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Called to a home to help control an "unruly child," an Ozark, Arkansas police officer was given permission by the girl's mother to a taser to subdue the child. According to 40/29 News the girl's father is outraged that the police would use a taser on such a young child. "I would like to say Ozark police Tased this little girl right here," the girl's father, Anthony Medlock, told 40/29 News. "Ten years old and [they] shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God's green earth can they get away with this." According...

GLENROCK, Wyo. - A 76-year-old Wyoming man shot with a Taser by police while driving an antique tractor in a small-town parade says it hurt but he's OK. Retired truck driver Bud Grose of Glenrock told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Wednesday that he has a heart condition but didn't require any medical attention. Investigators say police in Glenrock used a Taser on the man after he disobeyed orders. They say the tractor may have hit a car. Two officers were placed on paid leave and state agents are investigating, but the police chief says it doesn't...

GLENROCK, Wyo. — Bud Grose seemed like the last person who should attract the attention of police when the 76-year-old retiree hopped on his antique tractor and rumbled through the annual parade in this small Wyoming town. But what was supposed to be a day of fun at an end-of-summer festival ended abruptly when police shot Grose with a Taser in a dispute about where to end the parade route. The incident nearly incited a riot as outraged neighbors rushed to his defense. Now residents of this tight-knit town of 2,400 are seething over what they see as police brutality,...

Senior citizen Bud Grose was chased and tasered -- five different times -- by two Wyoming police officers on August 1. The investigation has just concluded with the firing of the two officers. The small town of Glenrock, Wyoming was shocked and horrified after one of its residents was chased and tasered by police during an annual celebration of community arts and life this past summer. It was nearing the end of the Deer Creek Days annual parade held on Aug. 1 when two officers chased and tasered senior citizen, Bud Grose. Grose was driving an antique tractor in the...

State agents are investigating a Saturday incident in which a 76-year-old man driving a tractor in Glenrock was tasered by police after allegedly failing to obey their orders. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation will look into whether anyone connected to the incident committed a crime, said Special Agent Tim Hill. The incident happened at Glenrock's annual Deer Creek Days event. Glenrock police said the man, who was operating an antique tractor, failed to obey directions in a parade, Hill said. At some point afterward, police subdued and tasered the man. During the incident, the man's tractor apparently ran into...

MOBERLY, Mo. (AP) - Attorneys say a northeast Missouri city has agreed to pay $2.4 million to survivors of a man who died after police fired a Taser at him numerous times. Lawyers for the family of Stanley Harlan, 23, say the settlement with the city of Moberly was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. The agreement includes an indefinite moratorium on the use of Tasers by Moberly police officers. Harlan died in August 2008 after being pulled over by a Moberly police officer who suspected him of drunken driving. The lawsuit said other Moberly officers arrived...

~ EXCERPT ~ VANCOUVER — Within days of Robert Dziekanski's death at Vancouver International Airport, the RCMP knew that key information it had released was wrong, but decided it would not correct the record, one of the Mounties' media officers testified yesterday.

San Jose, CA (AP) -- The city of San Jose will pay $70,000 to the family of a man who died after police used a Taser stun gun on him. Officers said 38-year-old Jose Rios defied repeated attempts to subdue him when they responded to a domestic dispute in November 2005, prompting them to strike him with batons and shock him with Tasers. Rios' family claimed officers continued stunning him even after he was subdued. He later was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The Uniontown Area School Board, as well as concerned citizens and parents, had an opportunity Wednesday to learn about Tasers that will be proposed in the school district and share their opinions on the subject. Even before Don Homer, the director of security for the school district, could show the proposed Tasers to be used and explain how they operate, those attending a special meeting voiced opposition. One resident, Mary Hackney, a teacher at Laurel Highlands School District for 35 years, said she had to break up many fights in her years but no incident required a Taser. "This is...

So starting Thursday, one-tenth of NYPD cops will be carrying Tasers — the notorious, but delightful electric weapons that can paralyze people from up to 30 feet away. The cops have had them for over 20 years, but kept them in their cars because they're so heavy. The reason for this new option? Bureaucratic concerns over the use of guns. Guns generally stop criminals dead and we know how politically inconvenient that can be, especially for the criminal. If you're shot and killed, you can't vote or march in a parade — and that sucks.

