Parents ask for answers in Taser death

Just a few hours after attending church in Baytown on Sept. 28, the imperfect-but-striving Oliver Jarrod Gregoire was accused of crimes in his Chambers County neighborhood, Tasered twice by a deputy and pronounced dead at an area hospital.

Despite details provided by law enforcement officials, Danny Gregoire Sr. doesn't accept the answers he's received about how his 26-year-old son - known to relatives and friends as "O.J." - ended up dead.

"Someone is going to have to explain to me what happened to my son. Don't tell me that he died. That's not good enough. He was too healthy for that," the grieving father said last week during an interview at his home. "Even if he was committing a crime, people commit crimes every day - don't tell me that you had to kill him."

Authorities interacted with O.J. Gregoire in response to 911 calls logged around 12:35 p.m. that Sunday. The first reported that a man - later identified as the younger Gregoire - was attempting to stop vehicles on FM 3180 and tried to open one car's driver-side door. One minute later, a woman said a man kicked in the back door of her home and used a pole to attack her before leaving. He returned to that residence in the 4400 block of Wood Duck Lane and began destroying items inside, the Chambers County Sheriff's Office reported.

Chambers County Deputy Brad Hasley arrived and approached Gregoire, who was leaving the house. The officer deployed his Taser and Gregoire fell to the ground, authorities reported. According to Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne, Gregoire ripped off one of the two Taser probes that jolted him and charged at the deputy. That's when Hasley shot Gregoire a second time with the stun gun.

Man 'unresponsive'

When emergency medical crews arrived to treat the woman for minor injuries, Hasley noticed that Gregoire appeared "unresponsive" and the deputy began to administer CPR until an ambulance crew took over, authorities said.

All of the commotion happened during the roughly two hours after Danny Sr. dropped off his son at their home, circled back to church to meet his wife and the couple went grocery shopping.

The pair returned home to find two ambulances near the end of their driveway. They live next door to the house where the woman was injured. The neighborhood is in an unincorporated community east of Baytown proper and about 7 miles south of Mont Belvieu.

Gregoire Sr. said he now feels misled by a deputy who talked to him and his wife for hours and "gave the impression" that their son was fine after "tussling with police."

Then Hawthorne showed up and urged the parents to go to the hospital.

"I told my wife: Something is not right. There's no way a sheriff is going to show up on a crime scene unless something is bad wrong," Gregoire Sr. said.

'He's a loving kid'

Still believing their child was recovering, Ruth Gregoire - who works in a school cafeteria - stayed at home while her husband went to the hospital, where he was escorted into a private waiting room. After what seemed like a long time, he was informed that his son was deceased.

Gregoire Sr., who works in manufacturing, said he clings to memories of his son and not the "monster" he claims that authorities have portrayed to the public.

"This is him. This is O.J.," he said, pointing to childhood photographs of his son in baseball, football and basketball uniforms while noting that his child had been helpful to the woman next door. "They painted him as a big-time criminal and very destructive and he's not that way. He's a loving kid."

The father also said he now identifies with the parents of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot dead in August by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

O.J. Gregoire was the third of four sons. The oldest is a Marine, the second-born is a pastor and the youngest is an Army man.

O.J. aspired to become a barber and own a business, but struggled with unemployment since 2010 following a two-year state prison stint for felonies. His run-ins with the law date back to 2006, but he had no medical problems or mental health history, Gregoire Sr. said.

Frustrated with life

Still without a job and unable to begin barber school this fall, O.J.'s frustration with life escalated in the last month, his father said.

"He tried his best to live up to what people expected," Gregoire Sr. said. "Was he perfect? No, but he was a good boy."

O.J. Gregoire was pronounced dead at Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hospital in Baytown. An autopsy has been completed by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, but the preliminary cause and manner of his death remained pending last week because of unfinished tests. He was laid to rest on Saturday.

The Texas Rangers are leading the in-custody death investigation, Hawthorne said. The sheriff's office remains in charge of the internal affairs investigation and the criminal probe, which includes the roadway incident and home invasion. The sheriff, who began his tenure last year, said he is collecting data to determine if the agency has had any previous stun-gun deaths.

Hasley, who has been a Chambers County deputy for seven months and has previous experience, is on administrative duty with pay and could be reinstated to regular service this week, Hawthorne said.