Officer suspended after using taser on 13 year old girl...twice

Seems to me that there have been alot of reports lately of police officers using their tasers in excess.Not being in law enforcement I'm not aware of what constitutes the use of a taser or stungun on someone..other than it being a "non-lethal"means of stopping a criminal.But to tase a 13 year old child..not once but twice???

www.local6.com...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An officer has been suspended for zapping a 13-year-old girl at least twice with a stun gun while she was handcuffed in his caged patrol car.

Nelson and his partner had been called to the apartment Kallead shares with her mother Rosie Vaughan because they were fighting Feb. 7. Vaughan wanted police to help get medical help for her daughter, who had been hospitalized for observation in the past for emotional disorders, the newspaper said.

Nelson, a 6-foot-2 officer weighing 300 pounds, allegedly used the low-setting stun mode when the 4-foot-8 Kallead wormed the handcuffs from behind her back and would not do as directed. "The situation was under control at this point," the internal report said.

Sgt. D.E. Smith, who was called to the scene, said, "Please don't tell me this is the person you Tased."

The date of Feb.7th is odd to me.Why is this story being told now?Either way the officer involved received training as an instructor in January
An officer that has been trained to be an instructor tasing a 13 year old girl that was handcuffed and in the back of a caged partol car and all he gets is suspended???So what if she had wiggled the cuffs from behind her back she was still handcuffed.This cop should be fired!If he can't use his best judgement or is that damn trigger happy to stungun a child he DOES NOT need to be wearing the uniform of a cop.

IMO I think that cops are seeing their new weapons that are suppose to be non lethal as toys and have to play with them...
There was another thread on here about a man being tased to death when he was already in a restraint chair but I can't find it now.Will anything happen to these cops for this?

Perhaps these officers that are carrying tasers should be zapped a few times on the highest setting to see just how it feels.I have never been tased but have seen the effects of it.Maybe when they are laying on the ground in a puddle of their own urine or left drooling all over themselves maybe....maybe they will think twice before using it on someone that obviously doesn't need to be stunned.

Police are trained to be able to take down and restrain even the biggest men...do they really need to tase a kid?
For those of you that will come on this thread to defend the officer's actions (and I know there will be someone to say something in his defense)all I have to say is what would you do as a parent if you found out or saw a cop tase your child?Would you still defend him?

Simon

I didn't defend the cops who tazed the pregnant woman and I'm not going to here. But I really can't wait to hear people try to justify this one, as I'm sure they will....

-koji K.

Now, I like to defend cops. Cops are cool. But this article is so vague, I can't even tell what anyone did. I can tell you that whatever the officer did, it was using teh low-power setting of the taser. Look it up before you start screaming bloody murder.

DE

You dont tase kids...but then again....if the kid is bad enough that her mother allows her to get taken away in handcuffs...shes obviously not a normal kid....like Deus stated...the report was extremely vague...so i cant comment further....

What's vague about it? A 300lb cop used his taser at least twice on a 13 year old girl that was handcuffed and locked in his police cruiser. I don't understand what's vague in the story?

What if it were your kid?

REmember people fists are non-lethal weapons as well

freedom and power to the people in uniform......only

If you automaticly assume the police are allways right....you are a sheep and you better make sure your papers are in order when the gestapo like police ask for them....this is after all america

Im not assuming theyre always right....but you guys have convicted the dude without the full story...

The EU's Special Technologies Assesment Office published a worrying report some time ago, on the "technologies of political control." In it, they coined a phrase, "push-button torture" to refer to the growing availabilty to law enforcement personnel around the world of devices meant to inflict pain, and the slippery slope inherent in using them.

In the past week I've heard of two incidents where police used tasers in a questionable manner, against a pregnant woman and now a 13 year old. In both instances police claimed they used them as a "last resort." I feel we will only hear more of these types of acts as police grow more accustomed to being able to freely use their tools. I await the day when someone tases someone with a pacemaker or heart condition, and would like to see how the "it was on the lowest setting" defense goes down in court then.

-koji K.

So...lets say....the cops didnt have the tasers...and had to use physical force on the 13yr old...or how about had to call ESU and had them tie and bag her....would that have been a better situation?...Or wait....she put the cuffs to the front...and opens the car door, strangles or hits the cop....would that have been better?...WE NEED THE FULL STORY....not the 30 seconds on the 5 oclock news....

Wait a second. I thought the US was in a police state.

If that was the case, why are cops still be punished?? Aren't they allowed to do whatever they want and get away with it?

How'd he get away with it?...nobody here knows what happened to him....

Originally posted by BasementAddix
So...lets say....the cops didnt have the tasers...and had to use physical force on the 13yr old...or how about had to call ESU and had them tie and bag her....would that have been a better situation?...Or wait....she put the cuffs to the front...and opens the car door, strangles or hits the cop....would that have been better?...WE NEED THE FULL STORY....not the 30 seconds on the 5 oclock news....

A taser IS physical force, it's the misconception that it's not physical that makes it prone to abuse by law enforcement. Because it's a remote method of applying force, it allows violence without emotion and sidesteps the natural inhibition to engage a 'combatant' manually. This guy would probably never dream of beating a little girl with a club or his fists, but had no concerns about pushing a button and sending her a few thousand volts from behind his weldmesh safety cage. We all know he was never in any danger from a child and there can be no justification for assaulting her physically, but that's what DOES happen when you give someone a method of remote controlled and sanitized violence.

