With criminal charges unlikely, the parents of a Destin man killed after he was shocked repeatedly with a Taser announced Wednesday they are suing the Coweta County sheriff's deputies responsible for their son's death.
The EMT who pinned down 32-year-old Chase Sherman as the deputies subdued him was also named in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.
The roadside altercation, caught on police body cameras, drew national attention and led to an investigation by local prosecutors. But in October, Coweta Circuit District Attorney Pete Skandalakis decided not to bring charges against deputies Samuel Smith and Joshua Sepanski, saying that Sherman's death, "while tragic in nature, is not a criminal matter and, therefore, will not be prosecuted further under state law."
The family petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice to launch its own inquiry into Sherman’s death, but attorney Chris Stewart said there has been no response.
Jonathan Eisenstat, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s chief medical examiner, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Sherman died from a combination of factors.
“You have him in an excited state. His blood pressure goes up, heart rate goes up, ” Eisenstat said. “Then the Taser is deployed, which causes more excitation. He’s not taking in enough oxygen.
“Laying prone, face down, is not the best position to be in, ” the medical examiner said, adding that the pressure put on Sherman’s back by another person caused Sherman’s breathing to become more labored. “We don’t know if the heart stopped first or he stopped breathing first, ” Eisenstat said.
According to the Sherman family's lawsuit, the deputies ignored their training. After an initial struggle in which Sepanski said Sherman grabbed his Taser, the deputies — assisted by EMT Daniel Elliot — were able to subdue him. But body camera footage shows the deputies, who remain on the job, shocking Sherman even after he declared, "I'm dead!" and "I quit!"
The Georgia Peace Officers Standards Training Council instructs officers to get suspects off their stomachs as soon as they are handcuffed.
If the person continues to struggle while handcuffed, “do not sit on his back,” states the lawsuit, quoting a P.O.S.T. manual.
Body camera footage showed Elliot pinning Sherman in the back of an SUV rented by his parents. The family was driving home to Florida after attending their other son's wedding in the Dominican Republic.
“Got all the weight of the world on him now, ” Elliot says after pinning his knee into Sherman’s back.
There is an anguished cry and then Sherman says, “I’m dead. I’m dead.”
Elliot then searches for a pulse but finds none. Paramedics administered CPR after pulling Sherman out of the car, but by then it was too late. According to the lawsuit, Sherman was shocked with a Taser 15 times.
“Chase Sherman is dead because the defendants did not follow the well-known guidelines and warnings within the law enforcement community which are taught in order to avoid death in custody,” the lawsuit states. “Chase Sherman is dead because Daniel Elliot did not apply the knowledge that any reasonably trained EMT has — to the effect the prolonged constriction of the breathing capacity of a person can result in their death.”
Coweta Sheriff Mike Yeager defended his deputies and Elliot, saying his officers asked for assistance and the EMT responded.
"They were looking for all the help they could get, " the sheriff said in an interview last May. He said Sherman was a perpetrator, not a victim.
The two deputies had responded to a desperate 911 call from Chase Sherman’s mother, Mary Ann Sherman.
“He’s hallucinating; we need help,” Mary Ann Sherman pleaded with the operator. “He’s going to kill us all if we don’t get help.”
The Shermans now say they regret calling 911.
“We think about it, and we called them for help,” said Kevin Sherman, Chase’s father. “And they killed my boy.”
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