WEBVTT - Taser Incorporated | Episode 4 - That's Capture 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:08.920 Previously on Taser Incorporated. So you see this pig go 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.480 into a sisterly, were you surprised? 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.240 Oh, absolutely, that's not supposed to happen. They said, that's 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.320 not supposed to happen, and they just kind of chuckled 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.880 and said, no, no, that happens. Okay, why don't we 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.079 know about it? 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:26.520 It kind of just matter of fact. It looked at 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.760 me like, oh no, he's not on drugs. It's a taser. 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:30.840 Taser caused this. 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.159 According to police, Masters wouldn't cooperate and the officer stunned 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:36.040 him with a taser. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:37.440 He resisted arrest. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.520 What we're told is that police pulled over the driver 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:42.400 because of an outstanding warrant. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.320 That's when all the questions really started. For me. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:11.479 I can't I can't explain how how my brain is 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.800 fucking works now. I mean, it's just like every day 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.400 he is a new challenge in it. I still figure. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.920 Rice Masters doesn't like to talk about what happened to him. 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.800 It's too painful. So the handful of times we've talked 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.319 about it since I met him ten years ago, this 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:30.120 is how we do it, driving around back roads on 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:34.000 the outskirts of Kansas City, driving helps him think. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.399 I'm gonna get up a little gas in this because 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:37.919 I don't know how. 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:41.200 Good the. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.080 Sun's going down and the Missouri sky seems pink forever. 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.000 Rice is in his late twenties, now a grown up. 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.720 His injury forced him to find a new road. What 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:00.680 do you really want people to know about you? And 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:06.000 who who Bryce Masters was before all this happened. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.200 I mean, I was just a kid. I was a good, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.360 hearty kid. I I was actually an anti bully. Like 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.240 I'm a good guy. I love my family and I'm good. 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.600 I'm good to people. I'm even even random people. You know, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.200 if if I see someone at the grocery store who 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.760 needs a couple of bucks for their for their bread. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.000 Or you know, all, hey, I got it. 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.320 You know, just that part of me has never changed, 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.360 but that there's so many things about me, you know 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.160 that I just wasn't me before, Like I was never 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.520 a truly angry person and that and sometimes I can 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:47.400 be really angry. It's hard to deal with that because 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.919 that's not who I actually am, but it's it's part 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.920 of who I become, and not because I wanted it 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:58.240 to be. But because of this this injury that you 0:02:58.320 --> 0:02:59.360 screwed my life up. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:08.000 This is absolute. Season one, Taser incorporated a story about 0:03:08.080 --> 0:04:02.960 unchecked power. I'm Nick Beredini. Episode four, that's capture Bryce's 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.600 Masters lay still in his hospital bed when his eyes 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.160 broke free and started to scan the room. He doesn't 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.160 remember any of those first moments, but his parents do. 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.920 Mad Stacy Masters waited for three exhausting days for any 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:18.200 sign that their son would live. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.240 We're coming through the door and I'm like, Matt, I 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.080 think he's awake. And that's when he heard my voice 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.200 and he he recognized us. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:35.000 When he finally woke up, he panicked. 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:39.960 He heard my voice and he like kind of lunged forward. 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.280 Nurses had to tie Bryce's arms to the bed after 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.520 he tried to rip out the breathing tube stuck down 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.360 his throat. He was bewildered, like he was trying to escape. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.760 They told us like, look, this is the hardest part 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:57.560 because he needs to breathe on his own without the machine. 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.240 But stay innovated for thirty minutes and you're gonna have 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.320 to talk him through that. And he was just like 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:08.000 he kept trying to pull the tube out of his throat, 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.400 and I remember just big tears running down his face. 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.760 Finally, nurses pulled out the breathing tube. Bryce was in 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.080 a lot of pain. He was confused, but he was 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:20.960 back from the dead. 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.120 He didn't have a very good memory, Like we would 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.440 tell him the story, I mean twenty minutes thirty minutes later, 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.159 Why am I here? What the fuck happened to me? 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.080 I mean like we just told you. Don't you remember 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.160 no what you know? He didn't remember anything, and like, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.400 why why am I here? What happened? And it was like, 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.280 you know, hey, this is what happened. You got stopped 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.600 by a cop and you got taste. And he's like 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.400 look at you, like what, Like, what the fuck are 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.040 you talking about? 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.720 Bryce's face was swollen. Doctors suspected his jaw had been 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.920 dislocated and popped back into place. