Deputy Hal Pargin, shown left at a county board meeting last summer, affected a traffic stop last night on one Dennis Thacker, 61, who is currently suffering leukemia. With Thacker were his grandson, Blaine Steber, 3, and a neighbor, Abby Organ, 12. They were going from a ballgame to McDonald’s in Lawrenceville and were eastbound on 250 when Pargin pulled Thacker over for speeding.
Thacker provided Pargin his license and Pargin was apparently totally aware that it was Thacker he was dealing with and not some wild crazyman.
However, Thacker didn’t have his insurance proof immediately available. He had reportedly gotten out of the vehicle and was talking to Pargin, telling him he’d go back to get his insurance cards. When he retrieved them from his vehicle and returned to Pargin, the deputy reportedly started yelling at Thacker to “get back in the car!” inexplicably. Witnesses say all Thacker was trying to do was offer Pargin his proof of insurance.
Instead of taking it, Pargin, without shouting that he was about to deploy his TASER (per department policy), simply TASERed the older man, who began shouting “No! Stop it!” and then fell to the ground.
Witnesses say Thacker was TASERed a total of four times, and apparently Pargin was able to reload the cartridges on the TASER gun, as it was reported witnesses pulled a total of eight barbs from the sickly man.
To make matters worse, once at the jail, his blood pressure had risen and he requested to be taken to the hospital, which was initially refused. The only reason Thacker managed to get to the hospital and be eventually released? The mother of the neighbor's child had connections to the County Board.
The positive thing here is that all of the TASERs have been confiscated by the sheriff and the incident is under investigation.
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