The coroner's office has determined that a 26-year-old man who died about 19 1/2 hours after a struggle with a Metro Police officer and numerous security guards was a homicide victim.
Ruling William Lomax's death a homicide is not a determination that his death was the result of a criminal act, but that his death was caused by another person, Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy said.
A coroner's inquest, tentatively scheduled for June, will determine whether the actions of the Metro officer who shocked Lomax numerous times with a Taser gun during the struggle were justifiable, excusable or criminal.
The primary cause of Lomax's death was cardiac arrest during restraint. PCP intoxication and bronchopneumonia were secondary causes, Murphy said.
It's unclear if the restraint that occurred when Lomax was immobilized by the Taser was a factor in his death, or if another type of restraint is to blame. Murphy declined to elaborate on the report.
"At this particular time it would be inappropriate for me to do any interpretation of the report, but these questions will be answered at the inquest," Murphy said. "This is certainly a complicated case and that is one of the reasons why it needs to go to inquest."
Undersheriff Doug Gillespie declined to comment, saying that "the facts of the case will come out at the inquest."
Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said Murphy owes it to the public to fully explain what exactly caused Lomax's death.
"The report makes it clear that William's death was a homicide that resulted from him being restrained," Peck said. "But there are serious questions about whether the way he was being restrained constituted an excessive use of force and whether being Tased repeatedly was a contributing factor."
The ACLU has no confidence those questions will be answered at the coroner's inquest, he said, because the "inquest process is little more than a sham."
Lomax is the first person to die after being subdued with a Metro officer's Taser gun, and the case has garnered national attention as Taser-related fatalities rise.
Representatives with Taser International say the 45 deaths that have occurred since 1998 were attributed to drug overdoses or prior health conditions, but Lomax's family and civil libertarians aren't so sure.
Lomax's struggle with security guards and Metro Police Officer Reggie Rader occurred about 6 p.m. on Feb. 20. Lomax, who lived in North Las Vegas, was visiting relatives at the Emerald Breeze apartment complex near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Washington Avenue.
His sister, 32-year-old Jean Charleston, said Lomax had left her apartment and was on his way to catch the bus home when he asked apartment security guards to call an ambulance because he felt sick.
The security officers determined Lomax was under the influence of drugs and called paramedics. Rader arrived at the apartment complex on an unrelated matter and offered his help to the guards and waited with them for paramedics, police said.
Lomax allegedly began fighting with the security guards so Rader shot him with his Taser and he fell to the ground. After the five-second jolt, police said he started struggling and was stunned a second time.
Police said he kept resisting as he was handcuffed and was shocked again, then again when he allegedly fought with authorities while they removed the handcuffs so they could put him in soft restraints on an ambulance stretcher.
He was stunned with the Taser while one hand was cuffed because he was fighting with his free hand, police said.
Charleston said she went outside to try to help her brother but she was held back by security guards. Lomax wasn't resisting arrest, she said.
"They kept Tasing him and he kept saying 'stop,' " she said. "The last thing he said before he closed his eyes was, 'Please God, don't let me die this way.' "
Lomax died at Valley Hospital at 1:25 p.m. Feb. 21.
Charleston said her family thought his death was caused by the repeated Taser jolts.
"He was face down in a puddle and he kept saying he couldn't breathe," she said. "I'm very angry because he was a good person. He wasn't causing any trouble."
Steve Tuttle, spokesman for the Arizona-based Taser International, said the hours that elapsed between the time the Taser was used on Lomax and the time of his death indicate the Taser could not have directly caused Lomax's death.
The "window of opportunity" for death is only while the Taser is being administered, he said.
Tasers send 50,000 volts of electricity through the body, immobilizing the person who receives the shock for about five seconds. The charge is delivered by darts attached to the device which have a range of 21 feet.
Taser technology hasn't been listed as a cause of death in any of the cases in which suspects have been stunned by police, Tuttle said.
"The device is incapable of causing cardiac arrest because it simply doesn't have enough punch behind it," he said. "It's also the wrong electrical frequency. It's like receiving a cell phone call on your AM radio."
Las Vegan John Alexander, a retired U.S. Army colonel and author of the 1999 book "Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Modern Warfare," said: "The Taser has nothing to do with anyone dying. If one were to be electrocuted, it would happen instantaneously."
The PCP most likely caused him to go into cardiac arrest, Alexander said. PCP overdoses are one of the reasons why a growing number of people are dying in police custody after getting shocked by a Taser.
"There's not a lot that stops a guy on PCP," he said.
More than 4,400 police departments in the U.S. and Canada use Tasers, Tuttle said, and about one-third of the time, police must administer multiple jolts before the person stops resisting.
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