30 second spot on the local news or a 30 page report makes no difference,There was no danger to this 6 foot 2 inch 300 pound trained officer from a 4 foot 8 inch 13 year old girl..I do see some vagueness about it...yes there could have been more to the story like,where was the mother when this took place?Did the officer have a partner on scene with him?If so why didn't the partner stop him from tasing this girl?If the mother wasn't outside or near the tasing was she told of it then or later?

"Nelson did not violate written guidelines on using stun guns"...So does this mean that there are guidelines for tasing a child?What of the woman with child that was tased like Koji_K mentioned?Is that in the guidelines?The man that was recently tased to death while in a restraint chair and was acting out because he wasn't on his meds is that in the guidelines?

How did the tasing take place?The girl was handcuffed and in the back of the cop car.Now I don't know how many of you have ever been in the back of a cop car but you can't simply open the door an step out.With that said did the officer open the door and tase her while she was still in the car or did he take her out first?This girl has emotional problems from what the article says.Is she on medication?If so had she taken it?If not this could be the reason for her acting out?There are quite a few questions that could be answered to give us a better idea of just what caused it but the fact still remains that a full grown man trained to restrain people of equal size used poor judgement and tased a kid.

As for not knowing the whole story and us already convicting him?Damn right!This guy use a stungun on a kid,low setting or not it should not have happened!

Originally posted by Simon_Boudreaux

Perhaps these officers that are carrying tasers should be zapped a few times on the highest setting to see just how it feels.I have never been tased but have seen the effects of it.Maybe when they are laying on the ground in a puddle of their own urine or left drooling all over themselves maybe....maybe they will think twice before using it on someone that obviously doesn't need to be stunned.
Simon

In order for a police officer in the state of Florida to be qualified to carry a Taser, they have to go through a training class which involves them being Tased themselves…

By way of example: www.officer.com...


[edit on 5/20/2005 by defcon5]

Thanks for the info defcon 5

I wonder if the officer fired the darts into the girl or if he touched the taser to her?I would imagine touched it to her if she was in the car.Would be hard to imagine him opening the car door and firing into the car.But then he did tase a child so who knows.
Do you know if the darts actually penetrate the skin or if they just stick to the clothing?In the article they talked instead of firing the darts at the two officers they just attached the electrodes to them.If it penetrates the skin I think the officers should have been subjected to that as well to give them the full feeling of what they would be doing to someone in the event they had to use it.Would be interesting to know the voltage at each setting.

Saying it doesn't cause someone to urinate on themselves is false.The guy I saw tased did infact wet himself.But then again could have been fear that caused him to do it.

i am forming the opinion that cops should not be alowed to have tasers. it would apear that they are being overused and abused. since they can't seem to be able to use them apropriately then they shouldn't have them. it can be a usefull tool, but unfortunately the way in which it is being used is over and above legitimate useage. have a slight problem? just taze the (beep) out of them mabe they will then learn that cops are always right. and that any order givn by a cop should be obeyed, no matter how wrong that they may be.

this apears to be just another case of abusive behavior by those that are suppost to protect and serve, not abuse and torture. so the girl got her hands out from behind her back. oooooo scary girl. as someone said, once in the back of a cruiser there is no way out. the handles and windows are both disabled. (an easy thing to do to a car). so since she was in the back already there was apsolutely no reason to even care where her hands were. she was no threat to anyone at that point. there was no need to agravate the situation further by shocking her.

people have said that there was not enough info to go on in determing if this had just cause? there was enough info. what happened before has no reasonable meaning as she was handcuffed AND in the back of a cruiser. she realy wasn't going anywhere. she was UNDER CONTROLL. once that door is shut you have to be outside to open it.

Originally posted by Simon_Boudreaux
I wonder if the officer fired the darts into the girl or if he touched the taser to her?

The Tasers that they carry around my area look like a gun and can be used either way, either with or without firing the darts, they just pull the dart package off the front of the gun. I would imagine that he just touched her with the probes, but that is just a guess.

Originally posted by Simon_Boudreaux
Do you know if the darts actually penetrate the skin or if they just stick to the clothing?

The darts look exactly like a fishing hook that has been straightened out with a groove down one side. The hooks will go through clothing and into the skin. EMS has a special tool that they use when they arrive on seen that they line up with the groove in the hook and it slides under the skin and removes the hook. I don’t think that you would want to try and pull one out by hand anymore then you would try it with a fishing hook. They have longer hooks for use in the northern states that are made to penetrate thicker clothing.

Originally posted by Simon_Boudreaux
In the article they talked instead of firing the darts at the two officers they just attached the electrodes to them.If it penetrates the skin I think the officers should have been subjected to that as well to give them the full feeling of what they would be doing to someone in the event they had to use it.

Back when the officers I knew had to go through this they did, but perhaps they have gotten away from it since the real pain comes from the shock anyway not the darts, and there is increased risk with using the darts such as misfiring or hitting the wrong area. The main reason for using the darts and staying back from the target is to prevent them from reaching around and grabbing the officer who then would also receive a shock as well. Just like in high school when you played with a Vandograph Generator and would line up and have one guy touch it and the last one in line would receive the shock.

Edit to add:

This X-26 is either the same or very similar to the type that the officers I know carry.

www.taserx26.com...





[edit on 5/20/2005 by defcon5]