First Taser Related Death in Minnesota, Part 2

Mark Backlund, age 29, did not get to the airport to pick up his parents. Instead, he was involved in a single car accident on Interstate 698. Afterwards, when five State Troopers were at the scene, Backlund became uncooperative to such a degree that one of the Troopers Tased the man. When emergency medical team arrived, Backlund was breathing but unconscious, but when they arrived at the hospital he was pronounced dead.

Taser International, the manufacturer located in Scottsdale, Arizona, as of April 2008 there were 480 different Minnesota law enforcement entities are armed with Tasers. In 2004 only 219 agencies carried the non lethal weapon.

Chris Krueger, communications director for the Department of Public Safety said, “[Backlund] is the first Taser-related death since troopers started carrying the weapons about a year and a half ago.”

Other districts around the country and in Canada have strict guidelines regarding deploying Tasers. Police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Garcia said that in Minneapolis, how and when Tasers are used is left up to the individual officer’s judgment. He also said that Tasers are used most frequently “to quickly control a situation when an officer is struggling with someone.”

The good news is that since the department started using Tasers in 2001, the incident level of injuries while officers are struggling with offenders has decreased dramatically.

Garcia stated that no one in Minneapolis has died directly from a Taser. In 2003 the Hennepin County medical examiner found that a man who had died after being shot with a Taser expired from cocaine abuse, heart disease and emphysema. A man died from a heart attack after having been shot with a Taser the following year. That victim had heart disease and hypertension.

“It takes the fight out of them,” said Garcia.