MichiganRadio

Investigation Under Way To Determine Whether Police Tasers Killed East Grand Rapids Man GRAND RAPIDS, MI (Michigan Radio) - Investigators in Grand Rapids are trying to determine whether tasers played a role in the death of a suspect.

Matthew Bolick died Monday night, while in the custody of the East Grand Rapids police. Officers had responded to a domestic disturbance call. When they arrived, department officials say the 30-year-old Bolick punched one officer in the face, and fled into the house. Police chased him, wrestled him down, and tasered him three or four times.

Mark Herald is head of the department. He says there's no policy on how many times a suspect can be shot with a taser gun.

"It's any time a taser is deployed and discharged, depending upon the circumstances at the time'" Herald says of the policy. "Each incident is very, very different, depending on the nature of the individual encountered."

Herald's department handed the case to the city of Grand Rapids Police Department for investigation. An autopsy is scheduled to determine whether the tasers led to Bolick's death.

Contact Dustin Dwyer at dtdwyer@umich.edu.

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