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Family members are still searching for answers about what happened to a Victorville man who died after being tased several times in police custody.
It was an ordeal for Bianca Parker to find out where her husband Dante Parker was on Tuesday evening when he hadn't arrived home by 11 p.m. She told the Victorville Daily Press on Thursday that though her family is making funeral arrangements, she still has yet to see the body of her husband.
Parker didn't find out that her husband was dead until eight hours after he had been pronounced dead. Parker was in a panic when her husband hadn't come home, so she called around to hospitals until she found out he was at Victor Valley Global Medical Center. She arrived at midnight with her father-in-law Darrell Parker, and two hours later detectives started questioning her about his medical history. She told the Daily-Press, “I finally asked, 'Is he dead?' And they said, 'Yes, he passed at six o’clock.'"
That's when detectives told her that her husband, who was considered the suspect of an attempted break-in, had been listed as a federal prisoner who was being transported. Detectives had been told not to inform the family about what happened, "He was shipped to Riverside like a John Doe without even contacting any family."
She did get her hands on his medical report, which showed that his body temperature was 106 degrees, and he was hyperthermic. He had been hit with a stun gun "well over five times."
Detectives also told her that Dante was "not aggressive and not combative, but was disoriented and non-compliant when deputies approached him." Bianca asked the Daily-Press, "Well, if he was not aggressive, why did (they) Tase him? I know he was probably asking them, ‘Why are you arresting me for riding a bike?’ But really, what the hell are you going to steal on a bike?"
The residents of the home that called the police on Parker didn't respond to a request for comment, but a man named Dominick David Allen left Facebook comments on the Daily Press article about Parker’s death explaining what happened (it appears they've since been deleted).
Allen wrote: "My mother was the one who contacted the police as well as a woman driving by who witnessed him trying to get into my house. So yes. I was there. And I witnessed it all." He said that he stood at the door "making sure (Parker) didn't get in."
He continued, "I didn't ... want to open the door. I tried asking him if he was OK and, ‘Does he need anything?’ But he ignored me and kept pulling at my screen door trying to get in."
Allen said that he was trying to protect his family and said it didn't end how he hoped. But he wrote that he would do the same thing again: “We handled the situation as best we could. I would have handled the situation the same a hundred times over."