In a modern-day duel, a restaurant owner and a Colorado security guard simultaneously drew their stun guns and simultaneously zapped each other during a weekend spat over an illegally parked van. The incident is raising questions over whether private citizens should be allowed to buy stun guns to protect themselves. The fight began on Saturday night when Harvey Epstein confronted two private security guards for clamping a metal boot on a company van parked outside his Mexican restaurant in Boulder, Colo. The situation escalated when Mr. Epstein putted out a pair of bolt cutters in an apparent attempt to remove...

Police force will have 370 Tasers just in time for RNC. St. Paul police are about to issue Tasers to all 370 officers on the force. Police say they are a safe way to stop a potential threat, but some people say Tasers are dangerous and sometimes deadly. Police spokesman Tom Walsh says the Taser is stronger than a verbal order and less dangerous than a gun, especially in the case of a violent or unstable subject. “It’s a safety issue for both the person being arrested and the officer,” Walsh said. “The bottom line is the Taser is an...

Man Busted After YouTube Video Shows Him, Father Playing With Stolen Taser Thursday, January 17, 2008 WAUKESHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin man is feeling the heat after police say he stole a Taser from police officers assisting him and later posted a video on YouTube of himself and his father using the device, the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday. Police said the unidentified 22-year-old was keeping warm in the squad car after his own vehicle became stuck in a ditch on New Year’s Day, the Journal Sentinel reported.

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) - Chained to a 55-gallon drum to protest the proposed development of a vacant lot, Jonathan Crowell wasn't threatening anyone. But he refused police orders to unshackle himself and leave, so they zapped him with a Taser, then charged him with trespassing. "It wasn't just a short burst," said Crowell, 32, of Dummerston, recalling the July 24 incident. "Five seconds is a long time to be electrocuted. My whole body was contorting and flapping around. You can't think of anything else but that pain. It's really scary. I felt like I was being tortured." Increasingly, police facing...

When university police officers were called to Powell Library on Tuesday night to escort a student off the premises, they used weapons which are unregulated and have largely unknown effects on the body. Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 23-year-old UCLA student, was hit with a Taser at least four times after he was unable to produce his BruinCard during a random check of all people in the CLICC Lab and did not leave the building promptly upon request. UCPD said in a statement that the officers resorted to the use of the Taser because Tabatabainejad refused to comply with officers' requests that...

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. (April 25) - A woman in a wheelchair who swung knives and a hammer at relatives and police died after being shocked by a stun gun, officials said. Police tried to talk Emily Marie Delafield, 56, into dropping the weapons before they used the Taser to subdue her Monday, Police Chief Robert Musco said. Delafield lost consciousness after the electric jolt and later died at Orange Park Medical Center. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating and an autopsy will be conducted to determine a cause of death. The two officers involved have been put...

The US government has unveiled a "non-lethal" laser rifle designed to dazzle enemy personnel without causing them permanent harm. But the device will require close scrutiny to ensure compliance with a United Nations protocol on blinding laser weapons. The Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHASR) rifle was developed at the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, US, and two prototypes have been delivered to military bases in Texas and Virginia for further testing. The US Department of Defense (DoD) believes the weapon could be used, for example, to temporarily blind suspects who drive through a roadblock. However, the DoD...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Nashville police are restricting the use of tasers in the aftermath of the death of a young man who died after being shocked with them 19 times. Police Chief Ronal Serpas said today that effective immediately, tasers will be used by police supervisors only. Also, beginning tomorrow, the supervisors will receive training on how to use them. Serpas said the department is involved in two nationwide studies on the use of tasers and guidelines on how they should be used. Twenty-one-year-old Patrick Lee was shocked into submission by Nashville officers a week ago after being kicked out of...

The Pittsburgh Police Department displayed an excessive use of force at a demonstration yesterday outside a military recruitment station located near the University of Pittsburgh. Five were arrested, two were hospitalized and several others received injuries as a result of police unwarranted use of Tasers, pepper spray, retracting batons and K-9 units. Two others were issued citations when they complained about police misconduct.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Law enforcement officers from around the country Wednesday praised Tasers as a non-lethal tool for stopping suspects, but emphasized the need for training before use of the 50,000-volt stun guns. The Taser, which stuns a person using electrical current, is helping to reduce incidents where police have to use deadly force, said Lt. David Ogden, who heads the training division of the Orange County Sheriff's Office in Orlando, Fla. "We've also had a substantial decrease in officer- and suspect-related injuries on arrest situations," said Ogden, who spoke to about 100 law enforcement officials at the National...

