Friday, November 20, 2009

"Officer, my son won't eat his broccoli -- would you please tase him?"

That seems to be the next logical step:
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A prosecutor wants Arkansas State Police to open a criminal investigation after an Ozark police officer used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl.

David Gibbons, the prosecuting attorney for the 5th Judicial District, made the request Thursday in a letter to state police director Col. Winford Phillips.

State police spokesman Bill Sadler says Phillips received the request and passed it along to the commander of the agency's criminal investigation division. Those two officials will discuss the request.

Police were called to the home Nov. 11 after the girl's mother couldn't get her to take a shower. Officer Dustin Bradshaw's report says the girl was "violently kicking and verbally combative" when Bradshaw tried to take her into custody.

He said he delivered "a very brief drive stun to her back."
The Smoking Gun has the incident report:
According to the below Ozark Police Department report, when Officer Dustin Bradshaw arrived at the residence last Thursday, he found the girl "screaming, kicking, and resisting every time her mother tried to touch her." Bradshaw added that, "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to." After Kiara continued to refuse her mother's instructions, the cop concluded that "there was not going to be a peaceful resolution of the issue." Bradshaw warned the girl that she was "going to jail," but the child continued kicking and crying and resisted his attempt to handcuff her. During the tussle, Kiara "struck me with her legs and feet in the groin, reported Bradshaw, who countered with a brief "stun to her back" with his Taser. The child, not surprisingly, "immediately stopped resisting and was placed into handcuffs. She would not walk on her own and I had to carry her to my police car."
21st-century parenting. Just one of the many services of the modern State.

(Alternate post title: "Don't tase me, Mom!")

3 comments:

  1. Why on earth would a policeman be called to a house because a child didn't obey her mother? Why on earth would a policeman ARREST a 10-year old for disobeying her mother? Did the policeman even stop to ask WHY such an incident had happened? Wouldn't a reasonable adult suspect that the child might have some good reason for resisting her mother's touch?

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  2. So what exactly would the charge be for this? Aren't police supposed to have something like that in mind when they arrest somebody? What could he possibly have arrested her FOR?

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  3. Violating the Fourth Commandment? That may be a misdemeanor in Arkansas.

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