News & Record
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The application of restraint contributed to the death of a Guilford County jail inmate who died after being stunned with a Taser, according to an autopsy report released by the state medical examiner’s office Thursday.
Ronald Eugene Cobbs, 38, of 1406 Hamlet Place, died at Moses Cone Hospital on Aug. 18 after a scuffle with a guard in his cell.
“The exact cause of this man’s death is unclear though it occurred during the application of restraint and that restraint in my opinion played a role,” the examiner, Dr. John D. Butts, wrote in the report.
Butts said Cobbs could have died of respiratory arrest or cardiac arrhythmia caused by an underlying cardiac disease, both triggered by the stress of the struggle.
As standard policy, the State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the officer-involved death.
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