When you say commentary, do you mean the comments that any idiot with access to a computer can post? I doubt the credibility of anything I read in the comments section. If the news station interviewed someone and showed the interview on camera, then I would be more likely to give said commentary credibility.

The police officer may not have known she was 12, but she sure as hell doesn't appear to be anywhere near 18. If he's not bright enough to figure out that she is a child, then he's not bright enough to be a police officer.

This 12 year old child cannot win for losing, eh?

Following your logic, if age matters, yes I expect adults to be able to gauge age range if not the exact age. We would certainly expect a guy to know whether a female is a girl or a woman in determining whether to legally sex her.

I looked 12 when I was 12. When I tried to look grown, I looked like a foolish 12 year old with crappy lipstick and nail polish with a young body. LOL. Almost like those photos of Dejamon Baker.

I see nothing grown about Dejamon's photos beyond her beautiful shaved head.

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/im...g19jsdh6JgPdng
http://media.ksee24.com/images/Police+Taser+Teen.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/im...fbMZhHr03G4jAR


That is one of the reasons I posted the photo of the 12 year old white girl on page 1. Does she look young and like a little girl? Does she look like she could fuck a cop up even if there was a claim that she was trying to keep an officer from arresting her mother? Appearance matters 100%.

A comment on a TV station's website from someone who claims to be a witness? Not a lot of value as far as I'm concerned, especially since she gives "facts" that she would have to know (like the victim's age, which she says is 15, or that the mom was being arrested on drug charges, which I though had been debunked in this thread) somehow other than being a witness. My guess is she's repeating what she heard others in the mall say.

It's pointless for us at GC to speculate or argue about whether the taser use was justified here because (take your pick) the mom was being arrested on drug charges, they were with a gang of known shoplifters, the girl assaulted the officer or whatever. We don't have enough facts to make any reasonable judgments about any of this, and we're not likely to get those facts from sources currently available on the net.

I think that's why DrPhil keeps saying this thread is about whether it's ever okay to use a taser on a 12-year-old, and if it is, when is it okay? The question of whether the specific facts of this case show that it was or wasn't okay under whatever criteria people suggest will have to wait for another day when we have all sides of the story and fully-developed facts. (If we ever have those, that is.)

(I'll agree the shaved head style is beautiful). :)

As for the white girl, yes she looks young and like a little girl. And yes, she looks fully capable of fucking with a cop if he were arresting her mom (not fucking up a cop).

Thank you.

Would it be okay for a police officer to taser her if she did not have a weapon?

If we're keeping it that simple, then my opinion is yes it is ok to use a taser on a 12 year old who is interfering with a police officer making an arrest AS LONG AS he gave fair warning that he would tase her if she didn't stop. If he didn't warn her, then I reserve the right to change my opinion.

Absofuckinglutely. And that girl looks just like what my own oldest daughter could look like in another 6 years.

Can you explain why you would change your opinion? Police do not always warn people just like they do not always warn people for pepper spray.

Get the taser ready? :(

Would it matter to you if there were less drastic means by which an officer could deal with someone interfering with an arrest? In other words, do you think the offer should reasonably believe that use of the taser is necessary to deal with the situation, or is it enough for the officer to have the discretion to use the taser (with adequate warning) any time a 12-year-old is interfering with an arrest?

Because I believe a good verbal warning is necessary. If he warned her, and she persisted, then the tasing is justified. If he didn't warn her, and he tased her, then he made a severely bad judgement call. In a situation like this a verbal warning would be appropriate.

lol. Maybe. Depends on how rotten my kid is being. If my kid is fucking with a cop who is trying to arrest me, and he or she didn't LISTEN then yes. It would suck, and they'd deserve it. If it were me in that situation of being arrested in front of my flipping out child, you'd better believe I would calmly comply with the arresting officer, all the while expressing to my child that it will be ok and they should not interfere.

I guess I don't see the difference between the two? I know you rephrased it after your first question, but I'm still not getting it.

I want to answer yes to both.

Cristian Fernandez
Jasmine Richardson
Jordan Brown
Christian Romero
Mary Bell
Robert Thompson
Jon Venables


All 12 years old and under. Would it be ok for a cop to taser them during an arrest?

