An argument at a southwest San Jose apartment complex over the breakup of a marriage escalated into a ``full-fledged donnybrook'' and may be the Bay Area's fifth death involving the use of Taser stun guns by police officers.
Jose Angel Rios, a 38-year-old Fresno resident, died Friday night after losing consciousness outside a carport at the Central Park apartments. The cause of death may not be known until Monday.
The names of the officers involved will not be released before Monday. Because Rios died while in police custody, the case will receive extra scrutiny from San Jose homicide and internal affairs investigators, as well as the Santa Clara County medical examiner and district attorney's office.
According to Sgt. Nick Muyo, Rios and his wife, Christine Silva, had driven into a carport at the 106-unit, garden-style apartments before 8 p.m. with their 4-year-old son. Apparently thinking that she was going to leave him, Muyo said, Rios tried taking the car keys away from her and failed. He then tried to grab the child, Muyo said.
``She won't go anywhere without the baby, so let's get him,'' Muyo surmises Rios was thinking.
Muyo said Rios probably meant no harm to the child, but his attempt to grab the boy may have looked like an attack or kidnapping to an off-duty San Jose police officer at the apartments who had heard the argument. Muyo said the officer showed his badge and ordered Rios to stop.
``He's not really sure what's going on,'' Muyo said of the officer. ``There's a lot of screaming and yelling. This is a guy who thinks he's got to intervene on the woman and child's behalf.''
When Rios didn't back off, Muyo said, the officer used pepper spray. Muyo said Rios was 6 feet tall and weighed 330 lbs.
``The guy's massive,'' he said, and the pepper spray had ``no effect.''
By then, an unidentified resident saw the struggle and tried to help the officer subdue Rios, and a few of the people gathering around the carport called 911. Four more police officers arrived.
``It's out of control by then,'' Muyo said. ``From all accounts, this was a full-fledged donnybrook.''
One of the responding officers brought out a Taser, an electric gun designed to immobilize threatening or violent people. When that Taser failed to subdue Rios, another officer used a second Taser. Muyo wasn't sure how many times Rios was stunned. Another officer struck Rios with a baton.
Muyo said that Rios continued to kick and struggle even as he was handcuffed and paramedics attended to him. He eventually lost consciousness and was put in an ambulance to the hospital.
It wasn't clear Saturday if Rios died on the way to the hospital or at it.
Between September 2004 and May 2005, seven people died in Northern California after being shocked by a Taser, according to media reports. San Jose's first taser-involved fatality was Brian Patrick O'Neill, 33, who died in police custody on Aug. 1 after he had been doused with pepper spray, struck with a baton and jolted with a Taser.
Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California criticized Taser use by local police and sheriff's officers as seriously unregulated.
The organization said Tasers were involved in 77 deaths around the country during the past year, 15 of them in northern and central California. A Santa Clara County grand jury in May recommended that law enforcement agencies throughout the county establish guidelines for the use of Tasers.
In response, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis in August defended his department's training and use and said a blanket policy on how to use them would be impractical. San Jose was one of the first cities to equip every officer with a Taser.
I agree with the ACLU. Give up the tasers and just let's go back to shooting them
Hats off to the American Criminal Lovers Union
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