Man dies after being tased by Albany police

ALBANY, Ore. (KATU) – A man died Wednesday morning after Albany police tased him during an altercation. Some say the man had recently become homeless, living out of his car.

Witness Peter Yeager said, “When they were tasing him he was yelling, ‘You’re killing me! You’re killing me!’”

Before Yeager heard that, he’d offered to help the man who eventually died, move his car out the battery exchange parking lot. And police tried to get him moving too.

Yeager stated, “And the officer said, ‘Well, can you turn your steering wheel.’ The steering wheel was locked, and he was like, ‘No, I don’t have the key.’”

Yeager figured the cops would take it from there, never realizing how far it would go.

He watched from his office. “And I heard some noises and I looked out my window,” Yeager explained. “And two officers are struggling with him inside the car. And then a female officer comes, two officers are inside with him and comes over the door, the door was open, and says, ‘Quit resisting, I’m gonna taze you!’”

Detectives took Yeager’s cell phone video as evidence. They took Kenneth Pahlman’s too, although he didn’t see the whole thing, but caught something that may be important.

“My phone shows them rendering aid to the victim. That’s why they took my phone,” Pahlman explained. “An ambulance showed up, firetrucks showed up, 15 or 20 police officers showed up. Not happy to see. It’s not something you want to see in the morning.”

And it’s something Peter Yeager said he can never un-see, wishing now he hadn’t moved the man and his car to the street.

Yeager recalled, “’Can I just push you right over here, you’re fine to wait right in my parking lot.’ I wish I had been more persistent now, knowing the outcome, unfortunately.”

Police haven’t officially identified the victim, but he may have had a home just a mile or so from where the incident happened until the last week or two. And there’s some speculation that he may have had a heart condition of some sort, but that hasn’t been confirmed by the medical examiner.

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