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.279 He had a big contusion on his chin, and I 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.360 remember him picking up the mirror and he's like, what 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.560 the fuck happened to my face? You know? And we 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.400 were like, yeah, that's that what happened when the cop 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.640 did this. And he's like what, He's like, what did 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.080 I do? You know? And we're like we don't know, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.239 you know, I don't know. We don't know what happened. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.160 Bryce kept pressing his tongue against his lips. He said 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.480 it felt raw, his teeth felt crushed. Stacy and Matt 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.080 moved in for a closer look. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.840 And he's like spitting it out, and we're like looking 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.360 at it, and we're like, what is that? 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.080 One by one he started to spit pieces of his 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:50.000 teeth into Stacy's hand. At least three were sheared in 0:06:50.080 --> 0:07:01.039 half and several others badly chipped, and Stacy were so 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.120 wrapped up in Bryce's coma those first three days that 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.520 they hadn't focused on the details of why he was 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.840 in a coma, But when Bryce started to spit out 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.840 pieces of his teeth, they grabbed their attention. Why was 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:15.880 he tased? What happened to his teeth? 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.440 That was just a whole nother revelation, Like this is 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.440 way more fucked up than we thought. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.320 It turns out the FBI was interested too. Within hours 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.640 of the incident, agents started investigating whether the cop who 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.920 pulled Bryce over and tasered him violated his civil rights, 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.600 and soon after Bryce woke up from his coma, they 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.679 came to the hospital to see him. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:41.480 But I'm thinking, you know, we're kind of in the 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.200 middle of something right now, maybe this can wait a 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.760 couple of days, but they wouldn't wait. They were like, 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.120 we understand, but we still want to talk right now. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.160 Over the course of several visits, the FBI agents took 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.400 pictures of Bryce's messed up face, his broken teeth, and 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.480 the two little red bumps that showed where he'd been 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.240 tasered on his chest. The agents knew exactly where to 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.160 look for Bryce's injuries, to the point that Matt and 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.160 Stacy got the sense that the FBI knew something they didn't, 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.080 and it was true. The agents told them they knew 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.720 what happened that day. There was video of the entire incident. 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.960 Matt and Stacy wanted to know when could they see it? 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.960 What did Runnels do to Bryce? But also had Bryce 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.320 done something to Runnels? Not even Bryce could answer that question. 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.400 Do you remember anything at all about the Sunday that 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:41.680 you were tased and pulled over? 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:47.040 I remember I went to them all and brought bought 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.200 a brand new pair of shoes that when I woke 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.199 up I didn't like anymore. But that's pretty much it. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.800 I don't even remember what happened earlier in the day. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.720 It was a really really weird thing. The only thing 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.559 imber just getting no shoes, and then I had him 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.559 in my trunk and I was gonna go show Curtis. 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:06.400 That's all I remember. 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.400 Matt and Stacy went home from the hospital with two 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.240 big goals. The first was to do everything in their 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.319 power to help Bryce heal. The second was to figure 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.520 out what the hell happened. Stacey took the lead on 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.600 Bryce's recovery. Doctors told her he only had about two 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.000 months to try to fix the brain damage that could 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.160 still be healed. He was going to rehab five days 0:09:57.200 --> 0:09:58.880 a week, eight hours a day. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.679 It was really really hard just to get him in 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.400 the car. Like, you do not understand what he put 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:06.839 me through. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.800 Bryce had been a sweet, kind kid. Now he unleashed 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.040 an anger Stacy had never seen before. 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.640 I mean, he beat the dash of my car so 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:19.720 hard I thought he was going to blow the airbag. 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.840 He had dramatic mood swings and was in a deep depression, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.960 and he suffered from terrible insomnia. 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:34.240 The moodiness, it was unbearable. He was mean and bigger 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:34.520 than me. 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.600 Bryce looked like her son, He sounded like her son, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.120 but it was someone new inside. A familiar body. 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.319 And when we would talk about things that we would 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.960 assume he would be familiar with. I started to pick 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.400 up on he would kind of fake it. You could 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:57.599 just tell in his face that he was not remembering 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:04.199 this childhood memory, which is awful. A memory is pretty important. 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:10.720 You know, when Bryce saw the new pair of sneakers 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.920 he'd bought the same day he was taste, he asked 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.440 his mom who bought him those ugly ass shoes. At 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.280 Thanksgiving dinner that year, he asked Stacy to make his 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.960 favorite dessert, pecan bars. He took a few bites and 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.840 apologized he just didn't like it anymore. 