NEWS: Tuscon Police Officer uses Taser on Nine year old Girl

Reports have arrived from Fox11AZ.com stating that an Arizona police officer is under investigation for using a taser on a nine year old girl. A veteran South Tucson police sergeant is under investigation for firing his stun gun to subdue a handcuffed 9-year-old girl.

At the request of Chief Sixto Molina, the Pima County Sheriff's Department is trying to determine if the sergeant committed a crime when he sent a jolt through the child's body.
Fox11AZ.com

The incident occurred at the Arizona Children's Home, a school for special needs children.
The chief of police stated that the call had been made regarding a runaway from the institution, but declined to make further comment.
The girl was handcuffed at the time the weapon was used.

So we have a nine year old girl - a runaway from a special needs school who was already handcuffed, being hit with an electric charge supposedly to 'subdue' her. Am I to believe that two police officers were unable to deal with a nine year child who was aready handcuffed ?

"I'll be the first to admit, you've got a veteran sergeant Tasing a 9-year-old girl, it doesn't look good", The chief of police admitted.

Doesn't look good - its despicable. It reeks of abuse. I can understand tasing a six foot muscle bound Bubba-type, but a child ???

There definitely needs to be an investigation concerning this.


[Edited on 28-5-2004 by Pisky]

[Edited on 5-28-2004 by Valhall]

Im really sorry for this, and I dont mean to troll for controversy but this whole news story just makes me crack a guilty grin. Maybe Im so desensitized that tazing a nine year old seems funny, but you have to admit many kids have it coming. Sure its a gross misuse of police powers, but I want to wait for the whole story before I get all riled up.

Someone should take a taser to the friggin officer!!! I hope they fire that GRRRR BAD MAN! and charge him with child abuse!!!And several other charges!!!

WOW, man, stuff like that makes me ANGRY

She probibly threw a temper tantrum and he couldnt handle it. NO EXCUSE for that! NONE!

I hope he gets whats coming to him.



[Edited on 28-5-2004 by Darkblade71]

Jesus Christ!

Is that Police Officer Crazy?!?

I dont understand the need to use a taser if the girl was already handcuffed. This is messed up.

I can't wait to hear the details that come out about this incident. The part that I found shocking was that the girl had already been taken into custody, was handcuffed, and put into the back of a squad car. Tasers are used in dire siuations and fall only one level under Deadly Force on the "Use of Force Continuum" 1-to-6 scale, six being the most serious, lethal force. I have seen combative juveniles before, and no doubt it would be a handful. What one earth could she have been doing that would suggest skipping physical restraints or chemical agents. She would really have to have been causing herslef grave bodily harm

It is going to be hard to keep an open mind until this plays out in the system. If it goes to trial, picking a jury will be interesting.

I�ve seen some pain-in-the-ass 9yr old girls in my time but none that warranted force like this.

If this story is accurate, the officer in question needs to go down. I hope justice is done.

On a side note, I wonder if he has kids of his own?

that's just plain sick. A nine year old girl????
I can't believe there would ever be justification for using a taser on handcuffed little girl, no matter how much she kicks and screams or whatever. Unless this child was armed like rambo, there should have been no need for this.

WE have to show the terrorists out there that we dont take them lightly and when caught.....we will show them the meaning of the word pain.

If we can show a 9 year old girl who is handcuffed, and resides at a special needs school, how it is to get electrocuted through a taser....and how much that hurt.....

What will the terrorists expect when we get our hands on them? >;P

If that had been MY little girl, that "Officer of the Law" would have woken up one morning with that taser gun shoved sideways someplace REALLY special. Power-Crazed Prick !!!

This proves to me once again that many people in positions in power are incarnations of former nazis and other heinous masochists......

watch someone step forward and justify this.......

At the very least - extremely poor judgement! The problem is some special needs kids can go out of control like you would never believe. The best way to handle those situations is to get paramedics in and sedate the child. The only possible "explanation" here is that the child was injuring herself. But even then, you would think two cops could restrain her until medics arrived. Sounds more like the sarge just lost it.

I think I will wait for the whole story before condeming the officer. It is possible that she was harming herself and that was the fastest way to stop her. One of my friends who isnt mentally ill or anything got so angry at himself that he hit his head on a wall several times before we grabbed him.

This article seems to indicate that the police were not just on a rampage, although it still seems a bit extreme ...

www.dailystar.com...

From Big Earle's link :

On May 8, Officer Michael Hood was dispatched to catch the girl, who had run away from a residential psychiatric center for children. When he found the girl, she started swearing at him, according to the reports.

Hood called Sgt. Armando Teyechea for backup because in prior contacts with the girl she was combative, "fighting, biting, kicking and punching school staff and other police officers," Hood wrote. The girl is 4 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 85 pounds.

Hood handcuffed the girl and placed her in the back of his patrol car. Teyechea and two officials from the Arizona's Children Association home, 2700 S. Eighth Ave., had also arrived.

Hood was attempting to place leg restraints on the girl "to keep her from kicking the window out," he wrote, when the girl kicked him several times.

Teyechea wrote that the girl was "screaming, kicking, flailing and would not listen" when he approached her with the Taser. He told staffers from the home that he was going to tell the girl to calm down and warn her that he would use the Taser if she didn't.

