[Courtesy of Taser International]
A mentally ill man has been shot dead by a police stun gun after he wielded lethal farming tools, resisting a bid by his mother to send him to a mental rehabilitation facility for treatment.
An emergency call was made to a police station in Hamyang, some 232 kilometers (144 miles) south of Seoul, on Thursday, that a 44-year-old man was locked in a tense standoff with mental rehabilitation center workers and his mother at his home.
Police officers arrived at the scene but failed to calm the man who wielded a shovel and a sickle. When he threw the sickle at the officers, he was shot and suppressed with a stun gun to his stomach and his right arm.
In normal cases, the mentally ill man should have been moved to a police station or a hospital but he showed an extraordinary reaction with his neck and legs going limp. The police immediately performed CPR but the man was pronounced dead at a nearby medical center. Doctors said his death was caused by a sudden cardiac arrest.
A police probe was launched to find out whether the stun gun shot was related. Security authorities have used stun guns hundreds of times every year but this was the first related death. Other countries such as Australia and Canada have reported frequent deaths caused by stun guns.
Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
