911 Tape: Police Officer Ken Thompson Taser-Kills Brian Cardall Within 42 Seconds of Arrival on Scene

Hurricane police officer Ken Thompson must be having nightmares. Thompson is the officer that made the decision to electrocute Brian Cardall last week out on the side of a southern Utah highway earlier this month. The nightmare for Officer Thompson is that his actions are documented on audio tape.

Thompson was one of the multiple officers called to the scene by a 911 call placed by Brian Cardall's wife. Anna Cardall tells a dispatcher that her husband didn't have weapons on him. She states he hadn't been drinking and wasn't under the influence of drugs, outside of his Seroquel (prescribed to deal with his bipolar disorder).

Thompson took all of 42 seconds to fatally shoot an unarmed Cardall with his taser gun. 42 seconds. Listen the the police audio tape and judge for yourself.

Thompson arrives on the scene at 1:17 pm and begins to yell, "Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground!" Brian Cardall responds twice in what sounds as a panicked voice, "Is this a standoff! Don't shoot."

About 42 seconds after arriving on scene the officer deployed his Taser yelling, "Taser deployed! Stay on the ground! Stay on the ground!"

Thompson is heard on the tape to say, "He went down, he tried to get up and I told him to stay down. I tased him again and then after the second time..." You can hear Brian Cardall moaning and screaming for about five seconds after Thompson first deploys a Taser on him. Following a two-second pause, Thompson deploys the Taser on Cardall again. He says in the recordings Cardall had tried to get up.

Officers struggle to get Brian Cardall into handcuffs. You can also hear Brian Cardall's wife yelling at him to comply. Almost immediately, they notice something wrong.

"He's not breathing," an officer said on the tape. They also notice he is pale. More than three minutes after the Taser was deployed, someone can be heard saying, "no pulse."

The officers and paramedics on the scene know immediately Thompson messed up as they realize he shot Cardall twice with a Taser, once when Cardall -- in the midst of a psychotic episode -- was already on the ground.

"Did he come after you?" an officer whispered at taser-happy officer Ken Thompson.

"Huh?" Thompson replies on police and 911 dispatch recordings.

"He went right at you?" another officer asks Thompson again, later.

"Yeah," Thompson flatly replies.

Brian Cardall died at the scene. Hurricane police have declined to comment as to why the Thompson chose to use a Taser instead of attempting to subdue Cardall with other methods. Multiple officers were on the scene. Yet, they could only afford 42 seconds to assess the situation before getting busy with their so-called 'non-lethal' taser on a confused man.

What is your take on this taser-related death?

911 Tape Recording of Brian Cardall's Taser Death

Less than a week ago a family lost their husband, father and son ... Brian Cardall ... because a Hurricane police officer was too trigger-happy with his taser gun. Brian Cardall was working toward his PhD at Northern Arizona University in molecular ecology. He was driving with his wife and daughter back to Arizona last Tuesday when he became disoriented.

Brian Cardall was bi-polar. In the middle of a desert road his mind began playing tricks on him. He was unarmed. He needed help. Instead of help ... he was killed because a police officer was too lazy to use commonsense and too quick to use his shiny new taser gun.

Instead of patiently getting Cardall under control to help him ... this Hurricane police officer (does any villager know his name yet?) electrocuted Cardall with 50,000 volts of electricity. Cardall dropped. Cardall died. Now a 2-year old baby and his unborn sibling will grow up without a Daddy.

Was it justified? You can judge for yourself. The Cardall family released the following 911 recordings on the death that occurred last Tuesday.






The recordings reveal Cardall’s wife’s pleas for help from authorities ... and the preoccupation with the authorities for painting Cardall as a druggie posing a danger to the 2-year old child.

Duane Cardall, Brian's father, said the family has listened to the tapes released by the Washington County Critical Task Force to the family. But even after that, they don't feel there is any way a taser should have been used.

In a press release late Friday afternoon, Hurricane City attorney Peter Stirba stated that, "Ms. Cardall reports to dispatch that Mr. Cardall has taken all his clothes off and is naked, she is afraid he is going to jump in front of a car, and that he is chasing after cars that have pulled over to help, and she is afraid he will 'freak out' on one of them."

The Cardall family today says they stand by their earlier statement and that,

"While Mr. Stirba may have provided his interpretation of the recordings in his Friday afternoon news release, we feel he has omitted numerous highly significant facts, which we feel the public should know."

I remain convinced that we need to push for congressional hearings on the 22 taser deaths in America so far this year.

You've heard the 911 tape from Cardall's wife. What say u?