The girl continued swearing at the officers and after warning her again with the Taser, Teyechea applied the stun gun to her right thigh.

So she wasn't at risk of damaging herself at all. Neither was she in position to damage the officers. Other cops have been in the same position in the past and haven't resorted to this.

Unless this officer is at least reprimanded it will give a signal to others that anything goes.

This just can not be justified or tolerated. If the police are allowed to act like wild animals, then what hope for the rest of us. I do hope that this doesn't be allowed to tarnish the reputations of the many decent officers out there.

This reminds me somewhat of an episode of COPS that I saw. Officers arrested a man after pulling his hair and manhandling him,in his house, in front of his children. The man was "wrong"; he was back-sassing, but he was not fighting the police.

The thing that stuck with me about this was the reaction of the man's daughter...about 10 years old. She was going out of her mind, crying and sobbing, unable to understand what was happening to her father. I felt so bad for the child, I can't tell you.

The point is, kids at that age cannot understand what is happening, and it is a perfectly normal reaction for them to go off the deep end and just want the confusion to go away. They need to be calmed downand handled with compassion. There is absolutely no justification for that officer using a TASER on her. He should be fired and prosecuted.

This from a person who is usually very supportive of the police.

I can't believe you Pisky, you just posted the evidence that everything the officer did was justified and then claimed it wasn't justified.

First off tasers are non-lethal so you can use them to keep the manners in public restrooms if you wanted to. There is no real law or regulation against it.

Second, what she was doing could have resulted in a lot of damage, police car window...couple hundred bucks, tax payer money.

I'm not paying for that crap, tase away.

It's not like some great abuse of Federal power, in this case it was a City cop, thus a city enacting it.

You people have an amazing way of making mountains out of mole hills. If it were a federal drug bust on a high school where they were shooting people in the legs indescriminately as they blasted lockers open with shaped charges...then I may think it worth fretting about.

But this is just a local cop shocking a local person because they were about to cost local people local money. It was either the taser or forcefully restraining her which could be worse...twisting ligiments or even breaking a bone when someone's flailing about.

This is a story that's difficult to speculate on withiut having all the facts. Even though the girl was handcuffed and in the back of the police car, she could still have been a very great danger to herself. Some troubled kids are beyond control at times and don't mind, at times even attempt, to hurt themselves badly. We can debate it all we want but without the facts, the discussion is about as useful as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. BTW, as part of their training many policemen and firefighters volunteer to get hit with a Taser. A friend of mine just did that. Stopped him dead in his tracks. Additionally, it has no harmful effect even on people with heart pacemakers.

Originally posted by FreeMason
I can't believe you Pisky, you just posted the evidence that everything the officer did was justified and then claimed it wasn't justified.

Actually, the quote does clarify a number of points which,
� when carefully considered,
� does away with any conceivably defense of the officer.

Hood wrote. The girl is 4 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 85 pounds.

The officer was what, 4 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing 98 pounds?

Hood handcuffed the girl and placed her in the back of his patrol car.

He seemed to accomplish this without a taser.
Or, is there something omitted from the original story here?
How did he manage to cuff her without a taser?
Did he somehow threaten her with deadly force?
Did he find her reluctantly willing to go along,
� and, if so, what did he then do to cause her to become violent?
This sounds like there must be something really unacceptable
� going on back at

... the Arizona's Children Association home, 2700 S. Eighth Ave....

Children who are kicking, flailing, screaming
� do not generally have any time left over to listen.
They are trying to get something very important understood about
� something that is very wrong in their immediate circumstances.

"screaming, kicking, flailing and would not listen" when he approached her with the Taser

Approaching an outraged child with a weapon is a re-assuring tactic presumed to calm them down?
Gotta wonder what he uses on his own children at home,
� or if he should be permitted to have any at all...

Perhaps the mere threat of a broken window justifies tasing children.

Which costs more, broken children or broken windows?

Some people think the scars of emotional trauma are,
� because they are invisible, figments of imagination.
An authority figure doing something of this nature
� to a child of that age has just created tomorrow's rebel.
She will carry that scar in her mind for the rest of her life.
Who will pay for the broken windows of her soul?

If anything, the girl has just learned some very important lessons:

� Never let them catch you.

� Never believe that anyone in authority or wearing uniform
� will behave rationally.

� Never believe that anyone in authority or wearing uniform
� will abide by conventions of decent and moral behaviour.

� If caught, pretend to acquiesce, and wait for the opportunity to escape.
� (what she is probably planning as you read this)

BTW, you probably didn't see Terminator 2.
� She sounds like an imitation of Linda Hamilton's character.

If she grows up to become an American revolutionary,
� it might be safer to be on her side.
x

Claims that a Taser is completely safe are myth. Even Taser International explicitly says that their devise must only be used within strict guidlines. augustachronicle.com...
www.klas-tv.com...
www.kvvutv.com...

Freemanson, Your concern over the potential cost to taxpayers of a patrol-car window not withstanding, Why are these taxpayers burdened with an obviously disturbed 9 year old girl? Serious taxpayer money could be saved by simply executing this abhorrent little demon.

People like you should have your testes hooked-up to a Taser on steroids!!!