TROTWOOD, Ohio — A policeman forced a pregnant woman to the ground and used a stun gun on her when she refused to answer the officer’s questions and resisted being handcuffed, authorities said Thursday.Chet Scoville of Vanity Press:The woman went to the police department on Nov. 18 to ask officers to take custody of her one-year-old son, said Michael Etter, Trotwood’s public safety director.
The woman told the officer she was “tired of playing games” with the baby’s father, Etter said.
The woman refused to answer questions, became frustrated and tried to leave with the child, Etter said. The officer feared allowing her to leave could jeopardize the child and he decided to detain her to get more information.
He said the officer grabbed the woman, got the child away from her and forced her to the ground. When she resisted being handcuffed and tried to get away, the officer used the stun gun on her, Etter said.
Clearly, a gunshot or a beating with a billy club were the only other options available.
How about we acknowledge that tasers can KILL people, it is not a quick crowd control fix, it is not safe. Police need to use tasers in the same way they use guns... as a last resort and with full knowledge that their pants will be sued off if something goes wrong.
W. T. F.?
5 comments:
That cop is certifiably insane. Some police are trained to talk someone down, to defuse the situation, and it sounds likely that this situation could indeed have been defused with a little patience. This policeman appears to have done just the reverse, taking the course of action most likely to lead to further confrontation and, eventually, violence.
I do have one question: where is all the Ohio-bashing? I mean, if this happened in Texas (and it certainly could happen in Texas), there would be all kinds of virtual nodding of heads on comment threads, along with gratuitous slurs about Texas and Texans. If the behavior is the same in Ohio as in Texas, why is the online crap-slinging different?
If she's not lobbing a grenade, you do not, under any circumstances use physical force on a pregnant woman, because if anything goes wrong you will be roasted over a slow fire and sued for everything you will ever hope to make, as will your department and jurisdiction.
You call an ambulance and make a mental health arrest if necessary, but you do not use force unless you have all nine Supreme Court justices standing there telling you it's OK.
If one of my guys had done this, the buzzing wouldn't have stopped before the county attorney would have been on my phone screaming at me, and the district attorney would be on hold.
The contents of the officer's locker would be in a garbage bag and the inventory cards for his/her badge and weapon would appear.
The unborn cannot, by definition, be a threat, so this is a hostage situation and must be dealt with in that manner. There are too many lawsuits for there to be any question on this.
There is no way anyone will convince a jury that Taser isn't harmful to the fetus, and nothing to suggest this woman was a threat.
i heard that cop was from Texas. Or was it California?
ronjazz, I hope your axe is keyboard or guitar... it's awfully hard to play sax (I did long ago) or trumpet (I never did) while nodding your head vigorously in agreement with regional critics! :)
ellroon, I'm still smarting from sElection 2000, after which I got called some truly awful names by liberals who were supposedly my compatriots, on threads on which all I did was to point out that 35-40 percent of Texans (sorry; I don't remember the exact number now) voted either Democratic or Green in 2000, and hence didn't deserve the shit slung in their direction by a lot of commenters. All I'm saying is that most stereotypes are both inaccurate and pernicious.
The whole phenomenon is getting cranked up again, mostly on blogs by Greens... even though Texas has a lot of Greens, too. This year, I, like the presidential campaigns, intend to respond aggressively and (where appropriate) preemptively. Texas has never really been politically or socially monolithic, and I'm going to shout that at anyone who even hints otherwise... and a few who don't. No. More. Mister. Nice. Guy.
Eep. (Remembering past badly worded jokes about Texas....)
I will contain myself and quickly tell my favorite joke about my own state:
Why is California like granola?
Because when you remove all the fruits and flakes, all you have are the nuts.
/bow...scuttles offstage
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