Wendell, ID — A Gooding County sheriff’s deputy has been suspended this week after video posted to Facebook showed him taser an innocent grandfather and throw him to the ground, leaving him injured and bloody. The grandpa, 78-year-old John Hall had been followed home by a trucker in a fit of road rage and police attacked him.
According to police, before the innocent grandpa was tasered and slammed to the ground, a truck driver reported Hall for road rage, falsely claiming that Hall had a gun in his vehicle. The trucker then stalked Hall and followed him and his son all the way to their home before parking down the road and guiding in cops like attack dogs.
“He called it in as a road rage,” Gooding County Sheriff Shaun Gough told the Twin Falls Times-News. “He said (the driver) tried to run him off the road.
“It all went downhill from there.”
According to Anthony Hall, the trucker was tailgaiting his grandpa when his grandpa simply tapped his brakes to get the trucker to back off. The trucker apparently took this as an attempt to run him off the road and followed the grandpa to his home.
When the Halls exited their vehicle, police quickly showed up.
Anthony explained to the Idaho Statesmen that His father, James Hall was a passenger in John Hall’s vehicle at the time of the incident. Both James and John were immediately confronted responding deputies and both of them tasered.
They were doing nothing wrong and simply trying to pack for a camping trip that weekend.
“You’re going to jail,” a deputy told the men as they demanded to know what was happening. “You’re under arrest.”
“We didn’t know what was going on, they weren’t telling us what was going on,” said Anthony Hall. “We were not informed. It was multiple points in the situation where they could de-escalate it and it just felt like it was a lot of unnecessary force, and a lot of reacting than any sort of thinking was being done.”
As deputy Andy McClure attacked the 78-year-old grandpa, Hall’s wife, Verla Hall can be heard screaming, begging the deputies to stop their assault and let her husband go.
“You’re going to kill him,” she said, noting that John Hall has medical issues.
After the attack, both men were uncuffed and allowed to go free. The only person arrested that day was Verla Hall for “interfering with the arrest,” while begging deputies to leave her elderly husband alone.
Anthony Hall, who took the video, then posted it to Facebook where it went viral, prompting an investigation by police and multiple comments from folks who said they have had similar run-ins with the deputy.
“After I posted those videos on social media, I had several people come forward that that deputy, in particular, has a history of this,” Anthony Hall said.
The Hall family has since retained an attorney and are planning legal action against the department for their grandpa’s abuse.
“We are going to look at all avenues possible to bring justice to my client and to ensure that this type of behavior is accounted for and prevented in the future,” said attorney Mark Means, according to KTVB.
Raw video below:
Article posted with permission from Matt Agorist
