- Keenan Anderson died four hours after police tased him multiple times in the chest.
- No official cause of death has been released, but a police expert said it could have been the Taser.
- The stun gun was used inappropriately and could have affected his heart, the expert said.
A panicked Keenan Anderson flagged down police on January 3 following a traffic incident in Venice, California and ended up restrained on the ground while a Los Angeles Police Department officer deployed a Taser at least 6 times.
In between the shocks — applied to the upper left side of his back — Anderson yelled in pain and pleaded for help, as seen in body camera footage released by the LAPD on January 12.
Hours after being tased, the 31-year-old English teacher and cousin of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors went into cardiac arrest and died at the hospital.
"The police are supposed to be here to protect and serve the people, and yet they abuse their authority and have a lack of respect for human life," Dominique Anderson, the younger sister of Anderson, said in a news conference following the release of body camera footage of her brother's death.
Although no official cause has been announced by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, Anderson's death has sparked new conversations about the deadly use of stun guns by police, which have resulted in the deaths of over a thousand people between 2000 and 2018, according to a Reuters report.
The deaths disproportionately affect Black people, Reuters found. Black people accounted for 32% of deaths, despite only making 14% of the US population, while white people made up 29% of deaths, despite making up 60% of the population.
"The Taser directly caused the death of Mr. Anderson, I believe," Kalfani Turè, an assistant professor at Mount Saint Mary's University, told Insider.
Turè, a former police officer who now researches use-of-force incidents, explained that many police departments have no rules limiting how stun guns are used because of the false notion that Tasers are non-lethal — despite overwhelming evidence that they can kill people. Turè — who is against the current use of Tasers — also pointed out that their use could potentially set people on fire.
In a news conference following the release of the body camera footage, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told reporters the LAPD had "no pre-set limit on the number of times a Taser can be used in a particular situation" but said that police should "generally avoid repeated or simultaneous activation's to avoid potential injury."
In addition to the repeated use of the Taser, Turè pointed out that the officer's use of the Taser near Anderson's chest — especially considering the fact that he appeared to be in a nervous state — is not advised for officers, as stun guns can cause the heart to stop.
"Just as the Taser operates at a low amplitude, meaning that it's quiet, so does the heart," Turè said. "No one sees the heart. No one hears the heart. But when you disrupt the heart the results are profound."
Turè also said the use of drugs could have contributed to an agitated state and an increased heart rate. LAPD released a toxicology report stating Anderson tested positive for cocaine and marijuana, but experts say that doesn't mean he was high during the encounter with police.
Medical experts and activists have been calling for a ban on police use of stun guns for years following research as early as 2012 revealing the weapon is now less-than-lethal, rather than non-lethal. Police argue stun guns prevent lethal encounters, but some studies have shown no evidence to back up this claim.
"We support the calls by Keenan Anderson's family and community members to restrict the use of Tasers, and more crucially, to ensure that traffic, accident, and crisis responses are led by civilian professionals, mental health care providers, and community-based organizations – not police armed with Tasers or other weapons," ACLU of Southern California told Insider in a statement.
In Anderson's case, Turè also said the use of a stun gun was an unnecessary use of force against someone who he said "passively resisted" officers. Advocates pointed out that Anderson could have been suffering from a mental health crisis.
On Friday, Anderson's family filed a $50-million wrongful-death claim against the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported, which alleged the use of the stun gun resulted in injuries that led to Anderson's death.
"We saw a man who was afraid," said attorney Carl Douglas said of the body camera footage during a news conference, according to the LA Times. "We saw a man who was unarmed and compliant."
The LAPD did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.