Sledge Hammer: adult film star dies after being hit by police with taser gun

See why the cops responded

The porn actor Marland Anderson, known professionally as Sledge Hammer, died after being shot with a stun gun by police in an incident last week.

Los Angeles police officers responded to the scene initially when Sledge Hammer attempted suicide at a home in Reseda. When paramedics and police officers arrived, they found Sledge Hammer’s girlfriend and Anderson himself with a knife injury.

Lt. Andrew Neiman said Anderson’s girlfriend called the police after he tried to hurt himself with the knife. Officers handcuffed him to a gurney inside an ambulance. Sledge Hammer who is described with a muscular build, broke from the handcuffs and the gurney. One officer on board the ambulance attempted to restrain him, another cop eventually joined in, as yet another shot him with a taser.

The taser, said Neimen, hit an officer who complained of being stun.

Along with more shots from the taser, it took “Six to eight [officers] eventually managed to control him,” Neiman said.

AVN quoted adult film actor Stoney Curtis on the confrontation, “When the cops arrived, Anderson’s height (6-foot-4) and bulk intimidated them, and rather than try to subdue him with the manpower available, they began shooting him with their Tasers—”excessively,” according to Curtis—to the point where he suffered a heart attack and for all intents and purposes died for 10 minutes until the EMTs were able to restart his heart.”

Sledge Hammer’s girlfriend, Alexa Cruz, wrote in an email, “This was not a domestic violence situation at all so I want to make that totally clear. This man was being tortured by his own mind and suffering from severe insomnia.” Anderson had depression, anxiety and was believed to suffer from a mild case of schizophrenia, all of which were impacted by marijuana use. 

Neiman said that Sledge Hammer was conscious when he was restrained and place back in the ambulance headed to the hospital.

Anderson eventually lost consciousness and died Friday morning, five days later.