Officers cleared in trucker’s ‘delirium’ death

An investigation into the death of a methamphetamine-injecting Texas trucker, who later died during a scuffle with Spokane police last May, has cleared officers of any wrongdoing.

Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker said the May 24 death of 40-year-old Roger D. Hanks was an “excusable homicide.”

Hanks died just moments after two Spokane police officers pulled him from the cab of a tractor-trailer, handcuffed him and placed him on his belly.

“It was a felony stop, so (officers) were authorized to use force to take him into custody,” Tucker said.

Dr. Marco Ross, of the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office, determined the cause of death to be “cardiopulmonary arrest associated with a prone restraint position during a methamphetamine-induced excited delirium.”

Though the city has begun to train first responders on how to treat patients suffering from “excited delirium,” the mainstream medical community has yet to recognize it as a scientifically accepted diagnosis.

In most of the medical studies used in the training, the people exhibiting excited delirium were found to be under the influence of meth or cocaine. About 10 percent had a mental illness.

Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken used a similar diagnosis for the cause of death of Otto Zehm, who died March 20, 2006, after a confrontation two days earlier with Spokane police in which the mentally ill janitor was hogtied, placed on his stomach and had a plastic mask placed over his face.

Local and federal investigations into Zehm’s death have not yet been completed. But Tucker said the Hanks investigation landed on his desk about two weeks ago.

Hanks’ 32-year-old girlfriend, who was a passenger in the truck, later told investigators that for several days prior he had been injecting himself with large amounts of meth.

Hanks and his girlfriend had stopped at a Broadway Avenue truck stop just off of Interstate 90 in Spokane Valley to rest. Just before 3 a.m. on May 24, Hanks began erratically driving westbound on I-90, police said at the time.

Hanks, who was driving a Peterbilt truck hauling a payload of Gatorade, then took the Hamilton Street exit and entered the Gonzaga University area.

He appeared to be trying to run people down, police said at the time. Witnesses said they heard a woman screaming as the Werner Enterprises truck passed them.

Hanks’ girlfriend jumped out of the cab after it backed into a parked van near Sharp Avenue and Columbus Street.

Officers responded at about 3:06 a.m. and began pursuing the truck, which never exceeded 25 mph. During the pursuit, Hanks tried to ram at least one car, police spokesman Cpl. Tom Lee said.

The slow pursuit finally ended near Riverside Avenue and Division Street, but Hanks refused to come out of the cab even after officers sent in a canine and had his girlfriend attempt to coax him out.

Officers then physically removed Hanks, who was 5-foot-10 and 293 pounds, Tucker said.

“Mr. Hanks and two officers hit the ground pretty hard,” Tucker said. “They didn’t even use nightsticks or Tasers. They did use control blows, hitting him in his arms to get his arms behind his back.”

Within about a minute of placing him in a prone position, officers noticed Hanks’ breathing had become shallow, and he appeared to be in medical distress, according to a county press release. The officers, who were never identified, called for paramedics, but Hanks was pronounced dead at Sacred Heart Medical Center.