FL: Second child shocked by Taser stun gun within weeks

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Fla. police review policy after children shocked


Second child shocked by Taser stun gun within weeks

The Associated Press
Updated: 8:35 a.m. ET Nov. 14, 2004MIAMI - Police have acknowledged using a stun gun to immobilize a 12-year-old girl just weeks after an officer jolted a first-grader with 50,000 volts.

Police Director Bobby Parker defended the decision to use a Taser on the 6-year-old boy last month because he was threatening to injure himself with a shard of glass. But Parker said Friday that he could not defend the decision to shock the fleeing girl, who was skipping school and apparently drunk.

According to the incident report, officer William Nelson responded to a complaint that children were swimming in a pool, drinking alcohol and smoking cigars on the morning of Nov. 5.

Nelson said he noticed the girl was intoxicated and was walking her to his car to take her back to school when she ran away through a parking lot.

Nelson, 38, said he chased her and yelled several times for her to stop before firing the Taser when she began to run into traffic. The electric probes hit the girl in the neck and lower back, immobilizing her.

Nelson said he fired “for my safety along with (the girl’s) safety.” Paramedics treated the girl, who went home with her mother.

Parker said department policy permits officers to use the Taser to apprehend someone, but he said he expected his officers to use better judgment, especially when police had no plans to arrest the girl.

Stun guns increasingly common
The first incident had already exposed the department to more criticism for its use of Tasers, which it has begun distributing in greater numbers to officers.

The 6-year-old boy was shocked on Oct. 20 in the principal’s office at Kelsey Pharr Elementary School. Principal Maria Mason called 911 after the child broke a picture frame in her office and waved a piece of glass, holding a security guard back.

The boy had cut himself under his eye and on his hand when officers arrived.

“The police could have handled this better,” said the boy’s mother, Kathy Rojas. “They did not have to shoot him.”

Parker said that, in light of the disclosure of the second incident, the department will review its policy.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6468373/?GT1=5809
 
Handled better ??? How about ...could have been RAISED better ?????
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Nelson said he fired “for my safety along with (the girl’s) safety.”
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"I fear for my safety! A twelve year old girl is running from me!"

God help him if he goes up against a 17 year old girl.
 
Did you ever consider the idea that snatching a drunk away from certain death from in front of an oncoming bus doesn't always work out as well as it does on TV and in the movies?
 
Y'know, you have to wonder just how diminished we'd all feel if the drunken, cigar-smoking, 12 year-old girl had instead been allowed to go 'head and run in front of a bus. Or maybe I'm just getting callous and cynical in my old age. ;)
 
The police used the Tasers to stop the kids from injuring themselves. Funny how the parents seem to ignore the fact that these kids were, arguably, trying to kill or at least severely hurt themselves. The police used a tactic that did not cause any harm to the children and saved them from themselves.

To Protect and Serve.

If you don't want police tactics to be used, don't call the police. The principal and the security guard couldn't get the glass away from the kid themselves? The pool owner couldn't just chase the kids off? So many have been taught to just call the police for everything and not take responsibility for themselves. Is it any wonder we're called a Nation of Cowards? :rolleyes:
 
The police used the Tasers to stop the kids from injuring themselves. Funny how the parents seem to ignore the fact that these kids were, arguably, trying to kill or at least severely hurt themselves. The police used a tactic that did not cause any harm to the children and saved them from themselves.
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In either case, I don't see the problem in having used the tasers. Neither child was hurt in either incident by the tasers. I could see where there would be complaints if something bad happened as a result of being tased, but that hasn't been the case.

The article is in error about the first case. It wasn't that the child was threatening to hurt himself, but that he had already cut himself multiple times and was threatening to cut his own throat.
 
Perhaps, but in the first case, seems to be an application of excessive force. And whether or not it caused harm, debatable insofar as the potential range of adverse effects from these devices isn't agreed upon.
Let alone the effects of this type of current on a still developing brain. Second case, a 30 some year old law enforcement person, who tasered the girl...OK whatever.
As for the analogies of being better raised...the same standard could be applied to the LE personnel who tasered a kid.
Concerning the contention about not calling the police if one doesn't want police tactics to be used...partially true as the in school incident could likely have been handled by a competent teacher.
However LE should have some professional discretionary conduct, its not always appropriate to fall into what the 'standard response' might be, within safety and legal guidelines an intelligent person can make adjustments to both training and responses. One of the problems with the de-facto militarization of LE in some US cities, is increasing the tendancy to justify things on an 'us-them' paradigm. Or that, responses can't be modified. Fine for the military..not good for LE and relations with the rest of the civilians. But mayhaps this division is where the presumption arose that its OK to taser a 6 year old, already disturbed kid.
And mayhaps, many of us, who found our 6yr kid was tasered, wouldn't be cheering the whole thing.
Either way, seeming idiots all around...in these incidents...the whole situation reads like a SNL sketch.
 
I'd be thanking the heavens that my mentally-disturbed 6-year-old was successfully saved from killing or severely injuring himself or anyone else without suffering any serious injury.

