Friends, family say former Marine who died after Tasing battled PTSD

Friends, family say former Marine who died after Tasing battled PTSD
By Thomasi McDonald
The News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Published: April 22, 2013

RALEIGH — Thomas “Tommy” Sadler emerged in the public spotlight on April 10 as a naked man yelling obscenities in a church parking lot just before he died after a Raleigh police officer used a Taser stun gun to try to subdue him.

Stan Williams, Sadler’s morning coffee drinking buddy, recognizes that part of his friend.

“He had anger issues,” Williams said of Sadler. “It was like a temper tantrum lived under his skin, ready to explode at any moment, like Tourette’s syndrome. It just comes.”

But Williams also remembers a guy who loved his parents and daydreamed of owning a silver, 1969 Plymouth GTX with a burgundy interior. Williams said casual conversations at their favorite coffee shop on Hillsborough Street would often turn serious when Sadler asked him how to better communicate with his live-in girlfriend or how to tell his son he loved him.

“He was just a big, fat country boy who loved his Mommy and Daddy,” said Williams, 50, of Raleigh. “He was like a little kid in a 45 year old’s body.”
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