Video Released in Athens Mental Hospital Stun-Gun Death
Police video shows that an Alabama mental patient who died after being shot with a stun gun began having breathing difficulties within minutes of receiving the jolt.
The more than nine-minute video from a police body camera shows officers and medical workers trying to calm 49-year-old Randy Joe Nelson at Athens-Limestone Hospital on Feb. 3.
Nelson is shot with a stun gun and loses consciousness within minutes. He died five days later at another hospital.
Athens police released the video on Wednesday.
The video shows Nelson growing agitated as officers help hold him on a bed for a medical worker. An officer later shoots Nelson in the back with a stun gun.
With Nelson on the floor, someone asks if he is breathing and someone responds he is turning blue.
The lawyer for relatives of an Alabama mental patient who died after being shot by a police stun gun at a hospital says officers and medical workers mishandled the situation.
Attorney John Taylor says hospital employees shouldn’t have called police to subdue 49-year-old Randy Joe Nelson at Athens-Limestone Hospital during a psychotic episode.
And Taylor said Friday that officers shouldn’t have repeatedly used a stun gun on Nelson after he became agitated.
Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson has said officers acted in accordance with established policies. State police are investigating.
A hospital spokeswoman was out of the office and didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message.
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