Pastor Left Bloodied at Border Patrol Checkpoint Releases Taser Report

Steven Anderson today released the Taser report from his bloody and shocking encounter with authorities at a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 8 near Yuma. We mentioned the report earlier this month, but didn't have the actual paperwork. Anderson's wife, Zsuzsanna, e-mailed us a copy today. One very minor difference from...

By Ray Stern

June 23, 2009

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Steven Anderson today released the Taser report from his bloody and shocking encounter with authorities at a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 8 near Yuma.

We mentioned the report earlier this month, but didn't have the actual paperwork. Anderson's wife, Zsuzsanna, e-mailed us a copy today. One very minor difference from what Zsuzsanna told us on June 9: The report says Anderson was tased for 18 seconds, not 20.

Despite the two-second difference, the report by DPS trooper Rick VanKeuren backs up Anderson's claim that he was tased for an excessively long time during the April 14 incident:

I noted that the Taser recorded two firings for the date and time in questions. The first firing was at 2254 hours, 56 seconds for a total of 13 seconds and then a second firing at 2255 hours, 7 seconds for a total of five seconds. There were no other firings recorded for that day.

No wonder Zsuzsanna misspoke -- this thing is a bit hard to read, and the numbers don't actually add up. We're not math majors, but shouldn't the second firing have come at 2255 hours, 9 seconds -- not seven? VanKeuren couldn't be reached today.

Click here for the report.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.