I was raised in the sort of culture that sees police officers as protectors and people who make great sacrifices for the benefit of others; the "if you have a problem, ask that nice cop and they'll fix it" type of perspective. I've also had no reason to question this in my few adult years (with the exception of a police officer who pulled me over going 44 in a 40. Seriously??). Because of this, I'm more inclined to think that the officer's actions were acceptable and we'll hear that there's more to the story in support of him. However, if I were raised in a culture that saw police officers as our abusive, power-tripping overseers whose main goal is to suppress the masses (dramatizing to convey the differences in opinions, feel free to tone it down as you wish), I know that I would feel very differently about this situation. With this, I legitimately believe that I can trust a vast majority of cops. Like other beliefs, this is based in my upbringing and the small scope of my personal experience/the experiences of others that I have heard about. I also understand and realize that there are as many, if not more people in America who legitimately believe that cops are to be avoided, never trusted. Like other beliefs, this is based in their upbringing and the scope of their personal experience/the experiences of others that they have heard about. Possibly education, if they have studied this issue in depth from a variety of perspectives.

tl;dr: I (for lack of a better term) "side" with the cop because cops have been nice to me and I have no reason not to trust them. I am not particularly naive, or a dumbass, and am fully aware that there are probably more people who "side" with the girl for the exact opposite reason, and I don't think my belief is any more correct than theirs is. It's not a competition.

LOL. That's why I shouldn't be posting when it's this late and I'm watching the Olympics.

I read in at least one source that the SLPD says whether or not to use a taser is in an officer's discretion, and I know some other PDs have a similar policy. I tend to think that it's in everybody's bet interest, including the officers, to have clear criteria for when the use of something like a taser is justified/appropriate.

So I guess I was trying to ask whether you think it's sufficient for the officer to have the discretion to use the taser -- to have the permission to choose it from among other ways of dealing with the situation as he sees fit -- or do you think he should be required to determine that he cannot effectively deal with the situation without using the taser?

Make more sense? At all?

I don't know what any of them have done, and I'm too lazy to google. If they were resisting arrest, or in some way physically interfering with an arrest, and fair warning was given, then yes, absolutely.





Very well put. Thank you.

I was raised to believe this as well. I have never had any problems with police abusing their power with me. I would always do whatever I could to cooperate with the authorities.

However, I know that my experience is not universal. I am not so naive as to believe that because my experience has been X, then everyone else's must be that same experience as well.

None of this has anything to do with the fact that it is not OK to taser an unarmed child.

Justgowithit - I probably have your same assumptions for similar reasons. Still, I'm not comfortable coming down on either side of this until I've heard and seen more information i.e. store videos, witness reports, police reports etc.


************************************************** *
Like others on here, I worked with kids in the juvenile justice system, and saw some who were violent enough that if taser had been available, I would have seen it as a safe and appropriate option for our staff.

But this isn't a girl sitting inside a JD center and she apparently wasn't in the middle of committing a criminal act, so....

At what age would it always be the wrong decision? I'd probably lean towards assuming that if they're too young by state law to go to juvenile detention (12 in most states), and it's unlikely that anyone in that age group would be large enough to be a dangerous threat to an adult (typically under 12 or 13), they're too young to be tasered, but I don't hold that position with any certainty.

I was looking around for policies police are supposed to follow in order to use a taser. Couldn't find anything for St. Louis. I found this for Connecticut, but I'm sure it varies a lot by state, county and city, so I don't know that it's helpful:

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-r-0166.htm

I assume all departments have a written policy, and it would concern me if I found out that isn't the case.

While looking for that I found this story on a 10 year old in Ark who was tasered. In this case the mother told the cop that he could taser the child if necessary. The cop was subsequently fired.
http://www.lineofduty.com/the-blotter/105625-ark-cop-fired-for-insubordination-in-tasering-of-10-yr-old-girl

lol. Yes, and I still want to say yes to both. :D I guess I'm in more agreement with the latter. Just because a cop can use a taser doesn't always mean he should.

I've googled the first three. So far, all murdered family members or in the case of Jordan Brown, his father's pregnant fiancee.

I think I know where the list is going, so I'm going to quit googling and say this: if police had caught these children in the act of harming their victims, then by all means, yes, taser the child to save the lives of those in peril. If said child was threatening the police with a deadly weapon, then yes, taser the child. Otherwise, I believe that grown people can deal with children without tasering them.

