Inquest ordered into death of sword-wielding man
King County Executive Dow Constantine has ordered an inquest into the death of Mike Chen, who was tased by Seattle Police Department officers after he used a sword to slice up a West Seattle apartment building in September.
Police received numerous calls about a man with a sword from people at a convenience store and at Chen’s apartment building on Harbor Avenue Southwest Sept. 6.
When officers arrived, they found Chen holding a sword and sitting against an apartment door. According to police, he tried to sit up, and they tased him several times.
Officers administered CPR, but Chen had no pulse after being handcuffed and was taken to Harborview Medical Center.
Chen died four days later. According to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, the cause of death was association with excited delirium and acute methamphetamine intoxication.
The inquest, which is a series of fact-finding hearings and is not used to determine the guilt of any party, was recommended by King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg. Inquests are used to determine the causes and circumstances of deaths in situations involving law enforcement.
“Inquests provide transparency into law enforcement actions so the public may have all the facts established in a court of law,” according to a release from the King County Executive’s Office. “The ordering of an inquest should carry no other implication.”
Police received numerous calls about a man with a sword from people at a convenience store and at Chen’s apartment building on Harbor Avenue Southwest Sept. 6.
When officers arrived, they found Chen holding a sword and sitting against an apartment door. According to police, he tried to sit up, and they tased him several times.
Officers administered CPR, but Chen had no pulse after being handcuffed and was taken to Harborview Medical Center.
Chen died four days later. According to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, the cause of death was association with excited delirium and acute methamphetamine intoxication.
The inquest, which is a series of fact-finding hearings and is not used to determine the guilt of any party, was recommended by King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg. Inquests are used to determine the causes and circumstances of deaths in situations involving law enforcement.
“Inquests provide transparency into law enforcement actions so the public may have all the facts established in a court of law,” according to a release from the King County Executive’s Office. “The ordering of an inquest should carry no other implication.”
I did an original video on this; on my Death By Cold Steel Report. As I read the comments here it is hard to resist saying; know what your talking about.
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The man was taken to a Mental Hospital before; after an incident in the Store the same day. They released him from Harbor View Hospital. Then he turn up in West Seattle with a William Wallace Sword! This time the police Tazed him and they say they took him back to the hospital. Now it seems he went back to the hospital dead.
I am a staunch critic of SPD and their apparent pattern of excessive force. I don't believe that is the case here. It sounds like the cops took a reasonable measure to subdue an erratic individual with a weapon. They used a non-lethal weapon as a means to control a proven volatile situation. Chen of meth toxicity not by the police.
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With the DOJ and ACLU breathing down the city and county's respective necks, I can somewhat understand wanting to covers tails but I think really this is a no-brainer.
And another meth head bites the dust. If someone came at me with a sword I would do more than give him a shock. In this case the meth made this person totally insane and with a sword to boot. Although tragic his loss of live should show some that these drugs can kill even if you survive taking them. I am just glad that others were left alone.
The guy died of meth intoxication - why on earth do we need an inquest???
"the cause of death was association with excited delirium and acute methamphetamine intoxication."
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Chen, what were you thinking?
SERIOUSLY?!
waste of money....Constantine trying to spend taxpayer money to appeal to the cop hating far left and cop hating media outlets (KOMO included)
Ok, so first off, where are First Nations, Americans with Disabilites and the NAACP on THIS case?
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Oh, yeah, the cops used non-lethal force to subdue someone with a 30' reach in a narrow hallway. So they did exactly what they've been asking the police to do and used the technology available to them to subdue a suspect.
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For folks that don't know, police are trained to go to lethal or immediate subdual force when a suspect with a weapon is within 30 feet of an officer or civilian. If you like, go to any marital arts studio and they'll tell you that radius is a realistic lunge radius for an armed individual from a standing start.
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And even tasers don't work all the time to fully subdue someone. A violent suspects up on PCP or crank often fully ignore the effects of tasers and/or pepper spray.
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So the headline should read: "Tin sniffer brings sword to gunfight; police to review and revise technique"
 @svensson "For folks that don't know, police are trained to go to lethal or immediate subdual force when a suspect with a weapon is within 30 feet of an officer or civilian."
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Can you elaborate on that? Â I carry a pocket-knife on me 24/7 and I've never been subdued by police. Â Also, people who legally carry firearms in public don't get subdued by police randomly either. Â
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The guy was sitting on the ground with a sword, hardly an illegal or 'suspect' activity. Â
@Landshark @svensson Ya, he was just sitting on the ground with a sword, after having destroyed the hallway with the sword and threatened other people both at the apartment and at a convenience store. With the same sword. Are you serious? I really hope you're not serious, because if you are that says a lot about your reasoning abilities.
 @svensson I wish somebody at KOMO would learn to edit before they post a article.
@commonsense Yeah, I wish this system had an 'edit' function too :)
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Sorry, svensson, totally did't mean to include you in my rant. Landshark, you're an ______. I don't usually call people out like that, but dang. Put yourself in that situation and see how you handle it.
@Landshark I cannot remember the which network I got this from [sorry] but iirc the original story said the police were called because Chen was 'acting erratically'. That's one of those buzz word phrases that many departments use for someone who might be either high, deranged, or angry.
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Sitting or standing, Chen had a sword in his hand and there was damage to the building evident on entry, so the sword was used by *somebody*. If he did not comply with an order to toss the weapon away from himself, then the police were within their training to taze him.
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Look, this article states Chen's autopsy said that his meth use was a direct cause of death.
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And I carry a pocketknife too. As my Boy Scoutmaster always said, 'Be Prepared.'
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Because Dow wants to keep his name in the lime light so that people don't forget him when elections roll around.
Why is this news? This is standard operating procedure for King County. Matter of fact, here's when King County will waste tax payer dollars on an inquest process: "To establish policies and procedures for the conducting of inquests into the causes and circumstances of any death involving a member of any law enforcement agency within King County while in the performance of his duties and into other exceptional cases as determined by the County Executive."
"...the cause of death was...acute methamphetamine intoxication." Â What more do the taxpayers need to know?! Â Waste of time and money to look into this further. Â It's been proven over and over and over again, getting hopped up on meth is dangerous to your health.
Don't smoke meth.
Wasting the taxpayer's money again...
"According to the King County Medical Examinerâs Office, the cause of death was association with excited delirium and acute methamphetamine intoxication." Why spend the time or money on an inquest? It is obvious he was a meth head who did more than he could handle and he OD'd. The police tazed him, they didn't shoot him. Geez!