Months after armed man was Tased by Dallas police, how he died remains a mystery

Nearly five months after a man died following an armed encounter with Dallas police, his family says they’re still waiting to learn his cause of death.

In a news conference Thursday, the family of 29-year-old Rashad Madden said an investigation into possible misconduct at the Dallas County medical examiner’s office has denied them the closure and clarity they need to cope with his death.

Family members want to see Madden’s autopsy and are demanding transparency from the medical examiner’s office, as well as an investigation into the agency.

A representative from the medical examiner’s office could not be reached Thursday. Dallas police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

James Madden said his son spent the last few months of his life in and out of consciousness. What killed him remains a mystery to his family.

“You can mourn,” he said, “but it’s not complete.”

Madden died July 28, two months after Dallas officers Tased him during an arrest in southeast Dallas.

According to police, officers were called to a business in the 7500 block of C.F. Hawn Freeway on May 28 after reports of an armed man at a business.

The suspect, later identified as Madden, pointed a gun at another man before crawling underneath a van, according to his arrest-warrant affidavit. Officers used a stun gun on Madden after they said he did not comply with commands to drop the gun. An officer also shot at Madden but missed, police said in May.

Madden was taken to a hospital for “a medical condition,” police said at the time.

Justin Moore, a family attorney, said Thursday he couldn’t provide much detail about Madden’s case because of pending investigations.

“But what we do know is that this family is still mired in this issue of trying to understand the cause of Rashad’s death, and no family should be faced with this circumstance,” Moore said. “It’s time for us to get answers, and we call on every agency that’s involved in this issue to provide Mr. Madden and his family the courtesy of giving them responses to their pleas for transparency.”

In their news release in May, police said the Taser had no “apparent effect” on Madden. His family and attorneys say the encounter left him in a coma, however, leading them to believe the Taser was used multiple times.

“Those weapons are designed to be less lethal,” Lee Merritt, another attorney for the family, said Thursday. “Those weapons are not designed to Tase someone into a coma. Those weapons are not designed to Tase someone to death.

“And when that occurs, the city, the county owes a duty to the family to be as transparent and as clear as possible about what went wrong.”