12-year-old tased by police officer

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by IrishLake

amIblue, the NBC affiliate in St Louis has commentary from someone who claims to be a witness on their webpage. She says the mom and daughter were in a group of people known to be shoplifters in the mall.

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.)