WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A retired police sergeant in a New York suburb has been sentenced to six months in prison and six months of home confinement for repeatedly firing a Taser gun at a man suffering a health crisis.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas told the retired Mount Vernon police sergeant, Mario Stewart, that it was necessary “to send a clear message” to law enforcement that although policing is a “really hard,” there are rules and “where the line is clear, you cannot cross it.”

"The people of Mount Vernon have to know that they will not be themselves victims of their law enforcement officers,” Karas said.

Stewart, 46, of Brooklyn was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in January to depriving an individual of his civil rights by using excessive force against a 20-year-old civilian in 2019. He worked several more years before retiring in 2023.

Prosecutors said Stewart tased the man seven times in approximately two minutes while his hands were cuffed behind his back and his legs were secured in a restraint bag.

The stun gun caused the man to convulse and scream. Prosecutors said he had traveled by train from the Bronx to Mount Vernon with several friends and his then-girlfriend when symptoms of a psychotic episode worsened and he removed his clothing and warned friends to stay away.

Stewart notified his dispatcher after the victim was restrained that “all is under control,” but then he began tasing the man after the victim grabbed a strap on the restraint bag with a cuffed hand and wouldn't let go, prosecutors said.

The police department's Taser Policy barred using a taser in a punitive or coercive manner or on a handcuffed or secured prisoner unless assaultive behavior cannot be dealt with any other way, the government noted.

Stewart's lawyer, Kevin Conway, wrote in a presentence submission to the judge that Stewart believed the six police officers on the scene with him and emergency medical staff faced an escalating safety risk if the Taser gun was not deployed.

Conway quoted his client as saying “in my heart, I was not trying to hurt him.”

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