ATLANTA (AP) - Two deputies yell "Stop fighting!" and "He's got my Taser!" as they repeatedly stun a handcuffed man in the back of a vehicle, commanding him to relax even as he insists "I'm dead," shortly before he stops breathing, body-camera videos show.
The videos show the Nov. 20 incident in the back of an SUV in Coweta County, outside Atlanta. Chase Sherman, 32, of Destin, Florida, was pronounced dead at a hospital later that day.
The deputies responded after Sherman's mother called 911. She told the dispatcher she was in a car with her husband, her son and the son's girlfriend on southbound Interstate 85. She said her son was "freaking out" and had taken the synthetic drug spice.
The deputies approach the vehicle and start struggling with Sherman, with someone yelling "Tase him!" and "Hit him!" as he cries out and his mother begs them to stop, as shown in the videos. The videos from the body cameras of the two responding deputies were released Friday by Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Peter Skandalakis.
"What's your problem, buddy?" one deputy said. "That's a good way to get shot right there. I tell you right now, you grab my Taser again, it's gonna be on."
The deputies insist his mother and girlfriend in the front seat get away from the area.
"You're not gonna shot him, you hear me?" Sherman's mother said.
The deputies tell the family they're subduing Sherman for their own protection. They call for more help and tell Sherman to "just relax, stop resisting." They hit him with the stun gun multiple times. He cries out, eventually saying, "I'm dead."
At one point, Sherman is on the floor of the SUV. An emergency medical technician leans on him.
"I've got him pinned. He can't come up unless he comes up with me on him," the EMT said. A deputy continues to use his stun gun.
The deputies realize Sherman has stopped breathing and move him out of the vehicle. The family wails off camera. A deputy said, "Get the family back."
"He ain't breathing," someone said.
Emergency personnel do chest compressions on the roadside; a deputy removes Sherman's handcuffs.
One deputy later said, "Look at my cuffs," showing his mangled handcuffs from the incident. He says he knows he'll be fired.
District Attorney Skandalakis said in a statement Friday that his office has not finished reviewing the case and the investigation is ongoing.
Both deputies are still employed with the department, according to Col. James Yarbrough with Coweta County Sheriff's Office. They're identified in incident reports as J.D. Sepanski and S.F. Smith.
Nathan Lee, an attorney for the sheriff's office, said the family has indicated they plan to sue, and the agency's doesn't comment on pending or threatened litigation.
The incident is the latest in a string of confrontations between police and civilians caught on video. Many have raised concerns about officers' treatment of black people, but in this case Sherman is white, according to his death certificate.
Coweta County Sheriff's Office records from Sherman's death show one deputy's stun gun was used nine times in a 2-minute span for a total of 47 seconds, including one use that lasted 17 seconds. The other deputy's stun gun was used six times in just more than four minutes for a total of 29 seconds.
The family's attorney, Chris Stewart, said at a news conference Friday that they'd been in the Dominican Republic for his brother's wedding and decided to rent a car and drive home after Sherman became agitated during a layover in Atlanta, Stewart said. As they drove, Sherman was hallucinating and trying to exit the vehicle, Stewart said.
Sherman's father, Kevin Sherman, said was shocked when he saw the videos for the first time Friday, adding his son looked "out of it."
"He says 'I quit,' and these dirty dogs didn't know when to quit," Kevin Sherman said.
Stewart acknowledged the video shows Chase Sherman resisting the deputies at first and grabbing the end of the stun gun. However, he said once Sherman was handcuffed and stopped struggling, the officers should have waited for medical personnel rather than continuing to use stun guns and the weight of a person to subdue him.