Anyone who's seen Poltergeist, The Exorcist, or Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants knows how terrifying little girls can be. Your humble correspondent grew up with two of them, and if Santa Claus had seen fit to deliver a Tiny Taser in 1985 rather than yet another Husky Helper toy, the Finch household would have been a very different place indeed.
Apparently Arkansas police officer Dustin Bradshaw shares our hypothetical six-year-old's mentality:
When [Bradshaw] arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, and resisting as her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed.Bradshaw's boss, under pressure from the Mayor and the media, eventually suspended Bradshaw with pay (a.k.a. "vacation"), but not for Tasering the girl. The reprimand was for failing to videotape the encounter per department policy. Police Chief Jim Noggle actually defended the action itself as a benevolent alternative to breaking the girl's bones:
"Her mother told me to take her if I needed to," the officer wrote.
The child was "violently kicking and verbally combative" when he tried to take her into custody and she kicked him in the groin.
He then delivered "a very brief drive stun to her back," the report said.
"We didn't use the Taser to punish the child - just to bring the child under control so she wouldn't hurt herself or somebody else," Mr Noggle said.And golly, it's not like he killed her or anything. The wholly incompetent mother is not off the hook, by the way, but had she electrocuted her ten-year-old for acting like a ten-year-old, she would be the one in jail.
Had the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg, Mr Noggle said.
Finally, just in case anyone is thinking "what's done is done"; Noggle also says the girl will face disorderly conduct charges. Stay classy, Arkansas.
UPDATE: Officer Bradshaw has been fired for alleged repeated failure to adhere to the department policy regarding the use of video cameras.
Here I was patting myself on the back for my glowing review in the Scotty Karate post only to find out you wanted to tase me as a small child :)
ReplyDeleteI would only have Tased you to prevent you from breaking any bones. It's for your own good.
ReplyDelete...Hey! I finally get the whole "Big Brother" 1984 meme! Neat.