UPDATED: Preliminary autopsy reveals taser gun did not kill Knoxville man

A Knoxville man died after KPD officers used a taser to help catch him but investigators say nothing that the officers did caused his death.

Forty-year-old Kevin Hill was transported to St. Mary's Hospital Tuesday night after he became unresponsive. He was later pronounced dead.

Darrell DeBusk, Public Information Officer says, "The taser is not something we use on a regular basis. In 2006, we used it 92 times that's less than 1 percent of the arrests we effected in 2006.

KPD made more than 14,000 arrests that year.

According to police, Hill was acting very strangely Tuesday night near Cherry Street and Washington Avenue. He was running into traffic and even trying to get into vehicles.

One woman claims Hill grabbed her arm as she sat in her car but she got away. DeBusk adds, "We had numerous calls about his erratic behavior."

The calls started coming into the E-911 Center just before 10:00pm.

Investigators found Hill standing in the center lane of Magnolia Avenue at Cherry Street and tried to question him.

Police say he became very agitated. They say he refused to listen to them and was struggling with them.

That's when a KPD officer shot Hill with his taser.

DeBusk says, "Even after being handcuffed he still remained combative with the officers. He would not comply with the officers demands. We felt like we needed to use the taser to gain control of that individual."

Statistics show at least 70 people nationwide have died after being tasered. While the taser has technically never caused a death, it has been ruled a factor.

Medical experts say some people have been under the influence of drugs, had a medical condition or had what's called excited delirium at the time. Dr. Corey Slovis, Chair of Emergency Medicine at Vanderbilt says, "Almost every taser death has been in a patient that's been agitated. Patients were often sweating, screaming, running down the street fighting with multiple people. They had "super human strength" when they've resisted arrest."

A preliminary autopsy released late Wednesday afternoon shows Hill died from an unrelated medical condition not the taser.

There was also an unidentified illegal substance in his system at the time. Hill's criminal history included drug, weapons and evading arrest charges.

He was released from prison on Saturday.

Sergeant Chris Bell and Officer Gerald George are both on paid administrative leave.

Police say that's a standard procedure during an investigation.