CPD investigators find officers weren't responsible for man's fall

The man fell from a pedestrian overpass after being shot with a Taser by police.

By Cody Schneiders and Kathleen Pointer

Published Sept. 16, 2008

Columbia Police Department investigators exonerated two officers who used their Tasers on a Columbia man in July, causing him to fall from a pedestrian bridge.

Sgts. Joe Bernhard and Shelley Jones of the Professional Standards Unit released the report at 8:30 a.m. Friday.

According to the report, the department's PSU weighed the case based on the CPD's use of force policy, safety guidelines and the operating guidelines for the Taser.

"I don't think you can look at that incident and take five or six seconds from it, isolate that time and judge the entire event on that small time frame," interim Police Chief Tom Dresner said. "It's important that the public look at the entire incident to determine in their minds how it was handled."

Phillip McDuffy, 45, was shot with a Taser while he stood on a Providence Road bridge over Interstate 70. McDuffy broke both his arms, his jaw and suffered another facial fracture because of the fall. The PSU also attempted to interview McDuffy about the events, but he declined.

In the report, CPD has redacted the names of the people involved, but police did name some of the officers involved the day of the incident. A total of 33 CPD officers responded to the incident.

According to the report, officers at the scene requested an officer armed with a Taser because they believed McDuffy could have had a weapon and he had also been previously charged with resisting arrest.

"A [caution indicator 3] is a violent criminal history that includes assaults against police officers," Dresner said.

CPD Capt. Zim Schwartze authorized the use of Tasers on McDuffy. Sgt. Dan Beckman was the first to use his Taser, but one of the barbs missed, so McDuffy was not incapacitated. Beckman attempted to use the Taser on McDuffy when he was 3 feet from the ground. When his Taser missed he yelled at other officers to intervene, the report stated.

According to the report, command staff had planned a coordinated intervention, but Beckman hadn't been told about it.

As McDuffy moved north on the support beam a sergeant yelled to an officer to deploy her Taser, which she was unable to activate. If she had been able to activate her Taser and hit McDuffy, he would have fallen more than eight feet.

McDuffy continued to make his way to the center of the bridge. Officer Sean Dutton observed him moving and believed he was attempting suicide again, the report stated.

"He was initially part of the planned intervention and was surprised by the first Taser deployment," Dresner said. "Supervisors were yelling 'get him' and 'do it, do it.'"

Dutton attempted to deploy his Taser and was unsuccessful. He advised that if he had deployed his Taser at this time McDuffy would have fallen 5-10 feet. The report stated that he then heard yells from a sergeant and he deployed his Taser a second time. It was successful and both probes struck McDuffy, causing him to fall 16.8 feet, the report concluded.

Although CPD's Taser policy strictly prohibits allowing a deployment at heights in which the victim could potentially be injured, the police officers could not control the speeds at which McDuffy changed position, Dresner said.

"The first place was considered a safe location," Dresner said. "We believe that a reasonable person would conclude that after a first unsuccessful deployment when he ran toward higher ground that he was going to commit suicide. The subsequent deployments were to keep him from succeeding in killing himself. In that short amount of time, he was able to get to a place that caused injury when he fell."

According to the report, a "Code Red," which is an indication that a difficult situation has now escalated to dangerous and is now observed as an emergency, was not issued.

"In other words, if it's too big for patrol cops to handle you go to the special teams," Dresner said.

He said in this situation the SWAT team should have been called.

"There was not a request for SWAT and that's what needed to occur," Dresner said. "Not because we needed a 24-person swat team to be there, but because they're responsible for tactical interventions that might take place."

Although this report did not result in the individual discipline of the officers involved it has prompted CPD to make changes in regards to Taser use and critical situations.

"We are going to conduct some policy changes in regards to how Code Reds are declared," Dresner said. "We're adding training blocks that deal with acting quickly and the overall coordination of command and control in critical incidents."