2 Oklahoma Cops Who Used Tasers More Than 50 Times On Unarmed Man Are Convicted Of Murder

Late last week, an Oklahoma jury returned guilty ver­dicts against two for­mer cops who killed an unarmed man in 2019 after Tasering him more than 50 times. Online records con­firm that Brandon Dingman, 35, and Joshua Taylor, 27, were con­vict­ed Friday of sec­ond-degree mur­der and assault and bat­tery with a dan­ger­ous weapon.

Joshua Taylor and Brandon Dingman
Joshua Taylor and Brandon Dingman | CREDIT: OSBI (2)

The two men, for­mer mem­bers of the police force in Wilson, Okla., will be sen­tenced on Dec. 2 and face 10 years to life behind bars. On July 4, 2019, Dingman and Taylor respond­ed to a call about a dis­or­der­ly man.
The offi­cers arrived to find a naked 28-year-old Jared Lakey in a ditch.
During the course of their nine-minute-long inter­ac­tion, Lakey alleged­ly failed to com­ply with the offi­cers’ ver­bal com­mands. Dingman, accord­ing to court doc­u­ments, “deployed his taser 23 times” on Lakey. Taylor “deployed his taser 30 times,” the court doc­u­ments note. They used their Tasers on Lakey until he became unresponsive.

Prosecutors argued in court doc­u­ments that Tasering some­one 53 times “great­ly exceed­ed what would have been nec­es­sary or war­rant­ed by the atten­dant cir­cum­stances.” Body cam­era footage from the inci­dent shows that Lakey nev­er tried to hurt the offi­cers and was not act­ing aggres­sive­ly. Experts tes­ti­fied that, over the course of those nine min­utes, Lakey expe­ri­enced over 3 min­utes of elec­troshock. Lakey died two days after being Tasered by the offi­cers. While med­ical exam­in­ers acknowl­edged Lakey’s heart was enlarged, they found that the vio­lence inflict­ed by the offi­cers direct­ly con­tributed to his death.

Attorneys for both men told the New York Times they will appeal the verdict.