Police shocked a Grand Forks man twice with a Taser while trying to arrest him for assaulting an officer Sunday, Lt. Grant Schiller said.
Schiller said officers responding to a report of a disturbance found a taxi driver with a ripped shirt and a man being restrained by his friends on the 1000 block of 20th Avenue North just after 1:30 a.m. To diffuse the altercation, Schiller said, police put the man, Kellin Geisler, 22, in the back seat of a squad car.
"They opened the door to talk to him, and he went crazy," Schiller said. "This suspect grabbed the officer by the arm and grabbed her flashlight."
Schiller said Geisler was ordered to stop but did not. Officers told him he was under arrest for assaulting an officer, and he continued to fight them, but they managed to cuff his hands behind his back and put him in a squad car, Schiller said.
"He was extremely uncooperative and physically and verbally aggressive," the lieutenant said.
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Schiller said that on the way to the Grand Forks County jail, Geisler, who got his cuffed hands in front of him, was striking the partition that separates the front and back seats of the squad car. Police pulled over, took Geisler out of the car, and in trying to restrain him, shot him with the probes of a Taser, Schiller said.
Schiller said Geisler received "a five-second ride," but he started resisting again, and with the Tasers' probes still attached, was given another five-second jolt. With that, officers were able to put restraints on him again and continued to the jail, where he was combative with officers there before being put in a cell, Schiller said.
Geisler posted $2,000 in bail Monday afternoon. He is set to appear in court March 12 on felony charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.
Reached by phone, Geisler said he plans to hire an attorney, but declined to comment further. Schiller said Geisler wouldn't talk about the incident with police. Neither the three officers involved nor Geisler were injured, Schiller said.
Schiller did not know how the altercation between the cab driver and Geisler started, but said the cab driver did not want to pursue charges. Schiller wasn't sure if Geisler was intoxicated.
Department supervisors, including Schiller, reviewed a "use of force" report regarding the Taser deployments and found that officers' measures were "reasonable and necessary," Schiller said.
In 2009, officers with the department were involved in 88 incidents in which "use of force" reports were filed, including eight incidents in which Tasers were fired.
