Man who died in police custody in Tacoma struggled with mental illness, sister says

A 35-year-old man who died after Washington State troopers used less-lethal force to take him into custody after he crashed his vehicle in Tacoma was identified Tuesday by the medical examiner.

Ronald Hasek died Aug. 9, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office, which has not yet ruled on man’s cause of death. A relative of Hasek told The News Tribune that he had been partially cared for by family in Bonney Lake and struggled with mental illness, including schizophrenia, which he took medication for.

“My brother had issues, but he was a good man who tried his hardest to stay on the right path,” Hasek’s younger sister, Kaylynn Hasek-Glassman, said. “He’s been clean and not doing nothing, trying to just take his schizophrenic meds, and they don’t have the proper protocols for mentally ill people.”

Hasek-Glassman, 27, said she couldn’t entirely blame her brother’s death on police, but she felt that more training is needed for law enforcement to properly handle interactions with mentally ill people.

She said her brother had a bad history with police and that dealing with officers and patrol car lights that day would have terrified him. She is raising money on GoFundMe to help pay for the cost of a funeral.

Court records show the man had several prior convictions in Pierce County between 2005 and 2015, including for second-degree assault, residential burglary and harassment.

The Lakewood Police Department has been designated to lead the investigation by the Pierce County Force Investigation Team, a group of regional police agencies that investigates uses of deadly force. The incident began at about 7:40 p.m. along Pacific Avenue in Tacoma’s Eastside neighborhood, and it ended outside a gas station at 84th Street, in the city’s South End.

The law enforcement officers involved in the incident have yet to be publicly identified by the investigation team.

A Washington State Patrol trooper first tried to stop Hasek near the 3700 block of Pacific Avenue, according to PCFIT. Investigators said the man was driving a Ford truck and had nearly struck a pedestrian and ran a red light. The trooper believed the driver was severely impaired, and the vehicle continued to drive on sidewalks going about 40 mph.

Hasek either jumped or was ejected from the truck as it turned onto 84th Street. The vehicle crashed through a light pole and went into the wall of a gas station. According to a PCFIT news release, several troopers responded and initially reported the man was waving around a gun but later confirmed it was a knife. Investigators said the man didn’t respond to police commands, and less-lethal force was used to subudue and take him into custody. Police radio traffic indicated officers fired a less-lethal bean bag round and shocked him with a Taser.

Medical aid arrived to attend to Hasek, and within a few minutes, he stopped breathing, according to the release. He died after more than 30 minutes of CPR.

Hasek’s sister said she last saw her brother two days before his death. She said he couldn’t handle the noise of children at the home where he lived with his two sisters and got upset, leaving on his own. The sister said Hasek lived on Supplemental Security Income he received due to issues with his spine that started when he was a teenager, leaving him in constant pain and unable to work. She also said her brother had poor eyesight and sometimes didn’t wear glasses when he should, which she said could have been why he was driving erratically.

Hasek-Glassman said family would remember him as funny and bright person who loved to fish, build potato guns, goof around with his friends and make others laugh. Hasek grew up in Bonney Lake. His sister said his mental illness developed later in life and worsened in the last five years.

“My brother had a good heart,” Hasek-Glassman wrote in an obituary posted to Facebook. “He was a intelligent man who could of amounted to so much in this world. Ron was always someones protector. He was always mine growing up. I could always count on my big brother to be by my side. He was my guardian on Earth.”