‘It’s heartbreaking’: Family of man left comatose after being tased by East Bay park police files federal lawsuit

OAKLAND — A federal lawsuit filed this week claims a San Francisco man received no medical attention for more than 45 minutes after being tased by an East Bay Regional Park District police officer along an Oakland shoreline, despite flailing for help and later floating in the water unconscious.

The allegation was among numerous new claims by the attorneys of Deontae Faison, 35, who was left comatose after the early April 2024 encounter at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline. The lawsuit also accused the park district’s officers of tasing Faison while he stood knee-deep in water, and then neglecting to attempt CPR on him after pulling his limp body to shore.

In addition, the lawsuit claimed officers failed to tell medical personnel that Faison had been tased. Hospital workers only learned that fact a day after he was admitted, when medical personnel discovered puncture wounds from the device, his attorneys claim.

On Tuesday, Faison’s family excoriated the police department for their alleged actions that day. In the process, they released snippets of the officers’ body camera footage, depicting Faison being ordered from a pickup truck and later being electrically shocked.

“It’s heartbreaking — it’s unbelievable,” said Faison’s mother, Theresa Flores.

“At this point we still don’t know if my brother’s going to live or not. He doesn’t know who we are. He doesn’t know who his children are,” added his sister, Tenaya Sims. “For the last six months, he’s been fighting for his life. He’s been fighting to breathe.”

In a statement, a spokesman for the East Bay Regional Park District said, “our hearts go out to Mr. Faison and his family.” The agency declined to comment further, citing a practice of not discussing pending litigation. Attorneys for Alameda County, which is also named as a defendant, did not immediate respond to a request for comment.

The allegations stem from an April 5 encounter that began when Faison was confronted by an officer with the East Bay Regional Park District, over expired tags on a truck Faison was sitting in with a friend near the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.

The officer called for a fingerprint technician after failing to find the alias that Faison had provided to the officer in an online database. Faison was detained for nearly 20 minutes, at which point he “became more panicked” and ran to a series of rocks near a channel leading to San Leandro Bay, the lawsuit said.

The officer gave chase and tased Faison just feet from the shore, the lawsuit claimed, at which point Faison flailed into the water. Then the officer continued electrically shocking him, expending the device’s battery, said Faison’s attorney, Jamir Davis.

Faison spent 30 to 40 minutes struggling to remain afloat and screaming in the water before falling unconscious and floating 10 to 15 feet from an opposite shoreline, according to the lawsuit. Only then did the park’s police officers and Alameda County sheriff’s deputies pull the man to shore and call for paramedics, the lawsuit said.

Despite laying there “unresponsive” for 15 minutes while paramedics drove to the scene, none of the deputies or police officers administered CPR, the lawsuit said.

Faison was charged with three misdemeanors, including a single count of giving false information to a police officer and two counts of resisting, obstructing, delaying a police officer or EMT, court records show. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

The lawsuit claimed some police officers told others to turn off the sound on their body-worn cameras, while allowing them to forgo collecting Faison’s clothing and taser strings as evidence and instead dispose of them.

“This is not only unfortunate — these are actions that we need to hold the police department accountable for,” Davis said.

Another attorney for the family, Adanté Pointer, took issue with the “outrageous” way that officers confronted Faison, who is Black, compared to Faison’s white friend who had also been there that day. That other person was charged with five misdemeanors, including the same three filed against Faison, as well as false impersonation and possession of an injection/ingestion device, court records show.

“When they saw him flailing, trying to avoid drowning, begging for his life and for help, these people casually sat there on the beach looking at it as if it was some type of form of entertainment or amusement,” Pointer said.

Faison, a father of two sons, was hospitalized for three months before being transferred home, where he now lives under the care of one of his two older sisters.

On Tuesday, that sister, Tenaya Sims, said Faison is living with an anoxic brain injury and his prognosis is “poor.” He requires the use of a feeding tube and cannot move his eyes or limbs.

“It’s devastating,” Sims said. “You have to realize that six months ago, he was this healthy young vibrant guy. And to see the condition he’s in now, even his 4-year-old son, he’s like ‘I miss my dad.’”

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.