Police officer uses taser on 9 year old.

[RandomGuy]

Zoinks!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/11/mount-sterling-police-shut-down_n_1337953.html


A small-town Ohio police department was shut down Friday after a cop allegedly used a taser on a 9-year-old boy, and the police chief kept quiet about it.

Details about the taser incident on Tuesday are few, but the Coshocton Tribune reported that the officer had been called to a Mount Sterling apartment where a child was refusing to go to school.

At some point, the visit became hostile and the part-time officer allegedly used a taser to subdue the boy. The police chief is accused of hiding the incident from village leaders.

City officials suspended Mount Sterling Police Chief Mike McCoy for three days, leaving the village without a police department. Meanwhile, the office's computers and weapons were seized, and state investigators are probing the incident, 10-TV reported.

The county sheriff's office will take over police operations in the area until city officials determine what to do next.

The closure isn't the first for the Mount Sterling police force. The village laid off all its officers except for the chief in September due to budget cuts, the station reported.

It's yet unclear when the department will be reformed.

Mount Sterling had a population of just under 2,000 in 2010, according to Census data.

Extra bit of data:


An Ohio police officer says he used a stun gun twice on a 9-year-old who skipped school because the child refused to cooperate with his commands.

Details of the incident, which resulted in the shutdown of a village police force, were released Monday, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The Mount Sterling officer went to the boy's home on a truancy complaint last week. He says the child's mother warned the boy, who weighs between 200 and 250 pounds, to obey the officer or he'd be shocked.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/13/10669114-report-9-year-old-who-skipped-school-is-tasered

Um, I really have no words. :wow

[coyotes_geek]

Should have tasered the mother too for letting her son get that fat.

[Creepn]

Lol "village leaders"? Never heard that saying for American towns.

[RandomGuy]

Should have tasered the mother too for letting her son get that fat.

(mental image of Jabba the Hut getting tasered and laughing)

Ick. Thanks for the image.

[hater]

Lol "village leaders"? Never heard that saying for American towns.

:lol I was thinking the same. weird

[Winehole23]

I thought tasers were originally sold as a substitute for lethal force, not as just another tool for getting compliance like a nightstick or a stun gun. A lot of what you see on the various vids posted online is officers tasing people who do not comply immediately with commands.

(wonder what contemporaneous LE guidelines for using tasers looks like)

[Winehole23]

also, the "less lethal" means is maybe more lethal than PR suggested at the time

[Blake]

What was the cop's plan after the taser? Drag him to school while passed out?

Weird on a number of levels

[Spur_Fanatic]

Should have tasered the mother too for letting her son get that fat.

This.

WTF, kid doesn't want to go to school, and they call the cops?

[ElNono]

This.

WTF, kid doesn't want to go to school, and they call the cops?

It gets weirder... then the cop shows up and taser the fatass...

You couldn't make this shit up...

[Wild Cobra]

It gets weirder... then the cop shows up and taser the fatass...

You couldn't make this shit up...
Life is often more strange and/or comical than fiction.

[jack sommerset]

Guilty sin, I would have enjoyed seeing all this go down. Something about a large kid with a foul mouth that's been getting away wising cracking over the years gets electricuted by the fuzz puts a smile on my face. Please forgive me. :)

[baseline bum]

LOL @ it being the hometown of this dickhead

http://www.halloffamememorabilia.com/images/products/p-534736-bob-hill-autographed-hand-signed-basketball-card-san-antonio-spurs-1997-hoops-272-aw-46125.jpg

[spursncowboys]

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQIK7bowzs7bDmA3FIBQlVineRtwHIDX mMrgA6snMyoWQBx75sj0g
just doing his job.

[Blake]

i7dbdZlsR3Y

[Winehole23]

Medical experts said on Monday that the new report, published online (http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2012/04/20/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.097584.abstract) on Monday in the journal Circulation, makes clear that electrical shocks from Tasers, which shoot barbs into the clothes and skin, can in some cases set off irregular heart rhythms, leading to cardiac arrest.



