Tasers Taken Away From Naughty Police Officers

[bloodrayne]

Tasers Restricted To Police Supervisors After Stun Gun Death

Tennessee - Metro Nashville has pulled Taser stun guns off the front lines of the police department, keeping the controversial weapons in the hands of supervisors only.

The weapons will be available if supervisors deem them necessary, but won't be available for routine law enforcement, officials said at a news conference this afternoon.

The change in policy comes after the death last Thursday of a 21-year-old Nashville man who was shocked up to 19 times. Two Metro officers repeatedly fired 50,000-volt surges of electricity into Patrick Lee, who had stripped naked after being bounced from a Cannery Row nightclub Thursday and had told officers that he was under the influence of drugs.

State authorities found five doses of LSD in Lee's wallet, and a small amount of marijuana was found in his pants.

Lee's father, Earl Bud Lee, is a songwriter who co-wrote Garth Brooks' hit Friends in Low Places. Nashville attorney Tommy Overton, who is investigating the death for Lee's family, says a private autopsy seems to indicate that the Taser contributed to the death.