Warren officials probe use of stun gun

The safety director said he received no formal complaint about the incident.

STAFF/WIRE REPORTS

WARREN — A city police officer remains on paid administrative leave as officials review a tape showing the officer using an electronic stun gun on a woman during a disturbance at a local bar.

The handcuffed woman was knocked unconscious after she fell to the pavement, police said.

Video from Patrolman Richard Kovach’s cruiser shows him jolting the screaming woman with a Taser electronic device both before and after she was handcuffed.

The woman had been ordered out of a bar.

Kovach is on paid administrative leave until the completion of an internal investigation.

Heidi Gill, 38, was arrested Sept. 2 on charges of falsification, assault, resisting arrest, criminal damaging and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, officials said. She has pleaded innocent. A hearing is set for Oct. 25 in Warren Municipal Court.

Gill could not be reached to comment. She does not have a listed telephone number in her name.

Service Safety Director Doug Franklin said he reviewed the tape for the first time Tuesday along with the police command staff and had city attorneys view the tape Wednesday.

Franklin said he would have viewed the tape sooner if there had been a complaint.

“In this case, there was no formal complaint,” Franklin said.

That’s the reason for the three-week time lapse between the event and the viewing of the tape, he said.

What happened

Kovach had pulled his cruiser into the parking lot of Up A Creek bar on East Market Street. A bouncer told him there was a disturbance inside, and Kovach saw another bouncer escorting Gill, of Pintail Drive Northeast in Howland, out of the bar.

Gill then ran from Kovach toward the rear parking lot where she got into a vehicle that was not hers and refused orders to get out. Kovach then shocked her with a Taser. She still refused to get out of the vehicle and he Tasered her again.

Kovach’s report said he made several other attempts to use the Taser on Gill, but it misfired repeatedly.

Once inside the cruiser, his report said, she kicked at a rear window and tried to climb into the front seat, ignoring his commands to stop, the police report said.

“I deployed a second Taser cartridge into her and the violent turbulent action stopped immediately,” Kovach says in his report. “I then requested a car with a cage for transport.”

She was again stunned during an attempted transfer to the second car, she fell and was knocked unconscious, and an ambulance took her to a local hospital, the report said.

Franklin said Thursday that witnesses and other officers on scene will be interviewed as part of the investigation.

“We take all issues with use of force very seriously,” he said.

The use of Tasers is legal. Tasers are favored over lethal weapons when action needs taken, but they are not to be abused,he added.