Mentally ill prisoner ‘died after being tasered while her hands were cuffed and legs were tied’

           Natasha McKenna was diagnosed with schizophrenia aged 12 (Picture: Family Handout)

A mentally ill prisoner died after allegedly being tasered while her hands were cuffed and legs were tied.

Natasha McKenna, 37, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic aged 12, was on remand at Fairfax Adult Detention Centre in Virginia, US, for punching a police officer last year.

But the Washington Post reports that when Ms. McKenna started struggling in her handcuffs, officers shot her four times with a 50,000-volt taser and she stopped breathing. She died in hospital.

‘They didn’t need to confront her this way,’ Ms. Mckenna’s mother Marlene Williams told the Washington Post.

‘They made it worse. She was mentally sick.’

Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid did not comment on the case but said using stun guns on restrained prisoners was ‘a means that is often useful to ensure the safety of a person.’