Taser-happy cops floor suicidal six-year-old

Electric justice, US style

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 15th November 2004 16:19 GMT

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Miami-Dade police have announced a review of policy after two kids were zapped with Tasers within a couple of weeks of each other. Tasers fire wire probes which hit suspects with a debilitating electric shock.

The first incident involved a six-year old boy who was Tasered at his elementary school. He had broken a picture and was threatening to cut his leg with the glass. Police defended the decision saying they were happy to talk about use of the Taser rather than talking about injuries the child could have done to himself. The boy's mother told CNN: "If there's three officers, it's nothing to tell a 6-year-old holding a glass, if you feel threatened, 'Hey, here's a piece of candy, hey, here's a toy. Let the glass go."

The second incident involved a 12-year old girl who was skipping school. Police officer William Nelson found her drinking and smoking at a swimming pool on 5 November. The officer told her he was taking her to school but on the way to the police car she ran away. Nelson told CNN that she "continued running even to the point of starting to run into lanes of traffic". So he zapped her with 50,000 volts of electricity. Miami-Dade policy only forbids the use of Tasers on pregnant women.

In presumably unrelated news, Taser Inc shares rose five per cent on news that South Korean police have decided to extend field tests on the guns. ®