HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A Hutchinson man who was fatally shot by a Forest Service law enforcement officer in Arizona tested negative for a range of illegal and prescription drugs and had a blood alcohol level within the legal limit, according to an article in today’s Arizona Daily Sun.![]()
The findings from the Yavapai County Medical Examiner’s Office raise more questions than answers in the shooting of 51-year-old Tyler Miller, who was shot alongside the highway near his wrecked vehicle.
Miller was walking along an Arizona highway naked and bleeding before he was fatally shot by a federal officer.
The FBI’s Phoenix office says a U.S. Forest Service officer initially stopped to help Miller on Highway 89A in Oak Creek Canyon, about 100 miles north of Phoenix. According to family, Miller was heading to a retreat in Sedona when he crashed his truck. A deputy wrote Officer Krista Kuhns sounded “shaky and was speaking loudly” over a radio and then shots were fired.
The toxicology report released by the medical examiner’s office found that Miller tested positive only for nicotine, a category of pain-relieving drugs that includes Tylenol, Advil and aspirin, and Naloxone, the drug used to reverse opioid drug overdoses. However, he tested negative for opiates — which are naturally occurring — and oxycodone, a synthetic opiate.
Miller’s blood alcohol content was 0.05 percent — below the legal limit of 0.08 percent for driving.