Dr. Phillip Burch

Deputy Chief Medical Examiner

St. Louis Medical Examiner’s Office

Medical examiner says TASER not likely cause of Holyfield death

By Stephanie Abbajay

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on 17-year-old Roger D. Holyfield of Dow said the use of a TASER was not a likely factor in the teen’s death.

The autopsy was performed Tuesday morning by Dr. Phillip Burch, the deputy chief medical examiner in the St. Louis Medical Examiner’s Office.

Holyfield died Sunday evening at Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis after being arrested in Jerseyville Saturday evening. During the course of his arrest he was tased twice by Jerseyville police officers.

Jerseyville Police Chief Brad Blackorby held a press conference Tuesday evening in Jerseyville, in which he gave details of the incident and of the sue of TASERS.

According to Blackorby, at approximately 8:56 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, Holyfield was on State Street in Jerseyville near the corner of Adams Street where he was waving a cordless phone and a Bible yelling, “I want Jesus.”

After receiving a citizen complaint, Jerseyville Police Officer Todd Wagner was dispatched to the scene.

“While Officer Wagner attempted to calm him down, Holyfield became combative toward Officer Wagner and would not respond to verbal commands,” Blackorby said. “Officer Wagner indicated Holyfield’s strength was extraordinary. He called for back up and Officer Matt Witt responded.”

Blackorby said officers tried to calm Holyfield, who became increasingly combative and aggressive. Blackorby said Holyfield was disturbing the peace and was obviously in an agitated state physically and mentally and that the officers wanted to remove Holyfield, who was very close to the road, from the scene for his own safety and for the safety of others.

“The officers didn’t know what [Holyfield] had, if the subject was suicidal or homicidal,” Blackorby said. “They needed to control the situation for their own safety and for the safety of the subject. We didn’t want him to go anywhere else. We needed to control the situation.”

Blackorby said several witness statements indicate that Holyfield was fighting the officers. Blackorby said the officers were having a difficult time placing handcuffs on Holyfield and he would not respond to officers’ requests and warnings that he would be tased if he did not cooperate. After becoming increasingly combative and violent, Blackorby said Holyfield was tasered twice.

A TASER is a an electronic control device that delivers an electrical charge via two small prongs. The charge renders a suspect immobile for five seconds. Blackorby said Holyfield continued to be combative even after being tased and “rolled around, dislodging the TASER probes.” The second time he was tased Blackorby said Holyfield pulled the probes out himself.

Blackorby defended the use of the TASER as the safest way to control the subject and the situation.

“The officers were unable to control him,” Blackorby said. “The goal was to get him in the squad car and get him to the sheriff’s office or to the hospital. But they were unable to load him into the squad car, they couldn’t even pick him up, and the only way to do that without the use of a TASER is hands on, and I’ve seen time and time again where officers and subjects get hurt from hand to hand combat. That’s what the TASER is used for, to stop this before you have to do that.”

When questioned about the size differential between the responding officers, one of whom was five feet nine inches tall and weighed 180 pounds and the other six feet tall and 200 pounds, and Holyfield, who Major Frank Scoggins said was five foot seven and weighed 150 pounds, Blackorby said that when a person is in the agitated state that Holyfield was in, size doesn’t matter.

“He was smaller and that’s why the officers were surprised by how strong he was,” Blackorby said. “They both noted his excessive strength.”

During the confrontation, Blackorby said Officer Wagner called for an ambulance after noticing a pool of blood, which later turned out to be from an injury Officer Witt sustained from a cut.

“As the ambulance was on the scene Holyfield began vomiting,” Blackorby said. “Holyfield became unresponsive when the ambulance crew continued to work on him.”
Holyfield was taken to Jersey Community Hospital and was later flown to Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis where he died Sunday night.

Though conclusive findings from extensive toxicology screens and reports from tissues taken from Holyfield’s brain and heart will not be available for six to eight weeks, Dr. Burch said that based on the circumstances of the arrest, Holyfield’s medical history and what he saw during the autopsy, he believes a condition known as excited delirium contributed to Holyfield’s death.

“There may be a factor of excited delirium,” he said. “I will have to check into the history and rule out other things. We are putting in, of course, extensive material in the toxicology, and we will have to wait for those reports.”

Burch said that excited delirium is a state of uncontrolled behavior.

“And it’s difficult for other people to control it,” he said. “It is often associated with chronic drug use and schizophrenia. From his medical chart, we know that this person had a history of schizophrenia.”

Burch added that excited delirium can be listed as a cause of death.

“Usually it would be listed as complications from excited delirium,” he said. “You can have a fatal arrhythmia.”

Burch added that there was no sign of any trauma, meaning that there were no signs that Holyfield was beaten.

“I didn’t see any sign of trauma,” he said. “I saw some marks that might be consistent with TASER marks but I didn’t see any blunt trauma. There was no brutality.”

As for the use of a TASER, Burch said that it is not likely that the TASER was a contributing factor in Holyfield’s death.

“I don’t believe that to be the case,” he said. “Nationally, I think 150,000 police men have been tased and none have resulted in fatality. I don’t think that was a contributing factor here.”

According to a family friend who asked not be identified, Holyfield lived in Jerseyville with his grandfather, Rayburn Holyfield; his father, Roger Holyfield, committed suicide several years ago in Jacksonville.

Holyfield’s mother, Rita Cummings, lives in Dow. His stepfather, Joseph Cummings, declined comment on behalf of the family.

According to Jersey schools superintendent Jim Whiteside, Holyfield was not a student in the Jersey school system this school year.

Blackorby said the incident is a tragic one for the entire community.

“This is a terrible tragedy,” he said. “We are a very community orientated police department. We never want to see anything like this happen. It affects the citizens of this community, it affects the police department as a whole and it affects the friends and family of the victim. We hate to see this.”

Blackorby added that the mayor, the city commissioners and the Jerseyville Police Department wish to express their deepest sympathies and condolences to the family and friends of Roger Holyfield.