That's what I was saying when I said things like "I don't think my belief is any more correct than theirs is" and "this is not a competition". Also, the whole part where I explicitly state an alternate belief to mine and say that it's perfectly valid. Read that part. I feel like that makes it pretty clear that I don't think my experience is universal.
In more words: I never expect that my beliefs (which differ from opinions because I can't back them up with a solid layer of fact) are better, more correct, or consistent with anyone else's, nor do I expect them to be. What I believe has/should have literally no impact on what some random person believes, I was just sharing.

Opinions are very different though. I absolutely think my opinions should be shared by all. ;) [/facetious]

Sure it does. I said "I'm more inclined to think that the officer's actions were acceptable and we'll hear that there's more to the story in support of him". An example of this sort of growing story would be that the "unidentified female" who (according to the cop, of course) also charged him is actually a strong adult woman and he was aiming the taser at her. Because tasers aren't very accurate, he missed.

So, if the officer wasn't intending to taser the child, and the child got caught in the crossfire, it's OK to accidentally taser a child?

Thank you.

My professional and personal experiences with police officers have been the same as with any other people in positions of power and influence. Some use it for good and some for bad. I have worked with police officers who are helpful and worked with police officers who are assholes. I have family and friends who have been victims of police brutality and racial profiling; and I have friends and family who have been protected, served, and rescued by police. None of that range of positive and negative professional and personal experiences means that law enforcement practices are without question.

But that raises another issue -- is it okay to use a taser if there is a reasonable chance that someone other than the intended target will be tasered? If that someone else is 12 years old?

What? That's like asking if it's okay to accidentally burn someone else's house down. The moral question (okayness) here depends on the intent. If (big 'ole hypothetical if) the officer, using the book-answer police moral compass and all of his training decided that yes, the woman needed to be tasered and he accidentally hit the child, then I wouldn't fault the police officer. Would it be absolutely unfortunate and would I look for the department to reevaluate their taser use policy? Absolutely. Accidents are accidents though, and cannot be totally controlled in the present. That's why they're accidents.

No, it doesn't depend on intent. It goes to the police officer, using his training (including his training regarding the reliability of tasers accurately hitting their target) to determine whether the intended target can be safely hit without endangering others. It becomes a question of negligence, for which intent is irrelevant.

I have absolutely no experience with tasers and I have no idea. Tasers may actually be decently accurate and my hypothetical situation may be totally moot. Any taser aficionados in the house? Maybe there are degrees of scatter in tasers, like guns?

Going off of yours, if there is a reasonable chance that someone other than the intended target may be tasered, I would hope that tasers would be used as a last-resort weapon. This implies that the 12 year old is an innocent bystander though, which if course is to be determined here. (more perspective: I am absolutely awful at guessing ages, so I could see how someone would have no idea the girl was that young. Alternately, I'm not a cop and I would hope that they would be better than me at things like that.)

I really hope the truth isn't on either extreme of the scumbag cop/girl deserved it spectrum of possibilities, then this thread will have all been for naught ;)

That's a great point, and I definitely see where you're coming from with this. I was looking at intent as an indication of okayness from more of a moral "is the cop a good or bad human being" perspective than a "is the cop a good or bad cop" one. Absolutely, if a cop is going around hitting innocent bystander children with his taser, regardless of his intent, he should not get to be a cop anymore.
Of course not, nor did I imply that the population as a whole should blindly trust authority. My post said that because of my personal experiences, I am more inclined to believe that future developments will show that the officer made a good choice. Since this thread headed towards the hypothetical, it was an interesting connection that popped in my head.

Tasers 101 is that tasers are relatively accurate and painful. There is a greater likelihood of a taser hitting different parts of one person's body than the taser accidentally hitting the wrong person. The latter will only happen if the police officer had a bad aim or someone jumped in front of the person about to be tased. In the former instance, police officers should not use a taser if they cannot effectively reach the target. Police officers tend to be trained not to use tasers and pepper spray if they may accidentally get the wrong person.


I was talking about myself and not about you. But, you actually implied that your positive experiences with police officers explain your trust and therefore your tendency not to challenge them. I disagree with that implication and urge everyone to consider how the experiences of others can shape your experiences.

Alrighty, well that clears that up :) as always, I'm interested to see how this turns out.

