Taser Death: Andrew Layton (Mankato, MN)

Andrew Layton

It happened again! This time a 26-year old man, Andrew Layton, was unconscious in a Hy-Vee store entrance early on New Year's morning when Mankato police officers Daniel Best, Kenneth Baker, Kyley Groby, Audrey Burgess and Cmdr. Craig Frericks arrived on the scene. [SOURCE]

Layton was unconscious and unarmed.

At this point the story gets murky. The police indicate that Layton was arrested because he became combative. There was no mention of electrocution by taser when the story was first released by the police. However, now we understand that Layton was pumped with 50,000 volts of electricity at least twice from a taser gun coming off the hip of one of the above-named police officers.

A few days later he was dead. We tend to call that extra-judicial electrocution. The penalty for being unconscious on the morning after New Year's Eve should never be death ... not even in Butt-Phuque, Minnesota.

The Layton family is angry and confused.

“We just learned there’s some discrepancies between the police report and the BCA investigation,” Layton's uncle Brad Hanson said. “At first they didn’t say there was a taser. Now they’re saying a taser was used.”

The initial Department of Public Safety news release also said an ambulance responded to Hy-Vee and Layton was taken to the Blue Earth County Jail in the ambulance. Layton’s family also had questions about why, if an ambulance was necessary, Layton was taken to jail and not the hospital. Layton’s heart stopped at some point on his way to the jail and he wasn’t taken to the hospital until after he was revived.

As we often see in these taser-related killings ... the police don't waste any time telling the press that drugs may have been involved. However, Hanson said, as far as he knows, Layton had quit using drugs recently. He also said hospital staff told his mother there were no drugs in Layton’s system, but there was a “little bit” of alcohol.

The family has been able to figure out where Layton was up until about two hours before the Hy-Vee incident. Hanson said Layton was at his girlfriend’s house with other people until about 2:30 a.m.

“He borrowed her phone and wasn’t seen after that,” Hanson said. “The next thing anyone knew he was at Hy-Vee. We don’t know why he was at Hy-Vee. Was he ill? Was he injured? I really don’t think we’re going to know for awhile.”