No charges in arrest death
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| Daniel Middlestadt |
"The ISP conducted a very thorough investigation and found no wrong-doing on the part of the sheriffs office or the deputy," Douglas said. "I agree with the assessment that the officer went by the book, facing a very stressful situation. He did all the right things at the right time, but was not able to reverse the outcome."
The incident began when a woman called dispatch a few minutes after midnight May 16, saying that a vehicle was blocking a side road on U.S. 95 near milepost 526, and that when she'd stopped to see if the driver needed assistance, a naked man exited the car and began behaving erratically. She sped off, going home by another route, and made the call.
Deputy Clint Randall responded, and when he arrived on scene, the man, Daniel Middlestadt, 56, was still in the road, nude. According to the ISP investigation, Randall attempted to determine the situation, but the man was agitated and uncooperative, at one point grabbing at Randall's safety gear and trying to fight off the deputy, at which point Randall deployed the Taser, at which point Middlestadt went to the ground.
As he was cuffing the man, Randall noticed that Middlestadt was having diffifulty breathing. Randall immediately uncuffed his arrestee, the ISP report said, called for medical assistance, and applied emergency first aid, including CPR, for the duration of the 20 minutes it took the ambulance to reach the scene.
The ISP investigation revealed that Middlestadt had a long history of medical issues, both mental and physical. He had long suffered from heart disease and had undergone open-heart surgery, and had battled mental health issues most of his life, spending considerable time confined to mental institutions.
According to the Idaho State Police, Middlestadt appears to have been looking for an uncle who lives in Moses Lake, Washington, but had gotten lost.
"Deputy Randall actually did an outsanding job," said Sheriff's Chief Deputy Rich Stephens. "He held his composure. He went from protecting himself from this man to trying to save this man's life within a matter of minutes. He followed procedure every step of the way, and I can't say enough how well he did in that situation."