FULLERTON, Kalifornia (PNN) - July 29, 2011 - Kelly Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia, kept calling for his father, as police beat and tasered him repeatedly.
But his father was not around at that moment.
It wasn't until after Thomas slipped into a coma and was hospitalized with multiple injuries that his father saw him; and by then it was too late. Thomas never recovered. The 135-pound man died five days after his run-in with Fullerton’s murderous thug police.
Thomas’ father, a retired Orange County sheriff’s deputy, has asserted that officers used excessive force to subdue his son, who was unarmed, slight and of medium height.
After seeing his son's injuries and speaking with witnesses, Thomas told the Register his son "was brutally beaten to death.
"When I first walked into the hospital, I looked at what his mother described as my son... I didn't recognize him," said Thomas. "This is cold-blooded, aggravated murder."
Thomas, citing witnesses, said officers hit his son with the butts of flashlights even after he stopped moving.
He said his son was probably off his medication and didn't understand the officers' commands.
A spokesman for the Orange County Coroner's office declined to discuss the case but said an autopsy of Thomas had been completed and the results forwarded to investigators.
Witnesses are asked to call Stan Berry, an investigator with the Orange County district attorney’s office, at 714-347-8813.
