Global Courant
According to a new autopsy report, an enlarged heart and cocaine use have been identified as the causes of death for Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old man who died hours after being tasered multiple times by the Los Angeles Police Department.
The LA County coroner’s report sheds additional light and draws renewed attention to the Jan. 3 incident, which was widely condemned as an excessive use of police force. According to the coroner’s report, Anderson’s manner of death was undetermined.
The coroner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
The officers’ actions sparked protests, an internal investigation and calls for changes to police policies regarding traffic accidents and the use of stun guns. Anderson’s death drew more attention because he was a cousin of Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network.
“My cousin was still alive when he alerted the police. He was alive and after his interaction with the police he was dead,” Cullors said on Instagram Friday night. “The idea that the coroner can’t determine how he died is unacceptable and to point to the substances and point to the enlarged heart and not the tasers is very, very disturbing.”
According to the coroner, the manner of death may be declared undetermined “when there is insufficient information about the circumstances of the death,” according to the coroner’s office. It may also apply “where known information supports or contradicts more than one manner of death, or, in cases of unnatural death, when a clear preponderance of evidence supporting a specific manner (murder, accident or suicide) is not available.”
In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said her thoughts are with Anderson’s friends and family, “as I know the publication of this report will cause them and many Angelenos great pain as they continue to mourn this loss. .”
“I remain committed to expanding the public safety system to include health care workers and ensuring that LAPD officers receive the best training possible to help people in crisis situations,” Bass said. “The coroner is raising questions that have yet to be answered and I await the outcome of the ongoing investigation.”
Anderson died on the evening of January 3 after encountering LA police officers near the Venice and Lincoln boulevards.
Police reported that Anderson was involved in an accident and had been running in the street while displaying “erratic” behavior. Officers contacted Anderson, who walked away after officers called for support for a DUI investigation.
A group of officers struggled to control Anderson, who resisted their attempts to lay him on his stomach and handcuff him. While officers used their body weight and arm grips, another officer fired a Taser stun gun at him at least six times in 42 seconds, according to details released by authorities.
Several police experts who reviewed video of the January 3 incident – from cameras worn by officers – for The Times previously said the amount of force used by the officers seemed excessive given Anderson’s actions and that their tactics seemed haphazard.
By the time firefighters arrived, Anderson was unconscious and struggling to breathe. He was transported to a hospital in Santa Monica, where he was pronounced dead several hours later.
Anderson was visiting family in Los Angeles during winter break from his teaching job in Washington, DC
His family filed a $50 million wrongful death claim against the City of Los Angeles, which was denied. According to their lawyer Carl Douglas, they plan to file a lawsuit before the end of the month.
“If officers had chosen not to repeatedly grope Mr. Anderson on the back of his heart, he would be alive today,” Douglas said. “And there is nothing released by the autopsy report that disputes that conclusion.”
The family ordered a private autopsy, which Douglas said confirmed the presence of cocaine in Anderson’s system, “which explains why there was a detachment from reality, but it doesn’t justify the officers’ behavior.”
“Legally, the question is not whether they killed Mr. Anderson, but whether their actions were a substantial factor leading to his death. It doesn’t have to be the only factor. But it was certainly a substantial factor,” Douglas said. “There is no evidence or indication that he would have suffered a cardiac arrest or a heart attack had he not been tasered repeatedly.”
