Douglas Spink

Citing a terminal illness and a need to care for an ailing relative, a Butler man on Wednesday requested a county judge end the electronic monitoring portion of his parole.

Douglas B. Spink, 47, of Butler was arrested Dec. 2, 2017, after a standoff with police in Butler city. Police confronted him under the pretext of a mental health check that Spink alleged was fraudulent. Police Tasered him five times and hit him with several bean bag rounds before he was arrested, according to police reports.

Spink described the incident in a court filing requesting the end of his electronic monitoring.

“Ignoring clear statutory instruction that 'minimal use of force' be used in the implementation of such civil warrants, police undertook an hours-long orgy of violence targeting (me) and (my) service dog. Defendant was rendered comatose,” Spink wrote and went on to note that he never received mental health treatment once he was transferred to a hospital.

In September, Spink pleaded guilty to two counts of resisting arrest and was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in Butler County Prison followed by two years of probation.

After being paroled, he was put on electronic monitoring for an undetermined amount of time, with an agreement that he wouldn't be monitored for more than six months.

On Wednesday, he told Judge Timothy McCune that he has been on electronic monitoring for eight months. McCune ordered Spink's monitor to be severed.

Spink has represented himself in his criminal cases, declining the aid of a lawyer.

“I appreciate the judge understanding my case and granting my request,” Spink said after the hearing.

Spink wore sunglasses in the courtroom and asked McCune if he could keep them on, explaining that his eyes are sensitive and couldn't focus due to chemotherapy. In Spink's court request, he wrote that he has a terminal form of metastatic malignant melanoma.

“Put bluntly: (I'm) dying of a highly aggressive cancer,” Spink wrote and later explained why he wanted to be removed from monitoring. “It is expected that (I) will be hospitalized for additional periods as (I) battle both the cancer and the side effects of chemotherapy.”

He added that being on electronic monitoring “creates a substantial burden.”

In Spink's court filing, he also noted that his mother's health is deteriorating and she requires full-time care, a role he said that he has filled since being released from jail in September.

“In many cases, (I'm) unable to provide such care to his mother as a result of the limits imposed during his period of (electronic monitoring),” he wrote.