Combative Man Tased in Front of Justice Center

Incoherent shouting rang out downtown in front of the Tom Green County Justice Center on Friday, when a man, whom eyewitnesses say was loitering, became combative after law enforcement officers asked him to leave.

According to an eyewitness, the man had been loitering in front of the front  door for some time, and appeared "crazy". When a sheriff's deputy and another officer approached the man and asked him to leave, the man became combative.

"He said, 'I want to pray, I want to pray,' and he wouldn't leave," the witness reported. "They asked him to leave and then they set him down and he started going crazy."

The witness said the officers then attempted to get the man to sit down and handcuff him, at which point the man flipped out.  

"They tried to put cuffs on him and he was fighting them, so the city cop tased him, got him down on the ground and they still couldn't handle him," he said. "He didn't want to leave. He was acting crazy. I mean, you could tell. He was wired out." 

At one point, the witness said, the officers managed to get him back toward the entrance of the building, at which point the man straddled the top of a bench seated near the entrance.

"They couldn't get him off of there and then they tased him and got him on the ground," he said.

The tazing, our witness said, "looked like it f****** hurt, that's what it looked like." However, the man remained non-compliant.

"Those cops were trying not to hurt him, but he was going to hurt himself if they didn't tase him and get him on the ground."

After the incident, the man was promptly escorted into the county jail. His identity has not yet been released.

An official statement from law enforcement has not yet been provided.