Courthouse officers taser Alaska man after he refuses to leave (VIDEO)
A Kenai, Alaska man was tasered by courthouse officers in Anchorage and charged with disorderly conduct after refusing to leave after a hearing. A video of the incident has been viewed thousands of times.
The drama began after a judge in the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage had attempted to set a date for David Haeg to file a brief, when Haeg began to raising claims of state corruption.
His appearance in court stems from a 2004 conviction of killing wolves while working with a state predator control program. He filed for post-conviction relief in 2010, and has alleged judicial corruption in how his case has been handled.
As the judge announced the hearing had ended and ordered everyone out of the courtroom, Haeg and his supporters remained.
“This is our courtroom and we have evidence… If you want to arrest me and drag me off, that’s the only way I’m leaving,” Haeg shouts in the video, posted on Facebook and viewed over 5,000 times.
Haeg then starts reading from court papers as court officers tell him he has until February 2 to file his brief. Haeg carries on talking about alleged judicial corruption.
The tension escalated in the courtroom and Haeg started to yell as he read from his list of allegations. He picked up a map, unfurled it and started to claim that a prosecutor and state trooper colluded, falsified evidence, and “are covering it all up.”
“They are going in and falsifying the goddamn map that they convicted me with, like altering the lines on it to make it corruptly seem I was shooting wolves in my guide area. That’s felony tampering with evidence because an Alaskan State trooper was doing it with a prosecutor, that’s a conspiracy.” said Haeg.
He then gets insistent, pointing his finger and stamping on the courtroom floor as he yells, “I’m putting my f__ing foot down because I have to.”
His actions prompted three court officers to move towards Haeg, while a fourth pulled out a Taser and appeared to shoot the man in the leg. Haeg was then pushed to the floor and six officers piled on him. His daughter can be heard yelling and crying for them to stop, and a crowd of voices join in, yelling at the officers.
Alaska State Trooper dispatches reported that “multiple attempts” were made to get Haeg to comply with instructions.
“There is no hard and fast rule for deploying a taser [in the courtroom],” Anchorage Judicial Services Supervisor Lieutenant Robert French told KTUU. “It’s situational dependent… There’s a checklist of escalation such as, ‘Is this hostile’?”
Haeg claims he was tasered 10 times but said the officers made sure he was not seriously injured during the scuffle.