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.120 And this is what he told me. He wanted to 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.320 just wake up and be like he was before. And 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:37.400 he remembered having a memory. He remembered not having a 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:42.520 limp or dragging his leg. He remembered the abilities that 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:48.200 he had, but he it was like he just didn't 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:52.000 have access to them anymore. Like that's the unfortunate part 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.800 about having a brain injury, is you remember being good 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.480 at math, but now when you go to make change, 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:01.400 you can't do it. 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.480 Bryce once told me that he didn't think he was 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.760 the kind of person to resist arrest or threaten a cob, 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:19.040 but he couldn't know for sure. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.480 That was a very emotional and internal battle for him 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.480 because he couldn't just tell himself you didn't do anything wrong, 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.000 because he didn't remember what he did or didn't do. 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.880 While Stacey was focused on Bryce's recovery, Matt went looking 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.679 for answers. His first move was to figure out if 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.959 Runnelds had pulled Bryce over because of a warrant. 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.120 He made a few calls, a couple buddies on the 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.280 apartment rain him through, and criminal record checked him, and 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.719 you know he's like, Nanga, I don't fucking warrant. No, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:50.360 He's clean. 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.840 There was a warrant out for the Grand Priest's license 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.640 plate when Runnelds pulled Bryce over, but it was for 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.440 a woman who committed a traffic violation from over one 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.640 hundred miles away. There was a typo in the system. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.800 It was corrected after the stop. In his statement explaining 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.880 why he stopped Bryce, Runnels claimed he pulled the car 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.920 over because it had darkly tinted windows and that after 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.560 he stopped Bryce, he detected an odor of marijuana coming 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:19.160 from inside the vehicle. 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.720 So then that just started this whole other doubt, you know, 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.800 in my mind of like what's okay, what's really going on? 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.520 Matt started to suspect that Runnels was covering his ass. 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.000 The warrant wouldn't have been enough to justify stopping Bryce, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.120 so when Matt saw the statement, he thought Runnels changed 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.520 his reason for pulling Bryce over to darkly tinted windows 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:47.839 and then marijuana smell, which is subjective. Matt at Seene 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.480 cops do this kind of thing. Before he told the 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.960 FBI agents, he thought Runnels was working the case backwards, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:59.000 trying to justify a stop after it happened. Runnels also 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:03.079 wrote that Bryce fused his commands and resisted arrest, which 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.880 justified his use of the taser. So Matt became consumed 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.880 with doubt. He obsessed over what everyone else thought. He 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.720 watched every news story, and even worse, he read the 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.360 opinions of strangers on social media and in online comments. 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.640 One comment on Facebook says the kid was probably a thug, 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.800 he probably broke the law, and another blames Matt directly. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.000 His dad should have raised a more respectful son. 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.200 A lot of people tried to make Bryce out to 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.880 be this piece of shit kid that, you know, his 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.600 parents taught him not to respect law enforcement, and look 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.760 what happened to him. Fuck him, you know, that's what should. 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.200 Have happened to him. The comments got to Matt not 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.480 because he was angry at them. Matt was afraid they 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.200 were right. Cops don't just taze people for no reason. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:00.040 And then there was another big mystery. Matt was he 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.440 unsure about why Ronald's tasered his son, but he was 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.520 equally unsure about what doctor Augustin, Rice's surgeon in the 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.040 trauma unit told him. Could the taser really stop Bryce's heart? 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.360 At first, it was kind of like denial, like, yeah, 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.680 that's not like that can't happen, you know. And then 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.880 I just started researching on my own, googling taser stuff 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.080 and looking at videos and looking up court cases and 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.240 like things that had happened around the country. And I 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.760 first saw the Stanley Harlan incident that had happened in Mobley, Missouri. 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:41.240 Caught my Stanley Harlan, the kid who was my age 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.960 when he was tasered in front of his house, the 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.760 same case that caught my eye too six years before 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:49.360 Matt started reading about him. 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.560 I was like totally floored that that was even possible. 