RICHLAND COUNTY, South Carolina - October 27, 2008 - Charles Green admits he has a problem with crack cocaine. He admits he had crack on him the night of Jan. 17. He admits he ran from police to avoid arrest and might have swallowed some of the crack while hiding it in his mouth.

But the 45-year-old Columbia man says he didn’t deserve to be stunned with a Taser gun multiple times, especially after he was handcuffed, by a Richland County sheriff’s deputy.

“I’m a human being,” Green told The State. “Don’t no one deserve that - a dog doesn’t deserve that.”

The 6-foot-tall, 225-pound Green contends the Taser shocks caused him to be hospitalized for two months for kidney failure, seizures, breathing problems and severe muscle weakness. In a report, one of Green’s doctors suspected nerve damage in his right leg was caused by the Taser shocks, as well as burns to his foot.

But according to Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott and Green’s medical records provided to The State, his health problems stemmed mainly from swallowing cocaine before he was arrested.

Lott said Green, whom deputies apprehended near a suspected drug hangout, refused to spit out the crack and could have died had he swallowed all of it.

“We saved this man’s life,” the sheriff told The State.

Still, authorities are concerned about the possibility that the arresting officer, Tom Hodges, who Tasered Green at least six times, used excessive force.

The FBI launched an investigation after The State began examining the incident in August.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is reviewing the FBI’s evidence in the case, Brent Gray, the division’s deputy chief, confirmed last week. Gray declined to discuss specifics of the case, as did Denise Taiste, spokeswoman for the FBI in South Carolina.

The investigation comes at a time when excessive force is an issue in South Carolina. The state Highway Patrol is under federal scrutiny for alleged use of excessive force. Two troopers have been indicted; one was acquitted earlier this month.

Also, a former Charleston County sheriff’s deputy was sentenced Friday to eight months in a federal halfway house and eight months of home detention after earlier pleading guilty to using excessive force by kicking a motorist in the head and neck while the man was lying handcuffed on the ground.

There’s no doubt Green’s case is the most serious Taser accusation the Richland County Sheriff’s Department has faced since beginning to use the weapons in 2004, Lott said.