Marvin Booker, 56, was a homeless ordained street minister.  He'd spent the last several decades living back and forth between Denver and Memphis.  He had a string of crimes in his past: loitering, carry a concealed weapon, disturbing the peace, threatening assault, and so forth; all probably par for the course for homeless people.

  He was the son of a prominent Memphis minister, and once wrote a small book on Martin Luther King, Jr., which he sold on the streets of Memphis as he recited parts of King's  I Have a Dream speech.  Local folks had nicknamed him 'Martin'.

  He helped out in soup kitchens, and friends said he was turning his life around.

""If you closed your eyes, you would think you were in the presence of Martin Luther King," said Memphis Pastor Andrews R. Smith.   People would cry. He was always smiling. His eyes would just shine like a chipmunk.  Marvin is such a kindhearted person," Smith said. "His sweet demeanor makes the circumstances of his death seem suspicious," he said.

Marvin returned to Denver a year or two ago when Memphis cracked down on panhandling.  On July 9 he was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia; he fell asleep at the station house while waiting to be processed.  When his name was called at 3:00 a.m., he went to the desk, and was ordered to sit down.  The female duty officer asked him to sit; he declined.  The officer told him if he didn't sit, he would be placed in a holding cell; he chose that option.   When he realized that he had forgotten to put on his shoes, he told the deputy he would retrieve his shoes, and walked toward them.  The deputy yelled repeatedly at him to come back; he didn't.  He apparently really wanted his shoes.  The homeless are attached to their possessions, and shoes are a big deal to them.

  The female deputy followed him, grabbed his arm, and put a hold on him; he shoved her away.  Four other deputies wrestled the 5'5" 175-pound man to the floor, a deputy held each of his legs and arms.  One deputy yelled, "Get the Taser; get the Taser."  Someone did, and a fifth put his head in a lock-hold as the Taser crackled repeatedly, while one deputy yelled, "Probe his _____."  (unknown destination)

  "I can't breathe..." Booker said, and went limp.  The deputies handcuffed his hands behind his back, and carried him to a holding cell facedown, by the arms and legs, and deposited him facedown on the floor, un-cuffed him, and without checking his pulse, left the room.  The deputies high-fived each other, and laughed.

  A nearby witness who was waiting to be processed yelled out that Booker was not breathing.  An officer called for help; when they checked, Marvin Booker was dead.

  He was buried in Memphis on July 16 at the Cathedral of Faith Community Church where his brother C.L. Booker is the pastor.

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  One female deputy was treated and released at a local hospital for injuries sustained in the confrontation.

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 This story was told in yesterday's Denver Post by Kirk Mitchell, who interviewed the two witnesses, John Yedo (one previous drug arrest in 1974) and Christopher Maten (arrested for public consumption of alcohol in 2005).  Niether were career criminals, and neither had been interviewed by police to date concerning this 'incident'.

  No officials will speak of the event, saying there is an ongoing investigation, but Captain Frank Gale said videotapes 'should show what happened'.  All deputies are still on the job meanwhile.  The DA's office said the investigation would take several weeks.

    True Taser death figures seem hard to come by; when I started looking into it a year or so ago, many of the statistics were based on after-the-fact incidents since tallies in these deaths weren't being kept per se.  Many reported deaths weren't investigated as such, so the causes of death were ascribed to other factors, and retroactively connected to Tasers or stun-guns. 

  But Amnesty International figures say that as of March 24 2009, US deaths by Taser stood at 351 since June 2001.

  Taser spokesperson Steve Tuttle is quoted as saying:

"The Taser itself has saved thousands of lives, and medical science has shown it to be the safer alternative compared to any other tool on an officer's belt today," said spokesman Steve Tuttle.

"We stand behind the safety of our Taser devices, and medical science supports this stance, especially in terms of human testing," Tuttle said.

  Electronic Village has documented 89 Taser deaths in the US since January 2009.  They have also posted an apparently widely accepted Use of Force Continuum here. 

  Critics say (and I include myself as one) that the original purpose of Tasers for police was for use as a non-lethal tool in cases where deadly force was indicated (Level 6), or in a newer Level Five, designated Less Lethal Force .  They are obviously being used less discriminately than that in too many cases, and shocks are often delivered numerous times.   An X26 Taser gives 50,000 volts; others vary.  Children, the mentally handicapped, the handicapped, the aged, the restrained, have all been Tased, some to the death.