Body-Cam Video Released Of Denton Tasing Incident

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DENTON (CBSDFW.COM) - Denton Police released body camera video to counter a cellphone video posted online showing an officer deploying his Taser on a black male. The cellphone video shows police grappling with an incoherent woman who is nude and wrapped in a blanket on the second floor of a motel.

The woman was reported to police as wandering around naked with her baby in her arms. The man who was shocked by the Taser was a bystander who was holding the woman's baby until the confrontation began and he gave the baby to someone else.

The camera pans over just as the man is shocked. He's seen falling to the ground narrowly missing a guardrail on the balcony.

Now we see it from the officers' perspective.

The video released by Denton P.D. shows the woman is incoherent. She tells officers she hears voices in the parking lot and repeatedly stares at and gestures toward the lot even though no one was there.

"She kept looking around over the balcony," said department spokesman Ryan Grelle. "They kept thinking she may try to hurt herself. That is why they took her, tried to place handcuffs on her."

You can see the bystander, twenty-six year old Marcus Coleman, become agitated apparently because the woman's blanket is coming off in the struggle. He motions and is yelling at the third officer while the other two officers grapple with the screaming woman.

"Back up!" the officer yelled repeatedly. "Back up!"

Coleman appears to yell, "Why are you on me, man?"

"Back up!" the officer yelled again.

The stand off lasts for several moments until the woman yells, "Somebody help me!"

Coleman tries to get past the officer and is hit with the Taser. Police say the officer who deployed the Taser has more than twenty years on the force.

"We felt we needed to get it out there that he didn't follow commands," Grelle said. "He did not follow commands of the officer. Thirty times he was told to back up."

The video convinced community leaders to cancel planned demonstrations.

"If something had gone wrong or out of sorts with this situation we would start demonstrated because we are tired of being mistreated by policing agencies," said Denton NAACP leader Willie Hudspeth. "So, this turned out to be a good thing."

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