Taser News

Confusion cited after shock hospitalizes man

FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA - Hilda Foxx was surprised to bump into her nephew at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center and Heart Institute Tuesday night, since she didn't know he and his mother had moved back to Fort Pierce from Miami. But Foxx said she was even more surprised at what happened next.

Her nephew, 48-year-old Samuel Hair, had called the police Tuesday night asking for help. He was taken to Lawnwood under the Baker Act, a provision to treat people who might hurt themselves or others, police said.

Hair, who his family said has mental problems, began talking nonsense in the emergency room, Foxx said.

Hair became upset when his escorting officer and two other officers tried to calm him down, Foxx said.

He ran to her and hugged her for comfort, she said. Hair's mother and caretaker, Mary Hair, thinks that's where things went wrong.

Mary believes officers didn't know her son was related to Foxx and one Fort Pierce police officer used a Taser on Hair's upper left leg, ostensibly to protect Foxx.

Foxx said her nephew pulled down his shirt collar before he was shocked, to show officers he had a pacemaker. After being hit with the Taser, Hair stopped moving.

He remained in critical condition Wednesday night.

The Taser, which records its own use, indicates it was used twice in the scuffle with Hair, at a setting that does not deploy prongs and requires an officer to touch the person with the weapon. Fort Pierce police Sgt. Don Christman said the Taser applied a 50,000-volt shock.

Police Chief Eugene Savage said at the news conference, "Don't form an opinion that this person is in this state because of the Taser."

Police did not release the name of the officer who used the Taser Wednesday but did say that he is 54 and has been with department 16 years without any use-of-force complaints. He is on administrative review while the police department investigates.

The police account of the Hair incident matches the account of hospital witnesses, said Beth Williams, spokeswoman for Lawnwood. "During the incident, he became highly unruly and agitated and violent," Williams said.

Hair has an extensive arrest record, with charges from 1978 to 2005 that include sexual assault, aggravated assault with a weapon and drug charges, according to state records.

But family members said he likes making people laugh and often gave whatever money he had to his little cousins. He told his mother he loved her and thanked her for caring for him every day, she said.

Hair's aunt visited him in the intensive-care unit Wednesday, the day after a chance encounter at the hospital turned into a sleepless night. She said hospital tubes surround him.

"Nothing is on his own," she said. "He just looked like a dead person there."

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