Man involved in Bristol hospital shooting died weeks later; family seeks answers

BRISTOL, Tenn. (WJHL) — The man who police say tried to take an officer’s weapon while at Bristol Regional Medical Center (BRMC) on May 22 died July 13 after never regaining full awareness, and his brother says the family has more questions than answers about what led to his death.

“It was made plain to everyone that he was having a mental health crisis and needed help, and no one helped him,” Steven Stoddard told News Channel 11 Tuesday, the morning of his older brother Matthew’s funeral in Chattanooga.

Authorities confirmed to News Channel 11 Tuesday that Matthew Stoddard was the man who allegedly grabbed a Sullivan County officer’s holster when he was being detained at BRMC a day after his arrest on trespassing and resisting arrest charges. An incident report shows the officer hit Stoddard multiple times as he tried to prevent him from getting his gun, and also struck him with his baton in a struggle during which he reported Stoddard eventually got that baton and struck himself with it.

Hospital security eventually subdued Stoddard with pepper spray, according to that report. Steven Stoddard said his brother had to undergo emergency heart surgery after suffering a cardiac arrest sometime that night.

It was the second time in two days the married father of three from the Chattanooga area had to be forcibly subdued according to law enforcement records.

Police records show Stoddard also had a confrontation that became physically violent after he was taken to the jail in Blountville following an arrest by Sullivan County deputies on May 21. He had traveled with his wife, Carlie, and three children saying they were going to go to Dayton, Ohio, according to an affidavit charging him with aggravated trespassing and resisting arrest.

The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) provided News Channel 11 a lengthy statement in response to a request for comment on the family’s concerns. It outlined events of both days in some detail and said SCSO “stands behind the actions of its employees.”

The statement said an SCSO internal investigation that relied on video evidence to conclude “all actions from employees are within policy.” (The full statement can be found near the end of this story.)

Second Judicial District Attorney Barry Staubus asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) to investigate the BRMC incident since it involved the discharge of a service weapon. A TBI spokeswoman said that the incident remains under active investigation, while a Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) spokesman Capt. Andy Seabolt said Staubus has met with Stoddard’s family. The TBI is not investigating the May 21 arrest.

Steven Stoddard said his family doesn’t believe they’ve learned the whole truth of how badly injured Stoddard was in encounters with deputies and hospital security officers. He wonders whether officers could have handled the situation differently from the outset when they were called to a private residence outside Kingsport that Stoddard had inexplicably had his family enter when no one was home.

Two incident reports, one from each day, paint a different picture — one of a 6-foot tall, 250-pound man who became violently agitated at several junctures, causing deputies to take actions they felt were needed to control the situation and, in some cases, keep Stoddard from harming himself.

One officer’s report recounts Stoddard allegedly hitting his own head against a cruiser’s back passenger window.

“I and other deputies then got Matthew out of the vehicle and put shackles restraints on him so that he couldn’t kick the window or hurt or harm himself,” that report, an arrest affidavit from May 21, reads.

Steven Stoddard said the family also feels they weren’t given adequate information when Stoddard was at BRMC before eventually being transferred to a hospital in Chattanooga.

“There’s the sheriff’s part and there’s also the hospital’s part, and we’re going to do what we can to fight for Matt, and we want this to be as public as possible,” Steven Stoddard said.

He said Matthew Stoddard, a technical specialist with Lee Company who helped lead heating, air and other infrastructure installations at large buildings like hospitals for the company Gov. Bill Lee founded, was “a great dude” and “a really caring and loving older brother.”

A strange trip away from Chattanooga

According to an affidavit for Matthew Stoddard’s arrest for trespassing and resisting arrest, Sullivan County deputies first encountered the Stoddards hours after they had abruptly left Chattanooga, supposedly bound for Dayton, Ohio. A homeowner returning from a walk on Kitzmiller Road had noticed the family’s van in the driveway and all five Stoddards inside sitting on the couch.

The resident, who called in a suspicious person report, told the deputy that the Stoddards told them they’d become lost and stopped to let their kids use the restroom and to ask directions. The couple told the resident they’d knocked, then opened the door to let their children inside.

Deputy Trevor Gilliam reported that the woman told him Matthew Stoddard “was on the front porch talking with her husband James Hensley not making any sense…”

Gilliam reported going outside to speak with Stoddard and that he and another deputy “tried to detain” Stoddard to “further our investigation.” The report states that Stoddard resisted those efforts, pulling away several times before deputies eventually got him detained and put him into Gilliam’s cruiser.

Gilliam then interviewed Carlie Stoddard, who said Stoddard “has been acting strange for the past couple of days” and that he had “out of nowhere” told her to leave their phones at home and that they were going to Dayton.

Steven Stoddard said he believes that was the first point, sometime after 10 p.m. May 21, when the situation could have been handled differently.

