NEW YORK — It shouldn't have happened.
The New York Police Department all but admitted yesterday that Iman Morales should not have been stunned with a Taser gun, a jolt of 5,000 volts that incapacitated the naked, emotionally disturbed man as he plunged to his death, falling face-first from a store ledge in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Just as bad, the police officers involved in the Wednesday afternoon confrontation – elite Emergency Services Unit officers trained in the use of the Taser – had no game plan in place for what to do once Morales was stunned, police said. "None of the ESU officers on the scene were positioned to break his fall," said the NYPD's top spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, "nor did they devise a plan in advance to do so."
Browne also said two ESU cops – the lieutenant in charge of the operation and the officer who followed the lieutenant's order and used the weapon on Morales – are now under investigation because departmental guidelines clearly state that "when possible, the [Taser] should not be used … in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface."
The lieutenant, identified by police sources as Michael Pigott, 45, a 21-year veteran, was placed on modified duty yesterday, stripped of his gun and shield, and assigned to a desk. The officer, a 10-year veteran, whose name was unavailable yesterday, was taken off the streets and also assigned to a desk job, though he still has his gun and badge.
The Brooklyn district attorney's office, meanwhile, has asked that the NYPD not interview Pigott or the officer – both of whom have been assigned to Emergency Services since 2002 – until it has completed its review.
The autopsy on Morales was inconclusive and the medical examiner's office said tissue and toxicology tests must be conducted to determine the cause of death.
Morales, who lived alone on Tompkins Avenue, has a documented psychiatric history, police sources say. On Wednesday, he berated his mother when she showed up at his door, worried because she had not heard from him and feared he was off his medication, sources say.
When he stepped out of his third-story apartment and onto the fire escape, he was naked, police and witnesses say, and he was talking about wanting to die. During the ensuing 20-minute standoff, Morales climbed onto a metal security container above a metal gate that sits atop a vacant storefront on the ground level of his building.
He reached down and grabbed an 8-foot long fluorescent tube from underneath the container and waved and poked it at officers – those who had descended down the fire escape and those on the sidewalk.
By then, police say, officers had called for backup to come to the scene with an inflatable air bag, but before those officers arrived, the lieutenant gave the order and Morales, stunned by the Taser, tensed up and fell 10 feet, 5 inches to the ground, striking his head. He died at Kings County Hospital Center.
It appears, sources say, that the order was given when Morales tried to strike an ESU officer who had turned his back and was trying to secure his harness to the fire escape in an attempt to pull Morales to safety.
Maria Alvarez contributed to this story.
