Police officer uses Taser on middle school student
Cuz he was big for his age??!@$#%^
An officer with the Montgomery Police Department shocked a middle school student with a stun gun Thursday after the student got into an altercation with a school administrator.
A seventh-grade pupil at Brewbaker Junior High School "got into it" with a school official, causing a police officer assigned to the school's security detail to feel it was necessary to use a Taser (stun-gun) on him before the situation escalated, said Tom Salter, Montgomery Public Schools spokesman.
The incident occurred at 2:50 p.m. when an MPD officer assigned to provide security at Brewbaker responded to a call of a fight in the school's office, said Capt. Huey Thornton, a police spokesman.
"Our officer found a 13-year-old male, who was big for his age, fighting a school administrator on the floor and was actually on top of the man," Thornton said.
NEWSFLASH: If you are a cop and you can't handle an unarmed 13-year-old
without risking his very life by shooting 100,000 volt fish-hooks into him then perhaps you should find a new profession. If you ever do it to my kid (that'll never happen) then suing your ass to oblivion will be the very least of your fucking concerns. You sick BASTARDS!
THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!
Tasers are DANGEROUS. Death by taser has topped 150 in the US. There have been a few deaths in Alabama. One in Mobile,one in Birmingham and here is a list of all deaths in North America resulting from the use of a taser.
Now, I want to see Senator Charles Bishop get tased for fighting with Senator Lowell Barron and then I want to see him hauled to jail. See what a bad example our 'leaders' (snicker...giggle giggle) set for our children?
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9 comments:
Makes me sick.
"Big for his age?" Are you kidding me? With all the training that police go through, that's the best that they can come up with? It seems that police are increasingly too eager to use tasers in situations that don't really warrant their use. I can't believe that an officer, any officer, doesn't have training in restraint technique enough to subdue a 13 year old regardless of the size of the 13 year old. What Bullshit!
JC
Y'all should check out the government loving, boot-licker's race baiting comments on the forums at Montgomery Advertiser. Just click the link to the story and scroll all the way down.
Funny thing is....the paper didn't mention the race of the child.
This is humorous, such irritation at the "abuse" of an out of control minor. A whole 168 people died from taser incidents? That's to say the police officer acted in defiance of what the situation dictated. Then again this is coming from someone in a cushy job whose pure motivation is to point and criticize, rather than be on the "front lines". Is this action necessary for every incident? No, absolutely not. However, who are you to say what actions were warranted, deserved or necessary to avoid the optimal amount of injury overall? The kid was 13, yet statistics of underage violence is overwhelming. Should we look the other way and use the mantra that "kids will be kids"? Obviously you've never been assaulted by anyone with the intent to injure or maim. The article doesn't state a lot of details and the officer, having received all that training, made the decision that best suited the situation. Keep your rhetoric, I'm for affirmative action based on circumstances.
Also, what does race have to do with anything? The article doesn't give the race of the officer or school official either, is that noteworthy as well?
Know what sickens me? People acting on assumptions and assinine "innocence theories" based on age and race.
Ken,
I haven't made any assumptions in this case. The folks on the forum at the Advertiser already made the assumption that the child in question was black, that his mother is on welfare, that he lives in a one parent household, has no supervision and that he was obviously at fault for jumping on the administrator.
Yet, no where in the story does it say what the race of the child is, whether his mother is a welfare/food stamp recipient or not, whether he lives in a one or two parent home with or without supervision or what the provocation may have been for him to physically assault an 'authority figure'.
What if the authority figure was trying to harm him in some way? Say he was trying to molest the kid....just as a theory. Did the kid have the right to defend himself?
What if the child is mentally handicapped in some way?
How is it that a grown man, with police training is unable to disarm a 13-year-old without resorting with enough force to potentially kill?
Why is it always ok for the police to 'shoot first and ask questions later'?
Tasers are DANGEROUS Ken and there is NO EXCUSE for a grown man with police training to use one on a kid who is unarmed. What if the kid had a heart condition and he died? Do you think he would have deserved it because he used the bad judgement of a teenager?
By implying innocence of the minor, that involves at least a measure of assumption. Does it not? However, that is true on the other stance that we don't know the officer's or official's mental state at the time. Usually though, when an assault is in progress, the worst action is to physically assail someone without the full knowledge and confidence of being able to detain and disengage the attacker. I have received detainment training under the guidance of the U.S. military, and have questioned a few officers (one of the gentlemen happens to work with me) in regards to standard procedure.
Normally, when an attacker has a substantial advantage over a victim, disengaging isn't an option. You're trying to turn this kid into a martyr. I can use "what-if"'s until I ran out of breath, that doesn't equate to either innocence or guilt of ANY party involved. You say because he was a teenager that he had an umbrella of "just cause". That's paraphrasing, possibly badly, but would that be accurate?