“At any one time, someone through this whole process could have stepped in and done the right thing, whether it’s the sheriff’s deputies or the hospital,” Stoddard said.

Gilliam arrested Matthew Stoddard for aggravated criminal trespass and resisting arrest and drove him to Blountville and the county detention center. It was on that short trip that he and another deputy shackled Stoddard to restrict his movements in the car.

Efforts to restrain Stoddard increase

Gilliam’s report states that Stoddard “got very combative” as he tried to escort him into the jail, including kicking and trying to bite deputies. Gilliam requested a “restraint chair,” which deputies brought only to have Stoddard resist and fight back as they tried to get him into it, according to the affidavit.

As Stoddard resisted, even trying to bite deputies and grab their hands and arms according to the report, “deputies delivered soft tissue strikes to legs, arms and abdominal area in efforts to gain control of the male.”

At some point, a SCSO medical staffer appears to have intervened. After Gilliam reported that one deputy tried unsuccessfully to discharge a taser, the affidavit says, “Mathew (sic) was taken to Bristol Regional Medical Center for Medical clearance at the request of Jail medical staff.”

At the hospital

Stoddard then spent some hours at the hospital before, according to a report from SCSO’s Cody Cunningham, Stoddard “stated that he was hungry and hadn’t eaten,” according to a jail incident report.

This was at 8 p.m. the next night. Cunningham wrote that he removed a handcuff on Stoddard’s right side so he could eat, and noticed marks on his wrist indicating the cuff may be too tight. He wrote that he then noticed similar marks on Stoddard’s left wrist, and reported that he “attempted to change the cuffs on his left side with larger ones.”

Cunningham was resecuring the cuff to the bed, he wrote, when Stoddard “grabbed my firearm in an attempt to remove it from my holster.” He wrote that he put his hand on the pistol to keep it secure, pressed the emergency button on his radio and called for help.

“I then began delivering multiple closed fist strikes to his head region,” Cunningham wrote. He described Stoddard somehow getting his finger on the pistol’s trigger, after which a round was fired and struck the floor.

Cunningham’s report describes him “flipping” Stoddard onto the floor and trying to fire his weapon, which he reported was jammed. It says Cunningham tried another shot, realized his gun was empty and grabbed a magazine to try and reload before Stoddard allegedly charged him and knocked the magazine out of his hand.

The report describes Cunningham then using his baton to hit Stoddard before Stoddard grabbed it away “and began saying just let me kill myself.” The officer wrote he let go of the baton, “creating space that allowed me to reload my firearm.”

During that time, he wrote, hospital security arrived, Cunningham aimed his gun at Stoddard, and Stoddard began hitting himself with the baton before hospital security subdued him with the aid of pepper spray.

Steven Stoddard said his sister-in-law was eventually informed of the incident and was told her husband was in poor condition. He said she wasn’t allowed to see him for more than a day, with authorities citing his pending charges (which were dropped on May 29).

“They had an excuse every step of the way, like they were treating Matt as a criminal who had no rights and the family were not there at all,” Steven Stoddard said. “That’s how we were being treated.”

He said Stoddard was kept in a type of medically induced coma for several days and that the family eventually prevailed on authorities and the hospital to have him transferred to a hospital in Chattanooga.

Matthew Stoddard by Murry Lee on Scribd

‘The last person I’d expect this to happen to’

Steven Stoddard visited his brother several times there and said he remained in a state where he couldn’t speak or even respond much.

“You’d sort of stand whichever way he’s facing, and then he can sort of look at you and sort of focus on you a little bit,” Steven Stoddard said. “But his head would just kind of shake this way and his leg would twitch, and that’s kind of the responses that we got from him.”

Before his brother died, Stoddard said he talked to his brother in hopes he could hear.

“I’d tell him, you know, that we’re going to fight for him … the kids are going to be taken care of and that Carlie would be okay and tell him that he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Matt Stoddard was a 20-year employee of Lee Company who’d moved to Chattanooga several years ago to help open a new office there, Steven Stoddard said.

Stoddard described his brother as an “exuberant” former all-state football lineman who’d been married nearly 20 years and liked nothing more than spending time with his wife, kids and extended family.

“He was vibrant, full of life. He would talk to anybody about anything … and he would be passionate.”

Stoddard said the extended family — their parents had three sons and a daughter and multiple grandkids — would frequently gather at Center Hill Lake, renting pontoon boats and kayaking.

“Out of all of us, he’d be the last person I’d expect this to happen to,” he said. “It was a mental health crisis.”

He said the weeks after the incidents were extremely hard for the entire family. He expects them to continue doing whatever it takes to get more satisfactory answers about how and why things occurred the way they did.

“We’re going to do what we can to fight for Matt, and we want this to be as public as possible. Because keeping quiet is not how things change.”

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