Posted on 10/10/2013 1:49:13 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A police officer in Pierre, S.D., recently used an electroshock weapon against an 8-year-old girl who was threatening to kill herself. Now, Police Chief Bob Grandpre is defending the officer’s decision.
“He quite possibly saved the juvenile’s life that night,” said Grandpre of the unnamed officer, who remains on the job.
According to Grandpre, three officers responded Friday night to a report of a suicidal 8-year-old girl who had allegedly stabbed herself in the leg. She was holding a 4.5-inch knife to her chest when officers arrived and refused to put it down.
When one officer approached her, the girl turned the knife toward him. When he stopped, “she immediately put the knife back at her chest,” the chief said.
That’s when an officer deployed his Taser.
According to the Associated Press, the officer deployed the stun gun from 5 or 6 feet away, and the prongs hit the girl’s chest and stomach. Emergency personnel immediately arrived on the scene and took the girl to the hospital. She was released without injury after 24 hours.
Grandpre also noted that the girl had no stab wounds on her leg.
Parents of the child, who was at home with a babysitter at the time of the incident, said the officer should be disciplined for using excessive force.
“Tasers are for grown adults, not 8-year-old girls,” the child’s father, Bobby Jones, told the Argus Leader newspaper. “They say it was for her own safety, but there is no justification for that.”
The girl’s mother, Dawn Stenstrom, described the knife as “a little paring knife.”
Stenstrom added that her daughter has never gotten so out of control as to require physical restraint. The girl was not injured by the Taser, but “she was in pain the whole night,” according to her mother.
“How much harm could she have done?” Stenstrom asked.
The girl’s father said his daughter had merely “acted out ... Her acting out got her tased.”
Greg Connor, a professor and police consultant from Georgia who specializes in the use of force, was surprised to hear that officers had used an electroshock weapon on a child so young. He said a Taser is likely to cause less damage than other less-than-lethal weapons, but every situation is different.
“It’s hard to imagine a situation where you’d need to use a Taser on an 8-year-old,” Connor added.
But before we get the usual onslaught of JBT and donut munching anti-cop remarks - let me be the first (and maybe only) one to come out in SUPPORT of the cops here.
More often than not - tazing is effective and is the right call.
If you don’t want your suicidal eight-year-old daughter to get tazed, then don’t call the cops.
There was a story that a man who called an ambulance and was shot dead by cops in response.
I judge each situation based on the most likely story (i.e. what seems to be the best interpretation of the facts).
In this one, I have to side with the officer. A paring knife is usually a very sharp blade. An eight-year old could easily bleed out from a torso stab from a paring knife. The officer had been told that she already had a stab wound on her leg and was faced with a child who seemed bent of self-inflicted harm.
While a taser may not have been the best option, it was a reasonable option given the circumstances.
It’s a judgment call. The baby sitter called the cops. Maybe that was foolish, who knows? The cop used his judgment, and it came out OK.
Maybe if the kid was in pain all night, she won’t try this kind of trick again.
She’s alive ain’t she?
Seems like it worked.
It was probably the best option at the time and it worked out well. Even though a cop should easily be able to disarm an 8 year old there is still a potential that someone will be stabbed. The parents seem to be in serious denial regarding their troubled daughter.
That “little paring knife” may have been 4.5 inches from the back of the handle to the blade tip!
That “little paring knife” may have been 4.5 inches from the back of the handle to the blade tip!
So was everyone better off if the cop tased her or just punched her?
Or just shot the little brat. She was asking for a suicide by cop anyway, right?
/sarc
Tasers should never be used for compliance. They are a resort before deadly force. If she was about to be shot to death, then yes, tasing was the correct option.
No one here believes she should have been shot, short the advent of the taser. Or do you?
That’s the problem. Some people still think law enforcement exists to serve and protect.
She is one very lucky little girl. The proper first step in such a “confrontation” is for the officer to draw and fire his pistol. And the child would be a very nice addition to the 107 year old man in Arkansas and the trapped unarmed woman in DC and the man asking for help after a wreck and the gentleman at the Cosco etc.
His wife called the ambulance.
In a big town and in a lot of smaller laces it is always bad judgment to call the cops for anything at all. There is no knowing who they will shoot.
Call a doctor. Ask if a 4 or 5 inch long knife will reach the HEART of an average 8 year old girl. Or how many arteries could be sliced. Generally it is FATAL.
The article says she reacted as he approached her. One more step the parents are burying their daughter.
What would the replies be if the cop started to approach WITHIN arm’s reach?
No matter the action, the cop is WRONG, isn’t he?
As told this could very well make sense depending on what actual facts are true.
I know knives and if she had a deadly one in her hand and the situation, distance, the girl’s demeanor and body language signaled that I had to act to save her and and face the fallout later, I would tase her without a qualm.
so we have a very sad little girl and the cops decide to attack her....unbelievable.....
Would you have rather the girl impulsively push the paring knife into her chest and have her cut one of the pulmonary vessels? That would ensure a 3 minute bleed out. But it would have made you feel better.
Tasers are used to avoid injury. Either to the person who will cause the injury - or to a cop trying to stop it.
Yes, it’s possible an officer could’ve have physically disarmed the child before she cut herself, but it’s still a physical action thats required. And that involves a risk of harm and injury to all involved.
Tazing was the correct call.
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