UPDATE- This post has been edited at Alexa’s request. Obviously she was distraught when she wrote it. Since she has a clearer head now, she asked for some changes, which I have made April 20, 2012
NL- I am so sorry for the loss of a sweet man. My heart goes out to family & friends. This seems very much to be a case of LAPD not knowing how to deal with a mental illness. In all the stories I am reading and all the emails I am receiving, I can find no reason that Sledge needed to be tazed.
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This is an email from Alexa, Sledge Hammer’s Girlfriend-
I want to put to rest the rumors and speculation that have been going around about this tragedy. I called the police because Sledge was in a bad state and attempting to take his own life. I believe it was a cry for help more then anything because he kept letting me take belts off of his neck and take the knives he was trying to use away (keep in mind that I was doing this one-handed while on the phone with the 911 dispatcher). I did cut my left pinky while grabbing one of the knives by the blade, and I want to be clear that this was an accident and Sledge dropped the knife and felt terrible when he saw that I was bleeding.
When he got to the hospital he was in cardiac arrest and due to that he suffered brain damage. The police never told me how bad off he was, and I was led to believe that he was in the mental facility getting the rest he needed. I went to the hospital to visit and was shocked to see him in ICU in a coma. He passed on a few days later *********** He did not have any previous health problems and he was not on any drugs besides marijuana (which he had recently quit smoking) sleeping pills and some alcohol. He never took steroids, he ate a healthy diet and worked out regularly. His only problem was his mental issues and insomnia. I don’t want this to happen to someone else. I want mentally ill people to get the help they need, not a tazer.