Julie Hong

Omaha (KPTM) - An Omaha man says police were out of line. He says Omaha police beat and shocked him with a taser three times in his own bed for a crime he says he didn't commit.

"You should've checked the tape before you come out," says Orrin Sterba, who says police beat and tasered him, "I'm sleeping and you attack me and tell me you're sorry?"

Sterba says an apology is not enough after a July encounter with police. "I would like for someone else not go through this nonsense."

Talking to us with his attorney by his side, Orrin described how Omaha police shot him with a taser, then arrested him for a theft he didn't commit.

Defense attorney James Martin Davis says the police were out of line. "They went into a man's bedroom who was sleeping in his underwear and jolted him three ties with 50,000 volts. Generally, that's not acceptable behavior of a police officer."

Sterba showed us pictures of what he calls the taser marks. But Omaha police, who would not talk about the case on camera, say a taser was not used.

In a written statement police say "there was no physical confrontation with sterba that would've led to a use of force by the officers." police also say, "an audit of the taser, possessed by the only taser certified officer present, it does not appear as if the taser was deployed on this date in question."

Police were investigating a Kwik Shop theft. Sterba and another man were taken into custody, and Sterba was ticketed. After officers reviewed a video tape, police went back to his home and voided that ticket.

Davis and sterba say the police department's use of tasers is unacceptable. "Afterwards they reviewed a tape and said oh my god he's not on that tape," Davis says. If the mayor doesn't do something to bring in the police department with respect to this case, he's going to need more than a few million dollars for something other than a stadium because if i bring a class action lawsuit, the city's gonna get hit."

Davis says a taser is a weapon of last resort and should be used as a last resort for unruly arrestees. He says Sterba did not resist arrest, and accuses Omaha police of not following national or local taser use procedures. Davis says officers need to be more fully investigated, and disciplined.