Cop Tasers 10-Year-Old Boy For Refusing to Clean Patrol Car
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Oct 30, 2012
A state police officer in New Mexico is being sued after he allegedly Tasered a child in a school playground for no reason other than he refused to clean the cop’s patrol car.
The boy’s legal guardian, Rachel Higgins, claims that Officer Chris Webb shot the boy, referred to as “R.D.”, with a 50,000 volt stun gun while visiting on a “career day” at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School on May 4.
The complaint notes that the officer approached a group of boys and asked which of them wanted to clean his car. When R.D. said he had no desire to clean the patrol vehicle, Officer Webb is claimed to have stated “‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’”
He then pointed his Taser at the boy, according to the report, and fired two barbs directly into the 10-year old’s chest, electrifying him and causing him to blackout.
Webb then extracted the barbs from the child’s chest, leaving scarring ” that look like cigarette burns”.
“Instead of calling emergency medical personnel, Officer Webb pulled out the barbs and took the boy to the school principal’s office,” the complaint states.
The complaint claims that the boy has suffered mental trauma and night terrors and is now afraid of going to sleep at night for fear he will not wake up again.
Ms Higgins stated in Santa Fe County Court that “No reasonable officer confronting a situation where the need for force is at its lowest, on a playground with elementary age children, would have deployed the Taser in so reckless a manner as to cause physical and psychological injury.”
Higgins is suing on the grounds of battery, failure to render emergency medical care, excessive force, unreasonable seizure, and negligent hiring, training, supervision and retention.
….
Earlier this month, two police officers in Texas Tasered a man who was having a seizure, causing the 50-year-old to suffer a heart attack and permanent brain damage. The cops were so ill equipped to deal with the situation, that they broke out Tasers and shocked a man who was already convulsing on the ground.
It took paramedics 11 minutes to revive the man and bring back his pulse. It is a miracle he is still alive, though he will now have to live with severe disabilities for the rest of his life.
Real nice precedent they set here reaching a settlement instead of demanding justice, and allowing the state to deny any wrongdoing:
httpsw.abqjournal.com/247508/state-settles-lawsuit-over-tasered-child.html
Now this story sets off my bullshit detector just a little but we’ll see.
A brief search found this link.
If true this is another act of stupidity and brutality by Law Enforcement.
Incompetant cops (not to mention cops that are just plain ol’ bullies) are far too abundant and a danger to the public they are supposed to “protect and to serve”. While talking with a young policeman at my local Micky D’s the other day, I learned that the cops in our town start out making a good bit less than the starting pay of the town trash collectors. So we pay more for simple manual labor job that requires no education than to the people we arm with deadly weapons and send out to go among the public. What sense does that make? As long as that situation exists, the job will continue to attract the ones who consider the “prestige” and power as part of their pay.
Incidentally, while talking with this young officer, I mentioned another officer whom I asked to check the speedometer of my “new” (to me) vehicle by shooting me with radar, because I suspected it was inaccurate; the guy was just sitting in “his” (sic) cop car at a gas station, doing nothing, but refused, telling me to go have it calibrated. The young cop shook his head and said he regretted that type of cop, and when I wanted to check my speedometer, just let him know, he’d be glad to do it, it was no trouble at all.
Now, I know this in no way compares to the degree of offense demonstrated by the story above, but it does show that there are still some good guys on the force, even though many young, good cops may likely, gradually become like those that now embarrass them. Just like slipping away from the ideals of our forefathers, it happens slowly and often goes unnoticed until it’s already happened, then it’s hard to change.
I know we all like to “system-bash”, and with good reason, but the system does still contain some good guys, like the young cop I spoke with, and “if-n-when” it all hits the fan, it’s these good ones that will be the hope for a best-case scenario, even if on just a small scale, situation by situation. So, while putting the screws to the bad eggs as best we can, let’s be sure to let the good ones know they are appreciated; maybe positive recognition will give them the strength they need to resist joining the ranks of the @$$holes who attack little kids.
Police departments actively drive out the so called ‘good ones’. Ever notice that most of the ‘good ones’ out there that speak up are retired or quit the force? Sure there might be good ones still employed as cops but they don’t speak up much likely for fear of their job which says something about the culture of the institution.
Simply put the police are or are becoming an occupying force. We, us mundanes, are just indigs and we are increasingly being treated as such.
In my experience, it’s mostly the older cops (over 40) who are the semi-reasonable ones. The young ones seem to be jack-offs and bullies – sadists, even.
I don’t think there are any ‘semi-reasonable’ cops left around where I am at. I think they all retired some time ago.