Man ‘abandoned’ by cop in midst of psychotic breakdown found dead hours later: suit

A South Carolina man suffering from delusions, hallucinations and a mental disorder was “abandoned” at a closed gas station by a sheriff’s deputy after having a psychotic breakdown — and was found dead just hours later, a new lawsuit alleges.

Video from the cop’s bodycam shows him dropping off the disturbed 26-year-old, identified in court papers as Paul Tarashuk, at a closed service station in Orangeburg County, SC, one night last September after picking him up on a nearby highway.

The young man wound up being hit and killed by a car on the very same road where he was picked up — with his body being found roughly five hours later, his family says.

“He was escorted by an officer to his death,” Tarashuk’s mother, Cindy, told CBS News.

“It’s just watching him walk to his death,” she said of the bodycam video.

Tarashuk, who suffered from schizoaffective disorder, was having a psychotic episode when Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Deputy Clifford Doroski came upon him, his family says.

A trucker had alerted police after spotting Tarashuk walking down the highway naked.

Officers from three different law enforcement agencies showed up, along with EMS, and assessed Tarashuk before sending him on his way with Doroski. The first responders had allegedly grown impatient with Tarashuk, due to him not obeying their commands and cursing at them.

“I’m being f–king serious. I’m sleepy,” one responder can be heard telling Tarashuk. “Give me your damn name so I can go home, for real. I’m tired.”

Paramedics eventually gave Tarashuk an ammonia capsule and asked authorities to take him to a safe location. They apparently didn’t know that Doroski was planning to drop him off at a closed gas station, with nowhere to call for help.

“If I’d have known that he was just going to drop him off, we’d have just took him to the hospital and dropped him there,” a first responder was heard saying after finding Tarashuk’s body.

“They didn’t do their job. That’s it,” Cindy told CBS. “They just didn’t do their job. They didn’t care enough about human life to do their job.”

State Sen. Katrina Shealy this week called for an internal probe.

“I think there needs to be a better investigation into what happened,” she said. “I mean we can see it on the video. I think somebody needs to explain to them why it happened, which they haven’t.”

Doroski was still working for the sheriff’s office as of Wednesday — as were the EMTs who dealt with Tarashuk last September.

The young man’s family has set up a Facebook page calling for “justice” and “change” in response to his death.

“He was mentally ill and needed medical care,” the family says in one post. “He did not receive it.”