But see that's the thing: for me, the experiences of others in my life are mostly positive. I am an ROTC cadet so I'm actively seeking a position of authority that is distrusted by many, several of my friends are in the process of trying to become police officers/military, my best friend's mom is a police officer, etc. Because of this, the negative experiences I've heard about in history or on the news seem few and far between compared to all the positivity I know. I say this knowing that I could be totally delusional and ass backwards about police officers and in the big picture, it could be that positive experiences like the ones I know are what are in fact few and far between. This is where I'm coming from, as I grow up and try and see the big picture. Check back in a few years, there's always a possibility that I could be saying the complete opposite.

With the "talking about me and not you" part, I incorrectly assumed that your comment about not questioning authority was directed at me since I started the whole perspectives derailing. Sorry 'bout it!

Good.

You caught me mid-edit. Long story short, the negative experiences of other people are not a figment of their imagination and they do have an impact on you. Likewise, the positive experiences that you share are not a figment of your imagination and they have an impact on other people. It all works together. Police officers and law enforcement practices should never be trusted to the extreme and unchallenged. How we legally express our distrust and challenge is the issue. A 12 year old child may have done a horrible job at legally expressing distrust or challenge, but I cannot say that an angry yet unarmed 12 year old child needs to be tasered.

LOL. I had to re-read my post. Your assumption was correct. While I was talking about myself, I would not have even made that post had it not been for your post. The point I was making is that personal experiences do not negate a broader understanding of issues.

Oh absolutely. I feel like I'm kind of coming off like "lololol those silly minorities are always making stuff up, I'm a white girl and I've never had a problem with cops!!!!" which is what I'm trying to avoid as I'd smack me for saying it. When we get more info and/or it comes out that the officer overreacted, I will absolutely agree with you.

While I could assume you are white, I did not know that you are white until you told me. There are white people who have had negative experiences with law enforcement. There are racial and ethnic minorities who have had positive experiences with law enforcement.

I do not need more info to believe that an unarmed 12 year old child should not be tasered. The investigation could determine that the officer did not violate policies and technically did not overreact. I will still believe that an unarmed 12 year old child should not be tasered. I am talking about children being tasered and not just whether this little girl should have been tasered based on the details of what happened at Victoria Secrets.

Children being tased:

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/23017669/detail.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_1...59-504083.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138488,00.html

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-11-14/u...icers?_s=PM:US

Random taser stuff:

http://jonathanturley.org/2010/01/14...demonstration/

And that's fantastic. No sarcasm, things are kind of all over the place for me right now so I'm not certain about anything I think. I'm still figuring out how I actually feel about this (other than hypothesizing on how I think I'll feel), as i do think that the details are important. I look forward to future developments in this case, like if the mother does launch an investigation.
I think I may be getting caught up on/putting too much emphasis on the details because in the back of my head, I know that I may have to make some questionable choices in the future on the path that I'm going after. I mean I realize that a cop in a suburban mall =/= the military, but I don't want to let the context go quite yet. Note that this is not me saying that I will attack children without question if you put a weapon in my head, top secret clearance board members who are possibly looking at this.

LOL. What?

You do not have to be 100% decided or 100% one way or the other. Do you think children should be tasered? Are there exceptions or extenuating circumstances? Do they have to be armed, about to harm themselves or others, breaking a police officer's nose, etc.?

When you deploy a taser, two prongs shoot out of it about 6-12 inches apart. It's used to create an "arc" to better subdue a subject. Tasers can work with just one contact point, but two are ideal. As someone who has been pepper sprayed, tased, hit with a baton, hit with pepper-ball launchers and generally slapped around I will say that being tased is the least miserable of all less than lethal options police have available. Yeah, it hurts for 5 SECONDS but once that initial charge goes through the average person is good to go. Typically no negative after effects either as opposed to when you pepper spray or baton someone.

This incident is going to be investigated and until some official deems that this officer used excessive force I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and not second guess or criticize based solely on the age of the subject . :)

Researchers and law enforcement experts continue to debate and research the lasting impact of tasing. Based on the ongoing debate and research findings on both sides of the issue, it is not absolute certain that the average person is "good to go" and with no lasting impact. Police departments often do not conduct cohort studies in which people tased in a given year are studied over periods of time. Taser studies are coming from elsewhere and there are few studies on the physical and/or mental effects on people who have been tasered and the span of time through which to examine lasting effects is still being understood. This ongoing debate and research are regarding adults. The debate is stronger for children and there is little to any research on the impact of tasering on children. The research on adults is assumed to be applicable to all humans but that is not definite.

