ST. GEORGE, Utah (ABC 4 News) - A Hurricane police officer who fired a taser at Brian Cardall has been cleared of any wrongdoing by Washington County prosecutors.
According to a statement released by the Washington County DA's office, an independent investigative summary concluded that Officer Ken Thompson, a 6-year veteran of the Hurricane Police department was justified in deploying a taser to apprehend Brian Cardall on the side of a southern Utah highway on June 9, 2009.
Witnesses and police reports say Cardall was suffering an episode related to a bi-polar disorder when he became agitated while traveling with his wife and daughter in State Route 59 to their home in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The Cardall family car was pulled over when Brain left the vehicle and began to yell and throw things, weaving in an out of traffic on the road when his wife called 911, according to the investigative summary. Cardall was also seen naked on the road when Thompson arrived and deployed a taser on him after he approached the officer who had ordered him to stand down.
The report says Cardall was hit with the taser and fell to the ground, and was shocked a second time while laying on the ground near the highway. The officers could not detect a pulse from Cardall, and neither did emergency personnel who were at the scene, according to the report.
The report also states that Cardall suffered a ventricular fibrillation, but that the exact cause of his death remains unknown.
