LAYTON — “Hey. No. Stop,” Davis County sheriff’s deputy Gossels can be heard yelling at the man walking away from her. “You’re gonna get tased.”
Moments later, shrieks can be heard and a Taser deployed as deputies Andrea Gossels and Chanler Stimpson — two female deputes whose combined weight is just 230 pounds — found themselves in a struggle with Penisimani “Ben” Pouha, 42, who is listed in a police booking affidavit as 6 feet tall and 250 pounds.
“He got tased. We went hands on. We couldn’t get him in cuffs,” one of the deputies, still trying to catch her breath, can be heard telling backup officers shortly after freeing herself from Pouha’s hold.
The Davis County Sheriff’s Office released the body camera videos Thursday from the deputies’ dramatic Christmas Day confrontation.
Just before 5 a.m. that day, the deputies found Pouha sitting in a car that was stopped on U.S. 89 near state Route 193. The car was partially in the shoulder and partially blocking the travel lane.
In the video, Pouha tells Gossels that his car is broken down, that he has been sitting there for about 20 minutes and that a friend is driving down from Idaho to help him.
The deputies, however, noticed drug paraphernalia in the passenger seat and began questioning Pouha. They then asked him to get out of the car.
Pouha can be seen in the video getting out of his vehicle and slowly walking off to the side of the road. But then he keeps walking, at times with his hands up, ignoring repeated commands to stop.
“We’ve got one traveling. He’s running from us,” Gossels tells dispatch.
In the video, Pouha walks to a barbed wire fence that separates the freeway from a frontage road, climbs over it and keeps walking. The two deputies make their way through the fence and started running after Pouha.
The deputies can be seen catching up with Pouha and warning him that a Taser will be used on him.
“I don’t got nothing,” he is heard yelling back.
Moments later, the sound of a Taser being deployed can be heard, immediately followed by Pouha exclaiming, “What the (expletive) was that?!”
After Pouha falls to the ground, Stimpson went “hands on,” attempting to place Pouha in handcuffs.
But Pouha seemed to shake off the effects of the Taser and began fighting with the deputies. In their affidavit, the deputies noted that he “began to fight both of us and pinned both of us to the ground.” Pouha allegedly wrapped his arms around one of the deputy’s head and neck. The deputy “used multiple closed-fist strikes to his head in an attempt to free herself.”
After Pouha was arrested, Stimpson told her supervisor that she was punching him as hard as she could as he tried to “gouge” her face, according to body camera video.
“He had us both pinned down. It was pretty scary for a minute,” one deputy said.
“He wrapped us up and rolled us over. Once he was on the ground he was fightin’,” stated the other.
After Stimpson freed herself, Gossels is heard on her body camera video telling her to let him go. The two deputies, still catching their breaths, tell backup deputies arriving in the area which direction Pouha is running.
A third deputy eventually spots Pouha and a Taser is deployed for a second time. This time, Pouha drops to the ground and groans as if he was in pain.
“I can’t move my legs,” he yells in the video. “I can’t move at all. ... I can’t move nothing.”
The deputy waited until more officers could arrive before attempting to handcuff Pouha. Once he was in custody, an ambulance arrived on scene to take him to a local hospital before he was booked into the Davis County Jail.
“I’m asking you to stand up and walk to the ambulance so that they can check you out. This is how you’re going to be? You’re going to act like a big man, now,” a deputy tells him.
“I really cannot do that. Look, I’m not a big man, dude,” Pouha replies.
“No, you’re not, you’re a child,” the officers responds.
Deputies said they later discovered that Pouha was driving on a learner’s permit and the car he was driving had a revoked registration.
He was arrested for investigation of a number of charges, including assault on a police officer, disarming a police officer, drug possession and failing to stop at the command of an officer.
Pouha is listed on the Utah Sex Offender and Kidnapping Registry. In 1996, he was convicted of six counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated sexual assault, according to court records.
He spent more than 20 years in the Utah State Prison before being released on parole on Sept. 24. He was sent back to the prison on Dec. 25 after being released from the hospital.