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.160 Matt had heard news reports about people dying from tasers before, 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.640 but always thought it was the media or act just 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.360 out to get cops. He went back to the training 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.720 that taught him the taser was safe. If people were dying, 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.440 it was because they were on drugs, on a ledge, 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.160 or fighting the police, excited delirium, et cetera. But after 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.000 Matt learned about Stanley Harlan, he began to read other 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.720 news articles, lots of them. Now with his mind open 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.480 to the idea that the taser could cause harm, he 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.320 read more stories of people who were shot by tasers 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:26.920 in the chest. 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.600 There was a kid named Darryl Turner that had I 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.480 don't know what year Daryl died two thousand and eight. 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.400 So there's a video of Darryl Turner and he got 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:37.440 tased and died. 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.640 And suddenly Matt was seeing things from a completely different perspective. 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.880 He started collecting the news articles and then actually looking 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:52.600 up the lawsuits the articles were pointing to against Taser International, 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:57.040 depositions in court filings alleging the company knew tasers caused 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.640 cardiac arrest, so he began to print those out too. 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.119 He put his pages in a brown accordion folder, and 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:05.280 each day it. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.160 Got thicker, and I would say between like September fourteen, 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.280 like in the December is when I really went down 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.000 this rabbit hole and was coming across all this stuff, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.040 and I'm just like, why don't cops know any of 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.640 this stuff? Like, if you knew this, you wouldn't use 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.800 this thing. How the fuck is this even going on. 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.400 That's when Matt started to read studies he'd never heard 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.320 about before, ones that completely contradicted the studies he was 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.280 familiar with from taser training. These studies clearly showed the 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.960 taser's electric current could override someone's regular heartbeat like a 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.639 pacemaker gone haywire, and speed it up to rapid rates. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.720 To rapid sometimes, like in his son's case, it could 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.520 lead to a cardiac arrest. Doctors called it cardiac capture 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.520 and hit Matt. This was the world where doctor Augustin lived. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.760 In this world, the taser could cause a cardiac arrest 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.640 wasn't some myth, It was science. Why wasn't it seen 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.280 as reality? In Matt's world? Cops were the ones using 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.440 this weapon, and yet the only reason he was learning 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.240 about the danger was because his own son got hurt. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.359 Even some of the company's studies were quietly admitting that 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.560 Taser could affect the heart. Matt found one in a 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.879 medical journal from twenty ten, published four years before Bryce 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.240 was tasered. The study was run by doctor Jeff Hoe, 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.959 Taser International's medical director at the time. He was testing 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.920 a new Taser model. It was a slightly less powerful 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.600 weapon than the X twenty six, and Hoe was pretty 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.840 sure it was ready for sales. But one of the 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.400 people observing the test with Taser's doctors was a paramedic 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.640 turned cop, a guy who was getting more and more 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.640 concerned about what he was being behind closed doors during 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:06.880 pig tests. Oakland PDS Mike Leonesio he was still accepting 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.000 invitations to Taser's tests, and some of the tests were 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.520 not on pigs, they were on human beings. Mike remembers 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.200 they started this test during the company's annual. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:22.000 Conference, and I mean it was a big fanfare, you know, lights, 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.560 and they had the countdown clock. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.119 The conference was at a resort in Arizona and they 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.479 were launching the new Taser X three. Mike says they 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.080 had set up a lab and a trailer in the 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:34.240 parking lot. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.040 They were asking for human volunteers, and you know, you've 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.199 got a room of six hundred, eight hundred cops and 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.240 they would give you a little perk, so like if 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.600 you signed up, they would give you a T shirt, 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:47.680 a lab rat T shirt. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:49.840 It actually had a rat on a lab ren Mike says. 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.080 Doctor Hoe hooked each volunteer up to an ultrasound machine 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.520 to get an accurate measure of their heart rhythm. During 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.960 the taser shot. Mike was hanging out by the medical equipment. 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.440 He walked does The first few guys got zapped without issue. 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.640 So then we get to a sheriff's deputy sergeant from Texas. 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.600 So he comes and he's not a real big guy, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.200 and he comes in and they run him through all 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.800 the paces and they do the pre medical thing and 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.679 get him behind the screen and they shoot him with 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:18.960 the thing, and then they take him over and they 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.480 lay him down, hook him all up and they hit 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.560 him and they get cardiac captured. 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.439 The electric current from this new taser model captured the 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.399 deputy's normal heartbeat and sped it up again like a 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:35.359 revd up pacemaker. 