Las Vegas Police Fatally Shoot Mentally Ill Patient Holding Taser
On September 24, 2017, police in Las Vegas, Nevada shot dead a mentally ill man inside his hospital room because he was holding a Taser.
Cody O'Bryan, 31, called police and said he wanted to "blast it out" with them. Responding officers found him passed out on the ground near an intersection. He had an outstanding felony warrant, so he was arrested.
Police transported him to University Medical Center. They took him to a room and left him there alone, chained to a hospital bed, along with a tactical bag one police officer had left in the room. Inside the bag was a police Taser.
Two police officers and a nurse came into the room. O'Bryan produced the Taser and pointed it at Officer Thomas Rybacki. Rybacki backed out of the room but quickly returned with a drawn weapon and fired once, fatally striking O'Bryan in the head. Rybacki's body cam showed the Taser on the floor several feet from O'Bryan after the shooting, leading to speculation that O'Bryan had already dropped it before Rybacki re-entered the room.
The incident raised concerns not only because police introduced a weapon into the hospital room of a suicidal man and left him alone with it but also because the shooting was unnecessary since O'Bryan was not an imminent danger to anyone and likely could have been talked into handing over the Taser had police merely opened a conversation with him.
Sources: heavy.com, thefreethoughtproject.com
As a digital subscriber to Criminal Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login
