Man who died after being Tasered by Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy identified

The man who died in Guerneville Saturday morning after a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy shocked him with a Taser was experiencing a mental health crisis, a situation that prompted his wife to seek help when he resisted her attempts to take him to a hospital, the man’s mother-in-law said.

The man, identified Monday as Donald Timothy Miller, 49, of Sacramento, was distracted, restless and had hardly eaten on Friday during a camping trip with his wife and mother-in-law at the Duncans Mills Camping Club along the Russian River, said Miller’s mother-in-law Carol Hess.

Without cellphone service to call an ambulance for help, Miller’s wife decided to drive Miller to a hospital herself while Hess stayed behind with the family’s RV Saturday morning, Hess said.

“He was in this manic state, he just needed to move, move, move,” Hess said, adding that her daughter had never seen Miller act like that before. “She was trying to get him help.”

She declined to name her daughter and said she did not want to be interviewed.

The couple was en route to a hospital, near the Hacienda Bridge, when Miller demanded that his wife stop the car. Both got out and at one point Miller put his arms around his wife, Hess said.

Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the area at 8:12 a.m. for a domestic-related altercation inside a gray Dodge truck seen going west on River Road, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement about Miller’s death.

Miller’s wife then told a man at a nearby business to call 911 for an ambulance and the pair went inside a house with an open door, Hess said.

A deputy found the couple inside the home after the man was flagged down on River Road and Bonita Avenue by someone who said he had heard a woman screaming “someone help me,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

The deputy knocked on the front door and Miller walked outside with a woman he was holding onto, the Sheriff’s Office said, adding that the woman immediately asked for help.

When the deputy tried to separate the two, Miller and the deputy got into a fight, the Sheriff’s Office said.

A second deputy arrived, saw the fight and used a Taser to subdue Miller, though Miller “continued physically resisting the deputies,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

“From what I understand, they separated (my daughter) from him and because he was in such a manic state, he had so much adrenaline going, they just kept tasing him and tasing,” Hess said.

Miller was eventually placed in handcuffs and he had an unspecified medical emergency, prompting deputies to start life-saving measures on Miller and request medical help. He was declared dead at the scene by medics, the Sheriff’s Office said.

“If there had been more information and they had known he was having a mental episode, maybe they could have gotten him medical help,” Hess said. “It’s devastating. It’s changed our lives completely.”

The Santa Rosa Police Department is investigating the man’s death per the county’s critical incident protocol, which sets guidelines for investigating certain incidents involving sworn officers.

Santa Rosa Lt. Dan Marincik could not confirm whether the woman involved in the incident was seeking medical help for her husband prior to deputies’ arrival, though investigators should have more information in the coming days, Marincik said in an email.

He confirmed there was more than one Taser deployment during the incident, though the exact number was not yet available, he added.

Body-worn camera footage was captured by deputies and that was being reviewed as part of the Santa Rosa Police Department’s investigation, Marincik said.

The Marin County Coroner’s Office, which released Miller’s name on Monday, has scheduled an autopsy Wednesday. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said it will do an internal review of the incident to determine whether deputies followed the agency’s protocols.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.