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.960 I remember Hoe was standing there and I remember looking 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.360 at the screen, and I said, that's capture. 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:44.960 Mike had seen the taser effect the heart and pig testing, 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.719 but this was a human during a controlled experiment designed 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:51.160 to be as safe as possible. 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.960 The deputy was fine. I mean, he didn't have any 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.320 negative effects, he wasn't unconscious, he didn't do anything. I mean, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.879 it was really a couple of seconds maybe, but it 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:04.480 was clearly capture. 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.360 That was the thing. Cardiac capture wasn't a death sentence. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.240 Previous tests and pigs had shown that most of the 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.160 time when the taser caused capture, the pig's hearts went 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.080 back to normal when the shock was over. But this 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.359 was the first human test on this new model, and 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:29.640 not even ten volunteers in someone's heart got captured. Mike 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.439 told me that doctor Host shut down the test. A 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:34.840 few Taser employees hopped in a car and took the 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:36.600 new prototype back to headquarters. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.240 Maybe a couple of hours went by, and the technical 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:45.040 guys come back and I said, wait a minute, hold 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:49.240 on a minute. We just saw what happened here. You're 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.320 going to start up again. And they said, oh, yeah, 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.120 I don't know. We fixed the problem. And I said, 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.080 what do you mean, you fix the problem, and these 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:57.440 are the exact words. 0:21:57.880 --> 0:21:59.199 I said, well, we tweaked it. 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:01.760 I said, you tweaked what he says, we took the 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.199 weapon and we tweaked it. It's fine now. And I said, well, 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.520 what is a tweak What does that mean? And that's 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:10.440 all they would say is we tweaked it. It's fine, 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:12.840 It's okay now. 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.280 Months later, doctor Hoe was questioned about the incident under 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.959 oath and he said he didn't know what they did 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.280 to tweak it either. At the time, Mike remembers he 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.760 couldn't believe they were going forward with the test. 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.080 I said, you know, you guys are downplaying this thing, 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.440 and you know, everything's fine. And granted, I'm glad there's 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.159 nothing wrong with the deputy. I'm glad that it was 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.360 just you know, we saw it was a couple of seconds. 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.720 No big Well, I'm not going to say no big deal, 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:42.119 because any time you're affecting the heart like that, it 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.560 is it is a big deal. But the fact that 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.680 they just wouldn't tell me what they did, what was wrong, 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.520 how they fixed it, that was a little disturbing. So 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.320 I went home still concerned. 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:58.960 Mike says he kept bringing up the incident with doctor 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:03.399 Hoe and the other scientists running the test, and at. 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:05.880 First their response was no, no, this was an aberration. 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.600 This is like you know, statistically, it's not significant, it's 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:12.640 not relevant. I said, look, if you don't report this 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:17.399 in your study, then I'm going to report it. So 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:20.440 they said, fine, all right, we'll make sure that it's 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:26.119 in there, and I said, okay. 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:29.679 Five years later, Matt Masters was printing documents off the 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:32.840 Internet and putting them in his folder. That's when he 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:38.640 saw training bulletin fifteen, issued by Taser International on September thirtieth, 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:42.120 two thousand and nine, about three months after the human test. 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.959 Mike saw Matt read the eighteen page document and his 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:50.359 jaw dropped Underneath a bullet point labeled cardiac. He read 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.399 the risk of an adverse cardiac event related to a 0:23:54.440 --> 0:24:01.080 Taser ECD discharge is deemed to be extremely low. This 0:24:01.240 --> 0:24:05.199 meant that five years before Timothy Runnels tasered Bryce, Taser 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.679 International told cops the taser could affect the heart, but 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:12.840 at least in Matt's case, he'd never heard it before. 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.080 Nobody ever told us any of this when I first 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.159 got trained, and I want to say around two thousand 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:22.520 and four ish. You know, fast forward to twenty fourteen, 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:27.000 ten years later, there was no change in what I 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:28.640 was trained to know. Ford to twenty. 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:41.000 Fourteen, all cops got basically the same training on tasers. 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:44.760 If Matt didn't know a taser could cause cardiac arrest, 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:47.359 why would the guy who shot his son in the 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:50.840 chest with a taser? No, So Matt was wondering if 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:54.560 this was just a tragic mistake. What if Bryce resisted 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:57.240 arrest and Runalds thought he was doing the right thing. 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:01.440 And then I started kind of doubt my and really thinking, well, 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:04.560 maybe maybe he really didn't do anything wrong. 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:09.760 So six months after Timothy Runnells tase Bryce, Matt and 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:12.359 Stacy were surprised to learn that Runnels was going to 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:17.520