Ervin Leon Edwards

Less-than-lethal force

Ervin Edwards was Tased and died soon after he was arrested for allegedly disturbing the peace at a Chevron gas station. A clerk reportedly overheard an argument between Edwards and his girlfriend and called police. Officers arrived after the argument was over, but allegedly began to question Edwards about his "sagging" pants. Edwards did not think he did anything wrong and allegedly resisted arrest. According to Edwards' girlfriend, "it took like six of them to actually get him down and when they had him down they pulled out a Taser and the mace and I said, 'You can't Tase him; he has high blood pressure and a lot of medical conditions. You can't do that!' So they put it back. They didn't do it." Edwards was brought to the West Baton Rouge Parish Jail where where he was to be charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. According to Sheriff Mike Cazes, he continued to resist officers and deputies. Video shows officers dragging Edwards into a holding cell face down, still cuffed, where six officers hold him down. One of them used a Taser on Edwards' backside. It appeared an officer stepped on Edwards' back, another on his head. After about a minute, Edwards appeared motionless, while apparently still being Tased. Officer Dustin McMullan continued to hold the taser on Edwards for almost another minute before Edwards was left alone on the floor. Paramedics arrived 20 minutes later and Edwards was pronounced dead. Edwards' cause of death was said by police to be "undetermined," and blamed on "acute cocaine and phencyclidine (PCP) intoxication in association with restraint by law enforcement." Edwards' family said that he was partially deaf and suffered from high blood pressure and a mental disability. Media reports don't state categorically whether he was booked, so this incident may be outside of FatalEncounters dataset, which does not include individuals after they've been booked into the jail or prison system.