Editor’s note: This story was updated at 3:30 Friday with a statement from state police that autopsy results will not be available for “several weeks.” This story was updated at 5:43 p.m. Thursday with the name of the state police trooper who deployed the Taser. The video link to the Vermont State Police press conference was added at 12:55 Friday.
A Thetford man is dead after a state trooper used a Taser against him after he failed to comply with orders issued by the officer, according to Vermont State Police.
Friday afternoon, state police released a statement saying that an autopsy had been performed on the body of Macadam Mason on Thursday, and “the cause and manner of Mr. Mason’s death are pending additional tests, to include toxicology.” The statement said the tests are expected to take several weeks.
Vermont State Police Col. Thomas L’Esperance detailed the event at a press conference Thursday morning. Later in the day, state police sent an email with the name of the trooper who deployed the Taser. He is Senior Trooper David Shaffer, 29, of the Bradford barracks, who was hired in January 2006.
At 3:11 p.m. Wednesday, state police from the Bradford barracks responded to 1100 Swanee Bean Road in Thetford after a call came in from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where Mason, 39, had called in and made threats of violence against himself and others.
Police indicated the home was Mason’s. No one but Mason and three police officers were inside the home during the incident, police said, but family was gathered outside the residence.
After a three-hour standoff, Shaffer ordered Mason to lay face down on the ground in an attempt to take him into protective custody. Noticing Mason was unarmed, Shaffer lowered his patrol rifle and drew his Taser X-26, L’Esperance said. Mason, who L’Esperance described as being 6 feet tall and 195 pounds, began yelling and moving towards Shaffer, who began to fear for his safety and activated the Taser. Its electrical probes landed in Mason’s chest.
According to both state police protocol and the manufacturer law enforcement manual for the Taser X-26, officers are supposed to avoid hitting subjects in the head, chest or groin. State police policy says “[c]onsideration should be given to the preferred target area of the center mass of a subject’s back or lower center mass of a subject’s front side.”
Mason fell to the ground and was not breathing, which is not normal for such a situation, L’Esperance said. Troopers administered CPR until EMTs arrived and transported Mason to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Because Mason was pronounced dead in New Hampshire, the New Hampshire state medical examiner is conducting an autopsy today on Mason’s body to determine the cause of death.
State police and the Orange County state’s attorney will be investigating the case.
Beginning in April 2011, almost every uniformed Vermont state trooper carries a Taser X-26 while on duty, and 207 such devices are in the field. Troopers must take a certification course in order to carry a Taser while on duty and be recertified annually. Officers are not allowed to carry the devices while off-duty.
In 2011, L’Esperance said, officers used tasers 32 times on subjects, and have used them 16 times so far in 2012. He said this is the first instance in which someone died so soon after being tased, but maintained that the electric shock from the device was not necessarily the cause of death.
