Lawsuit filed over Uintah YouTube Taser incident

The lawsuit accuses Gardner of "belligerently" demanding that Massey turn around and put his hands behind his back. On the dash-cam tape, Massey is heard asking "what's wrong with you?" As he walked back toward his SUV, Massey was Tasered. He shrieks and then falls back onto the roadway.

"This stunned Massey, who fell hard on to the highway, screaming in pain, while Trooper Gardner tauntingly said 'hurts doesn't it?'" Sykes wrote. "Massey struck his head very hard on the pavement, which was due to the fact that the Taser causes a complete loss of the ability to maintain muscle control, causing an individual to drop like a free weight."

The lawsuit accuses Gardner of chiding him, then threatening Massey's wife if she didn't get back in the SUV. After he was handcuffed and arrested, Sykes accuses Gardner of lying to another officer who arrived on scene.

"Trooper Gardner falsely told this officer that he warned Massey that he was going to be arrested and Tasered if he did not comply with his requests," he wrote.

The lawsuit does not specifically name the UHP as a defendant, but said that he was acting in his job capacity as an employee for the Utah Department of Public Safety. The UHP has repeatedly refused to make Gardner available for interviews.

UHP spokesman Jeff Nigbur told the Deseret Morning News they were not directly commenting on the lawsuit.

"We need to let it take its course through the system," he said. "We'll just wait and see what happens."

An initial DPS investigation ruled that Gardner was justified in using the Taser on Massey.

"We still stand by our initial decision after we investigated the case," Nigbur said. "And that is, he was reasonable and justified."

Gardner recently returned to duty after undergoing a verbal communications course. An internal investigation into the affair is wrapping up and the Utah Attorney General's Office is conducting its own investigation.

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com; geoff@ubstandard.com