If they'd tried to grab him, he might have twisted away as lithe, agitated and angry six-year-olds are usually able to do, and stabbed the adult in the gut, sliced a big gash in an arm, or taken out an eye, and you would have wound up with two people in need of medical attention instead of just the kid and his self-inflicted wounds.

Grabbing the kid's arm where he was holding the glass shard would have resulted in him clenching his fist down on the shard, perhaps resulting in permanent debilitating injury to the tendons in his dominant hand.

There were no perfect answers in this situation, that's for certain, and in an ideal world young children would never be subjected to a Taser, but the way I see it the Taser was the safest possible option from a menu of significant risks.

The potential range of adverse effects from a shard of broken glass is beyond dispute and well-understood, and the effects of bleeding to death on a still-developing brain is also a fully-developed field of medical science.

Militarization of the police has no bearing on this situation - if they'd been militarized, they would have shot, maced, or bludgeoned him, instead of using the much less risky Taser.

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From now on, any child acting up in public will be lightly Tased.
 
I bet the officer is thanking the Heavens too, a taser is not tested for or supposed to be used on a person under 60lbs.

For all the officer knew the little kid could have dropped dead on the spot and could still have mental problems.

When Tasers first came out they were marketed for use in situations as an alternative to a pistol. Currently they are being used as the first tool to subdue people.

There have been NO clinical trials on the use of Tasers. The company claims it is safe, but have only tested it on healthy adults. There is NO information on what a taser might do to someone with certain medical conditions.

What a Taser will do to a mentally disturbed child under 60lbs is a complete unkown. It is possible nothing might go wrong, it is equally possible the child will have even more development problems. Frankly if he were my child, I would rather him have a couple of scrapes and bruises (from a police tackle) than the possiblity that he might die.

Lets see, pepper spray that can be washed out, a baton and take down that might leave scrapes and bruises that will heal, or an taser that is not to be used on children of his size or age that is untested and has a possiblity of death or developmental problems.
 
For all the officer knew the little kid could have dropped dead on the spot and could still have mental problems.
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Not to be flippant, but had the kid dropped dead on the spot, I don't think he'd have too many more mental problems.

I wasn't there. I'll hold off my applause or condemnations for now.
 
Lets see, pepper spray that can be washed out, a baton and take down that might leave scrapes and bruises that will heal,
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I'm not so sure that glass shards through the trachea from botched tackles heal up all that well.

On the other hand, these stories illustrate why Tamara isn't a cop:

Little Bobby: "I'll cut my throat! I'm not kidding!"
Offc. Tamara: "Go 'head, kid. Mind if we just sit here and watch, so we can get our report straight?"

I just don't have the empathetic mindset. :o
 
I'm not so sure that glass shards through the trachea from botched tackles heal up all that well.
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I have known many 6 year olds in my time. I have never seen one that could jump up and slit a throat. On the other hand I have seen many times parents smack a hand and the object was released. If an officer cannot subdue a 6 year old, but will go for a taser that is not supposed to be used on a child, they are not a very good officer.

How do you justify an inappropriate use of a weapon? OH MY GOD, THAT CHILD HAS A SHARD OF GLASS, evacuate the city!!! If the Taser missed or the battery was dead, would the cop shoot the kid?

Maybe it is just the fact I used to volunteer at the YMCA after school and helped the 1st and 2nd graders that skews my judgment.

I have never seen a 6 year old over power an adult. An adult with Longer reach, more strength and more intelligence, but that last part may just be wishfull thinking.
 
I have known many 6 year olds in my time. I have never seen one that could jump up and slit a throat.
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It wasn't the officer's throat the child was threatening to slit, "Gunstar1". Were we reading the same news story? :rolleyes:
 
The militarization comment, refers to the increasing tendancy to rely on technological force, or confrontation to 'remove the threat, or even the sometime problematic attitude concerns that can result from the affectation of wearing 'BDU's' etc as civilian LE uniforms. LE are civilians, and some of these trends, will for the less astute or well trained officers, tend to negate that essential conceptual link. It really wasn't that long ago, LE training emphasized negotiation/delaying tactics in incidents where people were threatening themselves. Now, a 6 year old kid, can usually be distracted or diverted, into another tack. Takes a little time, but better than tasers. The people involved may have tried this, but hard to say, excepting it appears they escalated the force level very quickly.
And probably they'll find out with tasers-under certain conditions, as they did with some restraint holds, that tasers are not without problematic effects. And as noted, not likely many 6 year olds will be volunteered for the testing.
In the PS's (another &^%&^%& career incarnation), I've stopped fights, taken small weapons and the like, and with the younger kids all that's usually required, at most excessive, is physical presence and a attitude of genteel authority. So still wondering exactly what happened with this incident.
And really, even a distraught 6 year old is a kid, so conceptually quite a change in basic societal attitudes that it's ok to use an implement best suited to aggressive drunks and agitated prisoners...for their own safety? Sounds a bit disturbing, or at least Orwellian.
 
And probably they'll find out with tasers-under certain conditions, as they did with some restraint holds, that tasers are not without problematic effects.
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Suicidal EDP's slashing their throats with glass shards aren't without side effects (most notably "deadness",) either. :rolleyes:
 
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