I know that you were giving a general response about tasers to christiangirl's post but baton and pepper spray are not deemed a necessary comparison unless the research question is how tasering compares to other methods--batons and pepper spray. Instead, the research questions in this instance would be (1) is tasing appropriate for people of a young age--children (or the elderly if we were talking about older age); (2) (in line with what you were talking about in your post) does tasering have any lasting impact on the body regardless of whether the person feels pain; and (3) can the impact of tasing be different for children (or the elderly) than adults.

I can't speak of any knowledge on the long term effects of tasering, other then the claims of taser manufactures that there are none. I did do some light online research into that before I was tased myself. There have been incidents where people have gone into cardiac arrest following being tased, but I read nothing about long term/short term muscle or nerve damage. I think the best focus group for any sort of study on the long term effects would be law enforcement officers since so many of them have been tased ( I'm also willing to put money down that more cops have been tased overall than civilians). Speaking from personal experience, neither I nor anyone I know of who's been tased in my region (about 600 officers) has had any issues stemming from being tased.

As for the discussion of children being tased, I have to say that children shouldn't be tased and official policies typically state that tasers shouldn't be deployed on children, the elderly, and the mentally disturbed. I must stress the fact that shouldn't be used doesn't always mean can't be used. Every situation and set of circumstances is different.

There are bias-based arguments throughout this thread. In a perfect world, no, a 12-year-old sans weapon, should never be tased. But it ain't a perfect world.

In a confrontational situation, a 12-year-old could be a threat, particularly if an officer is dealing with one or two other people at the time.

We're in Victoria Secret. I don't know if suspect was on the move or not, but perhaps the officer could have waited for back up before making the arrest?

Bias. Upthread there was some haze about what the mother was being arrested for. I suspect in the officer's mind if it was drug trafficking or some other hard (dangerous) crime he's arresting her for, he's mentally going to be more predisposed to using necessary physical force to control any situation he encounters, than if he's after a mother whose got, say, 50 parking tickets and no violent criminal record. Can I prove it? No, but that's logical to me.

I think it was Kevin who intimated as much upthread. She's wanted on drug charges? She and anybody who gets in the way is going down hard if it comes to that. Is that right? Who knows, but you do what you need to do to go home.

I do martial arts training with a law enforcement officer in my city. He's told me, if he's in physical confrontation with a woman, he may (stress may) try something less, in terms of physical control technique, than he'd go with in a full-fledged fight with a man, as long as it doesn't jeopardize his safety. So, to me, it's a sliding scale.

am I glad the girl got tased, no. But I could understand the situation if it was as harried as it sounds.

Just to be clear, I suggested she had multiple drug-related felonies on her record. The most recent of those is 2009, so there's no evidence to suggest the Huffpost explanation of traffic citations is incorrect. I imagine an officer arresting a felon on outstanding warrants (even for a non-felony) is going to probably use an extra level of caution.

I'm still inclined to give the officer the benefit of the doubt.

There are cases where I haven't given the officers the benefit of the doubt.

This case, for example, is pretty obviously bad:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/24/28330.htm

Should a 12 year old child get tased? No

Should a 12 year old child get tased by the police? Depends.

There are so many variables to this situation, some we know, some we don't know, that to try to simplify it to one question is absurd.

We don't know the actions or intent of the 12 yr old child in this situation: 1) Maybe she was an innocent by-stander, or 2) maybe in her effort to protect her mom she got in the way of the cop, and the cop maybe felt she was hindering his arrest, so he tased her.

We also don't know the thought process and past experiences of the cop. Maybe he should have waited for backup, or maybe he needed to act fast. Cops have to work in the moment. They don't have the luxury to sit back and debate the philosophical outcomes of their actions. I'm sure if they did, then we would have different outcomes on most situations.

Like someone said, cops want to live another day too. They should have the right to protect themselves if they feel threatened.

And just for the record, I'm not saying that all cops are good, or all cops are bad. But, I am willing to give them some latitude in handling a potentially violent situation since they are first responders.