Police body camera footage released last week shows a Destin man being tasered 15 times before he stopped breathing and died last year in the back seat of a car on Interstate 85 in Georgia.
Chase Sherman, 32, was travelling home from the Atlanta airport with his parents, Kevin and Mary Ann Sherman, and his fiancee, Patti Galloway. According to the New York Times, the family had spent several days in the Dominican Republic for the wedding of Sherman’s brother.
The Times reports that his parents became concerned about his erratic behavior, which included hallucinations, while on the trip and that Sherman told them he’d taken synthetic marijuana prior to traveling. His behavior continued on the leg home as they waited to board a flight at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where he told his parents he did not want to get on the plane.
The family decided to drive from Atlanta to Destin instead. About an hour outside of Atlanta, he again began hallucinating and tried to get out of the car, at one point biting his fiancee.
Sherman’s mother called 911.
By the end of his encounter with police, he was dead. See the video footage below. Warning: It contains violent content and graphic language.Â
NBC News, which obtained a copy of his death certificate, reports that his death was ruled a homicide due to “an altercation with law enforcement with several trigger pulls of an electronic control device.”
The certificate also notes that he had been shoved to the floorboard of the car and his body compressed by an officer’s body weight.