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KS Cops ‘chased’ Elderly Man For Driving 3 Mph Over Limit Then Tased Him, Lawsuit Says

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An 80-year-old man filed a law­suit this week against an east­ern Kansas sheriff’s office for alleged­ly tas­ing him with­out warn­ing after offi­cers pur­sued him for dri­ving three (3) mph over the speed lim­it. In his fed­er­al law­suit, John Sigg said a lieu­tenant with the Iola Police Department in Allen County on April 16, 2021, clocked him dri­ving 38 mph in an area where the speed lim­it was 35 and decid­ed to give “chase.” Multiple police vehi­cles fol­lowed Sigg for a few min­utes as he drove to his family’s car lot, although he did not real­ize he was “the sub­ject of the pur­suit,” his attor­ney wrote.
He parked, got out, and was sur­round­ed by offi­cers from sev­er­al agencies.
Two Chanute police offi­cers pulled their guns on Sigg, accord­ing to the law­suit. Looking “quizzi­cal­ly” at them, he raised his hands, which can be seen in a screen­shot of body-cam­era footage of the incident.

“Get on the f — ing ground,” a now-for­mer deputy with the Allen County Sheriff’s Office yelled, accord­ing to the law­suit filed in the U.S. District of Kansas. Without warn­ing, the deputy used a Taser on Sigg — even though the man­u­fac­tur­er of the TASER X2 warns about using it “on the elder­ly,” his lawyer wrote. Sigg dropped “like a rock,” his attor­ney said and cut his head. “Sigg mum­bled and was hard to under­stand,” his Wichita attor­ney, Randall Rathbun, wrote in the law­suit. “As offi­cers talked with him on the scene, he indi­cat­ed that he did not know what was going on and did not feel right.”

Rathbun, who served as the U.S. attor­ney for the District of Kansas from 1993 to 1996, told The Star that Sigg required a trip to the emer­gency room to remove the taser probes from his body. “To this day, he can’t believe they did it,” he said. Other cops at the scene knew the deputy used exces­sive force and “were con­cerned by his con­duct,” the law­suit alleges. The peti­tion seeks a judg­ment of $250,000 in actu­al dam­ages and $250,000 in puni­tive dam­ages. The sheriff’s office did not return a mes­sage seek­ing com­ment Tuesday after­noon. Court records show Sigg plead­ed guilty to fail­ing to yield to an emer­gency vehi­cle after the inci­dent. (from yahoo news)

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