Little Rock, AR (The Weekly Vice) - Officer Dustin Bradshaw, an Arkansas police officer used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl at the mother’s request after the little girl refused to take a shower and resisted arrest.
According to authorities, Officer Bradshaw was called to the residence for a domestic disturbance. When he arrived at the scene, the little girl was curled up on the floor screaming and throwing a fit, refusing to obey her mother.
When Bradshaw tried to take the little girl into custody, she was violently kicking and verbally abusive.
The girl’s mother gave him permission to tase her if needed. When the girl kicked him in the groin he did exactly that – delivering a very brief drive stun to her back, according to investigators.
The girl got up after a few seconds unharmed and was handcuffed and carried to Bradshaw’s patrol car.
Bradshaw will not be disciplined for tasing the child. Police Chief Jim Noggle states that he did so to protect the child, because her arms and legs could have been accidentally broken if Bradshaw tried to put her in handcuffs.
The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock, stated that the girl had emotional problems and did not deserve to be treated like an animal and tased. She had no weapon other then her tiny 10-year-old feet. Medlock is divorced from the girl's mother and does not have custody.
The little girl was taken to the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil on charges of disorderly conduct as a juvenile
The Weekly Vice Opinion:
I have seen adults get tased and it is absolutely horrifying! I can only image how disturbing the site of a 10-year-old girl rolling around as she is being electrocuted is!
I can’t believe the mother gave this officer permission to do so! What was that officer thinking? I know being kicked in the groin hurts a man but talk about losing control of the situation!
Mandi Milenko
The Weekly Vice
http://www.theweeklyvice.com
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26 comments:
WTF?
Calling the police because you don't know how to discipline children?
Mom has no problem having someone taze her child?
Cop uses taser on 10 year-old?
Chief of Police has no problem with tasing a 10 year-old?
What do they do to real criminals in that town?
More to this one than we are reading, I think.
Unnecessary, unconscionable, unforgivable… are just a few words that come to mind. This cop must be a real tough guy! I am sure it made him feel powerful putting that mean LITTLE girl down. I cannot believe everyone involved except the father thinks this was ok!
Mandi, when someone is electrocuted they die.
This cop had every right to tase this girl. Either way the child was being arrested and doing so while she was throwing her tantrum would have been very harmful; besides it was stated that the tase was very brief (and Mandi, kicking a man in the growing is more than just hurtful, this can cause serious issues for the officer, even resulting in one or both testicles being removed), so this child was merely scared with the taser.
I do agree that paretns need to have better discipline for their children, but when it becomes as bad as this situation obviously was, stronger methods are warranted. Police, prisoners, etc have been used for years to scare children into behaving, and its worked.
I blame no one but that little girls mother. The officer did exactly as he should have done, although it is horrible that it had to go that extreme because of the mother not being able to discipline her own child. The mother gave permission for the officer to tase her and he did so only after she became abusive towards him, and for a brief moment.
Well Ben, it looks to me like the cop has already had his testicles removed. Tase an 11 YEAR OLD GIRL? Just how big of a pansy is this cop? This action was OVERBOARD! So Ben, in your logic, it would be ok for the Mom to buy a taser to use in disciplining her child, as long as her pulses were “very brief”. In your head that is ok? What is the difference other than the Mom doesn’t wear a tin star? There is a story on here about Stacey Joanna using a stun gun on her children. I guess you don’t see where she did anything wrong either. Yea the Mom should have had better control of her child, but to tase a little girl… what a tough cop.
Oh, I am sorry I said she is 11... she is only 10!
Mr. Bowtie:
A stun gun is sending out ELECTRICITY which means she was being ELECTROCUTED. Maybe "shocked" would have been a better word for her to use, but in a sense, the little girl was getting electrocuted.
Either way WTF? This cop needs to learn some restraint!
Also, Andrew, it doesn't matter if there is more to the story or not. Being kicked in the balls was obviously what caused the police officer to tase her, and he should of just walked away for a minute. Who cares if the girl was roiling around kicking and screaming? She wasn't hurting anyone until he tried to arrest her.
Juggs, if the little girl had been ELECTROCUTED, she would have been killed by an electrical charge.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/electrocuted
How can you suggest that the cop had a right to tazer the girl? She hadn't committed a crime; refusing to bathe isn't a crime. Throwing a "tantrum" is also not a punishable offense. If it were, yikes!
Moreover, parents cannot "give" consent to taze minors. If any localities Arkansas has a law that allows for this, it wouldn't stand up under serious scrutiny, to say nothing of a state supreme court appeal.
Finally, tazers are not to be used as "punishment" EVER!!!!! Tazers are meant as a "non-lethal" defense when an officer feels threatened or when someone's life is in danger.
What worries me is that we are hearing about cases like this so often that eventually we will become accustomed to it and the shock effect will wear off, and it will no longer be a case of the cruelty of using a tazer to subdue a very young girl, but how many volts should she get, how long she was tazered, etc.
Temper tantrums are tiring things. Had the little girl just been left alone, she would have exhausted herself eventually. Now, that is just one option, but it's much better than what happened.
For those that blame the mother, you honestly have no clue until your in that situation! My son is 8 years old, weighs in at 120 pounds and stands nearly 5 feet tall. He has Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Bipolar. I do what I can to discipline him, but when he can over power me something has to give. His father is over 6 foot and a big guy. He thinks that restraining him when he's attacking others is abusive to him. However he finds that beating him with belts, switches, his hands, anything he can get his hands on and calling him names is perfectly ok. (and before it's even mentioned, yes many many people have been informed of this including CPS, but their stance is since he doesn't have custody and only has them every other weekend it's not a major issue...big WTF there if you ask me)
We don't know the full situation here. We don't know how big the child is. My son is nearly as tall as I am and he's 8. He weighs almost as much as me too. I do agree that if she's small then there are other ways to go about things. Also, that if there is a concern about her hurting herself and others restraining her is a better choice for everyone involved.
