Oklahoma Officers Allegedly Tased 'Naked' Man 50 Times, Charged With Murder

Two police officers in Oklahoma were arrested for the death of a man they allegedly tased over 50 times in 2019. The man who died was allegedly tased multiple times while he was "lying naked in the ditch."

On July 4, 2019, officers Joshua Taylor, 25, and Brandon Dingman, 34, from the Wilson Police Department responded to reports of 28-year-old Jared Lakey "running naked down a street." Upon arriving at the scene at around midnight, Lakey reportedly did not cooperate with them, so the officers began using their tasers.

The officers took Lakey into custody with the help of a deputy from the Carter County ​Sheriff's Office but, Lakey later stopped breathing and became unresponsive.

On June 6, two days after the incident, Lakey died. Carter County Court records note Lakey's cause of death to be "complications of myocardial infarction (clinical) in the setting of cardiomegaly and critical coronary atherosclerosis and law enforcement use of electrical weapon and restraint."

On Wednesday (July 1), nearly a year after the incident, the Carter County District Attorney's Office issued a warrant for Taylor and Dingman on charges of second-degree murder.

According to The Daily Ardmoreite, an investigation conducted by an agent from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) found that dashcam and bodycam footage showed both officers using their X26P tasers on the victim in their attempts to put his hands behind his back while he was lying on the ground.

Specifically, Taylor allegedly used his taser 30 times for a total of 122 seconds, while Dingman used his taser 23 times for a total of 114 seconds. This means, according to the affidavit, Lakey was tased for nearly four minutes within a span of nine minutes.

The OSBI agent further noted that the victim did not make any aggressive movements at the time.

"(The victim) is tased numerous times while merely lying naked in the ditch, presumably for not rolling onto his stomach and complying with the officers' commands to 'Put your hands behind your back,'" the affidavit states, according to the outlet.

Wilson Mayor Frank Schaff did not comment on the matter as the investigation was ongoing.

Only recently, on June 21, a man with bipolar disorder and was reportedly wielding a Samurai sword died of an apparent cardiac arrest after he was tased by NYPD officers.