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Zachary police officer faces discipline after tasing man in handcuffs

5 years 9 months 6 days ago Friday, July 13 2018 Jul 13, 2018 July 13, 2018 4:51 PM July 13, 2018 in News
Source: WBRZ

ZACHARY- Daulton Rainwater, a two-year rookie with the Zachary Police Department is facing discipline after he tased a man who was handcuffed back in April.

The WBRZ Investigative Unit obtained documents that show Rainwater omitted that detail when he filed the report that night. Rainwater showed up at the Best Western Hotel for a disturbance and charged Phillip Lilly with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. While Lilly was detained, he was tased.

"The suspect was handcuffed," Zachary Police Attorney Henry Olinde said. "He started misbehaving and was tased by Officer Rainwater. The question of course is, if you tase a suspect in handcuffs, does it violate the excessive force policy that virtually every police department has."

The problems surrounding the incident came to light two weeks ago when one of Rainwater's co-workers turned him in for a policy violation.

"It came in from another Zachary Police Officer," Olinde said.

This week, Rainwater was the target of a pre-disciplinary hearing. According to Olinde, when Rainwater was questioned about the incident, he admitted to the tasing. Because supervisors have to sign off on reports that are turned in, Olinde said he could not rule out that disciplinary measures could go beyond just Rainwater. Until decisions are made, Rainwater is still patrolling.

"One of the problems a small department like Zachary has is if you put a police officer on paid administrative leave the officer gets paid and is not on the street," Olinde said. "It negatively impacts, particularly in a smaller department, the number of officers on the street."

A decision is expected in the next couple of weeks about possible discipline. Police Chief David McDavid declined to do an interview.

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