As for the folks on the forum, I can't believe a woman of your intelligence would bend down to making two obvious err's in judgment: categorizing the people defending the police action and pandering to their obvious rabble-rousing tactics. Don't mistake my intentions, never will you find me defending such ignorance, however, mirroring in kind is just as harmful.
As for tasering being such a horrible thing, have you considered the alternative? The human body is a frail thing and had this officer actually injured, wounded or killed this kid with physical violence, what then would you be proclaiming? It might do for you to look up some more statistics, mainly in reference to underage violence. I think the number might be a bit higher than "168". With people who attack authorities it's always the same story. They automatically assume guilt, while patting the "victim" comfortingly on the back.
You are putting words in my mouth Ken. I haven't said anywhere that the kid was innocent. What I said was that a cop trianed in the art of physically controlling people should have been able to control an unarmed 13-year-old without using a taser which is known to kill people.
You seem to be implying that the kid is ghuilty of something because the cop shot him with a taser and gave some bullshit line about the kid being 'big for his age'.
This has nothing to do with youth violence stats or any other strawman thing you throw out here.
An adult male cop should be more than able to handle a child without sending 50,000 to 100,000 volts of electricity into a kid.
I wonder if the cop has kids and I also wonder if he would shoot them with a taser?
As for 'what if's'....I think there can't be enough of them when we are talking about something like this.
On that point you're correct, you never conceded innocence of the minor. You simply avoided all justifications and "what ifs" based upon the officer using legitimate force. All of your scenarios base around the teen as the victim, not the aggressor.
Let me make one thing clear, however. Physical altercations have a much higher volatile quality about them than you seem to think. Police and security, when trained, don't get a magical Vulcan pinch that detains and quiets a person down immediately. The chance of escalation and further violence rises exponentially when a third party attempts to intervene.
The four basic steps to detaining a violent suspect are strangely mirroring in their aspects to foreign policy:
1) Diplomacy which escalates to the threat of violence. This starts small with minor calls of cease and desist and goes from there.
2) Nonlethal means of detainment without the use of violence (Sanctions on a government front, Tasing in reference to police actions).
3) Physical restraint and force to include the use of violence in kind if violent behavior is present.
4) Lethal force.
By your logic we should have used our training to physically assail and detain the attacking youth. Therein adding an unknown into the mix. Tasers, however, can be used in a peacable manner and are overall nonlethal pieces of equipment. It's standard procedure as you may or may not know, for everyone equipped with a taser to not only be trained in its uses but also to be victim to its consequences. I've been tazed, I live to tell that tale, as have 99% of the people on which tasers have been used. Calling tasers lethal is calling falling lethal due to the fact you may hit your head and die in that manner. The number of casualties as opposed to the number of uses of tasers in the U.S. is insurmountable and very easily diagnosed.
Please don't take my rantings as a personal attack, I'm in no way trying to undermine or be invasive. I'm simply curious as to the mindset of people who insist on coddling criminals, regardless of demographic boundaries such as age, race and the like.
Loretta,
Perhaps you haven't taken an objective stance at this. Someone in your position should be able to take an objective look, in my opinion. You are talking about a situation where a 13 year old kid, regardless of how "big he was" was assaulting a school official. As per the report, the student was on top of the school official.
Now, the school administrator in question could of easily defended themselves if they were say a "grown male" as you said. But what would of happened to the school admin? They would of been reprimanded for taking physical harm unto the student and subduing them themselves without contacting the police (I have seen this scenario played out in my life time). But what if they were a "grown female" administrator? Would this make your stance and just cause for the tasering better? Would it make it easier for you to stomach if it was a female being berated?
Lets go further. The necessity of a taser is often times up to the discretion of the officer. A taser is used most often in the event that deadly force is NOT facilitated. To which this scenario wasn't required. Next, its used in a scenario where physical detainment will result in injury to property, another individual, or the officer in question.
If this juvenile was already physically assaulting a school administrator. What makes you think that the police officer wouldn't get hit in this process? Does this mean the "officer" in question isn't a "big boy" and can take it? no. But who knows, the suspect juvenile could of had a knife and brought it out upon the officer when physically handled and removed from the school administrator. This is another "what if" situation.
To end my comment, tasers can kill. So can guns. But are guns always used to kill a suspect? Sometimes they are used to temporarily disable a suspect. Allowing for the ease of capture and detainment. Tasers do this just as well. WITHOUT surgery (except removing the barbs) and without massive loss of blood. However, as you said "they can kill" but then again, so can the officer detaining the heavily fighting back individual and they slip fall, break his neck, bust a rib into his lungs, and a ton of other possibilities.
I end my synopsis of this event with my personal feelings.
The kid got what he deserved.
Thanks,
Paul
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