“This is no longer arguable,” said Dr. Byron Lee, a cardiologist and director of the electrophysiology laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. “This is a scientific fact. The national debate should now center on whether the risk of sudden death with Tasers is low enough to warrant widespread use by law enforcement.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/health/research/taser-shot-to-the-chest-can-kill-a-study-warns.html

[boutons_deux]

Several 100 people dead from being "non-lethally" Tasered in USA and Canada.

[Blake]

Are bullets the better alternative?

[DisAsTerBot]

no, better training is. You shouldn't have to taze little kids and old ladies. Maybe if cops weren't overweight and were made to stay in much better shape (through pt tests, who would've thought!?!?!) this lazy policing epidemic would subside

[Blake]

Better training should go without saying

[Blake]

Better training should go without saying

[coyotes_geek]

So how does the cop being in better shape convince that kid to get his fat ass off the couch? I'm all for cops being as highly trained as feasible, but unless that better training includes the jedi mind trick I don't see how you eliminate the need for cops to choose between a taser and some other form of possibly lethal force.

[RandomGuy]

no, better training is. You shouldn't have to taze little kids and old ladies. Maybe if cops weren't overweight and were made to stay in much better shape (through pt tests, who would've thought!?!?!) this lazy policing epidemic would subside

Dude, the kid was, according to the report 200+ pounds.

That is large enough to kill grown adults.

It is hard to say what exactly happened.

[clambake]

who calls the cops when your 9 year old won't go to school?

[RandomGuy]

So how does the cop being in better shape convince that kid to get his fat ass off the couch? I'm all for cops being as highly trained as feasible, but unless that better training includes the jedi mind trick I don't see how you eliminate the need for cops to choose between a taser and some other form of possibly lethal force.

Add your comment, to this:


“This is no longer arguable,” said Dr. Byron Lee, a cardiologist and director of the electrophysiology laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. “This is a scientific fact. The national debate should now center on whether the risk of sudden death with Tasers is low enough to warrant widespread use by law enforcement.”

And bouton's noting the number of deaths from tasers.



The missing piece of data would be the fatality rate of gunshots, to compare how they are "less lethal". I would guess they are a lot less lethal than real guns.

If some kind of force situation arises, and you can solve it with a stun gun, instead of a bullet/gunpowder gun, then you have acted to use the minimum force necessary.

I was watching an episode of "world's dumbest" last night that illustrated the point VERY well.

Cop chases speeder.

speeder crashes, bails, stumbling and pulling out a gun, dropping it

Cop draws taser, tells him to leave it there

speeder picks himself up, grabs gun, and turns to run.

ZAP!

speeder falls to the ground still holding gun

Cop orders him to drop the gun

speeder starts to point gun at the cop

BANG

speeder reacts to bullet in face, decides gun is a bad idea, and throws it away before going from sitting to lying down.

speeder lives, but with ugly, bloody bandages mugshot.

http://www.trutv.com/video/top-twenty-most-shocking/taser-back-bullet-face.html



If used properly, it provides a level of force capable of disarming or neutralizing someone before having to use a bullet/gunpowder gun.

I don't see any problem with that at all.

[DisAsTerBot]

So how does the cop being in better shape convince that kid to get his fat ass off the couch? I'm all for cops being as highly trained as feasible, but unless that better training includes the jedi mind trick I don't see how you eliminate the need for cops to choose between a taser and some other form of possibly lethal force.

ok, so now we taze kids for not wanting to go to school? you've got to be fucking kidding me

[coyotes_geek]

ok, so now we taze kids for not wanting to go to school? you've got to be fucking kidding me

The only person I want tased in this story is the mother for letting her kid become such a fatass. Beyond that, I honestly have no idea what a cop is supposed to do with a 250 pound 9 year old who doesn't want to get off the couch.

[Blake]

ok, so now we taze kids for not wanting to go to school? you've got to be fucking kidding me

Cops shouldn't need to touch the kid at all.

just cite the parents.