The homicide occurred after the man refused to leave a movie theater, prompting police to pin him down on the ground until he suffocated to death.

Essex County prosecutors said yesterday that they will confer with the states top federal prosecutor over the case of a Worcester man who was fatally injured in November at a police checkpoint in North Andover. Jonathan W. Blodgett, Essex district attorney, plans to discuss the case of 45-year-old Thomas Howe, who collapsed Nov. 25 after struggling with police from three different agencies on Route 114 in North Andover, with US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.