BUT if push came to shove, I'd give my consent for an officer to tase my child as well. In the state of Oklahoma, all officers have to go through training in order to carry a taser, so it's not just a 'here ya go, now have fun' type thing (ex husband is a police officer).
So, until the full story is known, what right do you have to put this mom down for her choices?
Wow, this would not fly where I live. That cop would be up for public stoning, and the mom too. Who calls the cops for a tantrum, why was the girl being arrested?
A grown man was killed by a taser last year in the Vancouver airport.
Touche Mr. Bowtie (lol). I always thought being electrocuted and being shocked was basically the same thing.
Should have checked the facts before I opened my mouth and made myself look like an idiot huh?
I'm going with "s" here. I was mentally ill as an adolescent, and it took 4-6 grown adults to hold me down when I went ballistic. There is every reason to believe this cop feared harming her more by physically restraining her. And she was probably a lot stronger than you would expect because she *was* freaked out.
The best option would have been to call EMS. They are trained for these situations in ways that cops are not. The mother is at fault as well. Given the child's apparent emotional problems, why didn't she have a number to call for help? Is the child not receiving therapy? She obviously should be. And do not kid yourselves - I knew kids in the children's unit of the state hospital who were there for homicidal violence. Mental illness is ugly, and it does effect young kids.
I don't think the taser was the best choice, but I think the cop was judicious with it - it was less than a second from all reports. His goal was to cause as little physical damage to the child as possible, and he went with what he knew. Yes, that force needs more training on how to deal with these situations, but let's face it, it is not something they are likely to have run into.
Oh, and to those of you whining about how she should have known "how to discipline her child" - you have never dealt with an emotionally disturbed child before. And I pity the child if you ever have to.
It's all good Juggs ;-) That poor little girl probably thought she was getting electrocuted.
I just don't care how the story is spun. These people that say shocking a 10 year old is ok, are just twisted. Do we all know the what a taser is? A taser and a stun gun are often confused. A taser shoots out two electrodes with barbed tips up to 35 feet. These metal barbs pierce the flesh and pass 50,000 volts through THE 10 YEAR OLD GIRL! Then THE 10 YEAR OLD GIRL has to have the barbs removed which causes further pain. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
Here; why don’t you read this on removing the barbs… heaven forbid if any of you who say it was justified actually have kids, all I can say is… poor kids.
http://biotel.ws/treatmentguidelines/TASERBarbRemoval.html
Ben is a douche...
I agree Bowtie and Juggs. Tazing that small of a child is f-ing riduculous. I dont care how u try to justify it.
GayMom- while I do understand your point. I have a family member who suffers from autism.
He can throw a tantrum like noneother and is very very hard to calm down once he gets started.
Never been tased tho I can tell u that. I'm sure there was a better way to handle the incident.
I can't believe they sent police for a ten year old having a tantrum. I have called police several times on our noisy and violent neighbors and a couple times they didn't even show.
Hasn't anyone seen that episode of cops where they taze the huge fat dude and he's like "Please do not do that again! I would rather be shot or stabbed again than that."
And that was a big friggin dude. Also, I agree with BowTie again. I have read several stories where grown men have died from being tazed.
This all shoulda been avoided if you ask me.
he should have tazed the mom
Wow, okay so she wasn't tased, she was stunned, read the article (tasers have then option of just stunning someone). Also, the officer was in danger, kicking someone in the testicles can take out a full grown man for several minutes, if not more. None of you even know this girls stats, she could easily be twice the size of her mother; easily prompting concern for the mom, from the officer.
And no bowtie I don't think its okay if the mom were to stun her; that would be abuse. The officer is trained to utilize the tazer in an appropriate manner. Using his professional judgement he decided the best way to subdue the child was to stun her before cuffing her. Most police dept. around the country would support his decision. Your logic btw is very flawed, I suggest you maintain a very unbiased opinion on any topic you read before you comment with "logic". Also, electrocuted is also cited as an acceptable exchange for shocked; or the past tense form of being filled by electricity.
Somebody said the girl had committed no crime: yes, she did. She committed assault & battery upon a law enforcement officer.
I agree, the mother should have had better control over her child. As for an "emotionally disturbed child", I'd say an ass-beating from time to time might not straighten out the emotional disturbance, but it would let the kid know it's expected to behave.
1st this 65lb 4'6" girl has never been diagnosised with a mental disorder. So until she is I call it lazy parenting! 2nd why did the officer stay when all she was doing when he got there was laying in floor kicking and screaming. 3rd since he decided to get involved why was he trying to carry her to the bathroom? That is when he got kicked in the groin. 4th this same wonderful officer has recently tased a pregnant woman. He is a real brave dumd ass! 5th the child needs to be taken away from the mom and placed with a family to show her love and not just used for child support. Lastly I live in Ozark so yes those are the facts. Tase both the mother and the officer with full voltage!
If the kid was just acting up and earned herself an electrocution, that WOULD be some fine police work there, Lou...
Nine people since January 1st of this year dead from tasers. See, this is why we can't have nice things...
If the kid was just acting up and earned herself an electrocution, that WOULD be some fine police work there, Lou...
I think that if the child does have a mental illness, it's even more wrong to've tased it. The argument, "well, if she was mentally ill, she might've been really pitching one" makes no sense to me. If she was mentally ill, she likely pitched them all the time.
Incidentally, nine people since January 1st of this year dead from tasers. See, this is why we can't have nice things...
I can post that a third time if anyone's interested...
(sorry)
It's Arkansas - the cop may be the gal's father/brother/grandfather????
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