Cops Taser Man for Trying to Attend Church

Michigan police taser nude man outside church




Feb 20, 8:39 PM (ET)


BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) - Going to church brought no peace to a man Tasered by police as he stood in the nude in 27-degree weather. A funeral Mass was being held inside St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church when police received 911 calls about a naked man Friday morning. Sgt. Gordon Cameron said the man told officers he was having problems with his parents and wanted to go to church.

"I needed to cleanse my soul and believed the only way to do that was to appear naked, before the Almighty, as I was born," the man told a female reporter from the Bay City Times.

Sgt. Cameron told The Bay City Times that the man cursed and verbally abused police when they told him he couldn't enter the church without clothing. That's when police officer Troy Sierras blasted the man with a Taser, an electronic device that fires barbs causing temporary paralysis. The man screamed before slumping to the ground.

A blanket was thrown over him and he was taken to Bay Regional Medical Center for treatment for acute electrical shock and possible cardiac arrest.

Cameron said the man, whose name was withheld, likely wouldn't be charged with any crime. "He likely won't remember his own name when he wakes up from that shot I gave him," said Sierras. "I think I had it set on 50,000 volts. That's my church and I don't want no kinky male nudie hanging out there. If I had my way I would have wasted him right there."

Sgt. Cameron grabbed Officer Sierras and stuffed a greasy rag in his mouth, bringing an abrupt end to the interview. Several off duty priests came out and requested to view the body of the tasered man. Sgt. Cameron offered to Taser them, too, and they went back inside.

Contributing to this story was Isaac Epstein, in Tel Aviv.

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