Arkansas cop tasers 10-year-old girl
Mother backs electric justice for unruly child
Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything
An Arkansas cop has been suspended after tasering a ten-year-old girl who repeatedly "screamed, kicked and resisted" when her mother attempted to get her to have a shower before bed.
Officer Dustin Bradshaw was called to a "domestic disturbance" in Ozark on 11 November, where he found the girl "curled up on the floor, screaming", according to his report.
Bradshaw wrote that the girl was "violently kicking and verbally combative", and noted: "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to."
When Bradshaw attempted to arrest the child, she kicked him in the groin, so he gave her "a very brief drive stun to her back" of "less than a second", as police chief Jim Noggle put it. Bradshaw was then able to handcuff the subdued perp and she was taken into custody.
Noggle clarified: "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."
The girl's mother, Kelly King, backed Bradshaw's action, telling local 4029tv.com: "I want to make this clear, I'm not calling them [the police] over here to handle my problem. I'm having them come over here to protect my daughter from hurting herself or hurting someone else."
The unnamed victim's father, Anthony Medlock, who's separated from King, admitted his daughter had "emotional problems", but insisted she "does not deserve to be tased and be treated like an animal".
Ozark mayor Vernon McDaniel earlier this week demanded an official investigation into the matter. He told AP: "People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation."
Arkansas state police declined to probe the tasering, saying it "only gets involved with criminal investigations", rather than "matters of policy".
While chief Noggle initially said Bradshaw would not face disciplinary action, the officer was subsequently suspended for seven days on full pay for failing to turn on a camera attached to the Taser, in line with department policy.
McDaniel continues to push for an Arkansas state police criminal investigation into Bradshaw's use of the Taser. Medlock is also demanding satisfaction. He said: "I don't know if justice will come out of it or not, but I'm going to do my damndest to get justice out of it. Somebody needs to pay. Seven days suspended with pay that isn’t anything. That's not even a slap on the wrist."
Whether Bradshaw will be held to account remains to be seen, but Medlock's daughter - who's reportedly unharmed and in the care of the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil - faces a charge of "disorderly conduct", AP notes. ®
COMMENTS
In context
Consider a couple of things: This is Ozark, Arkansas. This is where things like Dogpatch, USA and Deliverance take place. These people struggle to operate a DVD player. God knows why their police department is given toys they don't know what to do with.
Second, Arkansas is one of those "red" states. In the US, policits, culture, etc. has gotten so binary that every thing that a rational, secular, enlightened member of normal Western society is immediately condemned by the reactionary, anti-intellectual, rage-filled followers of the ultra-right. These people oppose all science that doesn't directly involve the military or consumer products sectors. Universities to them are football teams, which have enought "learnin'" to qualify to join the NCAA -- so the football team can go on TV. The biggest threat they see (aside from "Libruls" who treaten to let them have affordable health care) is "Immigration." The illegal immigrant is seen as the key reason they are miserable and have no jobs. They bray incessantly about this treat. Except when they illegally hire them to watch their kids, pick their crops and do all other sorts of menial tasks that they can't coax their obease bodies and addled minds to do.
Frankly, I surprised that the mother didn't simply get a group of the neighbors together to burn the child at the stake.
@Trial by commentard
"If an adult can be tasered, why not a child?"
If an adult can drink, why not a child?
If an adult can vote, why not a child?
If an adult can drive, why not a child?
If an adult can have 800 mg of ibuprofen, why not a child?
If an adult can consent to sex, why not a child?
If an adult can run for office, why not a child?
Children are not mini-adults. Bloody stupid people who think so are part of the problem... Which also means that "reasoning" with, e.g., a 2 year-old is as stupid as it goes too.
All kidding aside
Reading this actually made me feel physically sick. Reading some of the comments made me feel even worse.
Some of you fuckwits are actually advocating the use of electro-torture on a little ten year old girl. If *anyone* crossed my threshold and attempted to use one of those things on my family they would need to send more cops with something a little more powerful than tasers. The one with the taser would, at least, never walk again. If he tried to use it on any kids in my family he would be going back to his own feet-first.
If you can't control your own daughter you're a shit parent. If you're a cop and your best call is to tase a child you aren't fit to be on the street. Both parent and cop, in my humble opinion, are arseholes.
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Cloud based data management
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had
What you need to know about cloud backup