Police chief says more officers now have the stun guns By Tony Plohetski AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, April 08, 2005 Police use of Taser stun guns to subdue suspects continues to climb as more officers are armed with the weapons, according to a report issued Thursday by Police Chief Stan Knee. During the last eight months of 2004, police used Tasers in 41 percent of the incidents in which they used force to subdue someone. Officers shocked 220 suspects in 535 use-of-force incidents. The report did not say how many times Tasers were used in 2003 — when only about 100...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plans to study whether stun guns alone can kill pigs - or whether other medical factors must be at play - as part of an effort to understand why 70 people have died in North America since 2001 after being shocked by Tasers. Led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, outraged animal rights activists are calling for an end to the two-year study by John Webster, a professor emeritus of biomedical engineering. Police hail stun guns as a nonlethal way to restrain unruly suspects. But critics blame...

In a reckless and ill-considered decision, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington has armed police officers stationed in middle and high schools with Tasers. By authorizing the use of Tasers on our children, Harrington demonstrates again within a just few months his willingness to capitulate to eagerness of his officers to use force on the most vulnerable. Tasers have been implicated in the deaths of adults nationwide, up to 85 by some reports. Last year, a St. Paul man died after a police officer repeatedly shocked him with a Taser. Tasers are not proven safe to use on our children....

LAS VEGAS -- The maker of Tasers is launching a major high-stakes campaign to market its new model to consumers despite scores of fatalities and injuries linked to the police Taser, including the death of a man in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood last week. Taser International, which has made its name in law enforcement and the military, envisions a future in which millions of average citizens protect their homes and communities with the stun guns instead of firearms. Tasers fire two wires tipped with electric barbs, delivering a shock that painfully and briefly paralyzes a person. The new consumer model has...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center will stop using police officers to subdue agitated psychiatric patients, responding to threats from federal regulators to pull the hospital's funding. Last week, the hospital received its second warning in six months about Los Angeles County police using Taser stun guns to stop aggressive mental patients. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the county-owned hospital was putting patients in "immediate jeopardy" by not first trying less extreme methods. Hospital officials told the Medicare agency on Wednesday that they would begin replacing police with mental health workers to...

Taser International, whose electrical guns are used by thousands of police departments nationwide, says that a federal study endorses the safety of its guns, but the laboratory that conducted the research disagrees. Taser said last month that the government study, whose full results have not yet been released, found that its guns were safe. Since that statement, the company's stock has soared and its executives and directors have sold $68 million in shares, about 5 percent of Taser's stock and nearly half their holdings. But the Air Force laboratory that conducted the study now says that it actually found that...

SEATTLE -- The police here have had their share of high-profile violent or deadly run-ins with protesters, mentally ill suspects and other lawbreakers. But in 2003, for the first time in 15 years, no one here was shot and killed by the police. Miami, a city with a long history of police shootings and ensuing civil unrest, had no police shootings last year, fatal or otherwise, for the first time in 14 years. In Phoenix, where over the last several years such shootings reached a level that far outpaced the rates of much larger cities, deadly police shootings fell sharply...

SHOCK AND AUGHHH!Wednesday, May 14, 2003BY BARTON DEITERSGAZETTE NEWS SERVICE They have a kick like a ticked-off mule, but it's better than taking a bullet. A growing consensus among police places Tasers -- a gun that delivers a 50,000-volt blast to the target -- at the forefront of "less than lethal" force. Taser use is growing nationally and has exploded in Michigan, where Taser use by police departments got Lansing's stamp of approval as of Dec. 30. One of the last acts of the lame-duck Legislature and outgoing Gov. John Engler was to allow Tasers as an alternative to other...

The U.S. government's ruling that commercial airplane pilots will not be allowed to carry firearms in the cockpit may quiet for now the pilots' demands to be able do so. But it likely isn't the end of the issue. Not only have the pilots been pushing to carry guns in light of terrorist attacks and threats, but the Association of Flight Attendants also has suggested that its 50,000 members have access to nonlethal weapons such as stun guns, also known as tasers. That's why I recently asked bCentral's readers how they feel about allowing airline employees to have weapons on...