Posted on 05/10/2005 1:51:41 AM PDT by Stoat
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Police used Taser on pregnant driver She was rushing her son to school. She was eight months pregnant. And she was about to get a speeding ticket she didn't think she deserved. So when a Seattle police officer presented the ticket to Malaika Brooks, she refused to sign it. In the ensuing confrontation, she suffered burns from a police Taser, an electric stun device that delivers 50,000 volts. "Probably the worst thing that ever happened to me," Brooks said, in describing that morning during her criminal trial last week on charges of refusing to obey an officer and resisting arrest. She was found guilty of the first charge because she never signed the ticket, but the Seattle Municipal Court jury could not decide whether she resisted arrest, the reason the Taser was applied. To her attorneys and critics of police use of Tasers, Brooks' case is an example of police overreaction. "It's pretty extraordinary that they should have used a Taser in this case," said Lisa Daugaard, a public defender familiar with the case. Law enforcement officers have said they see Tasers as a tool that can benefit the public by reducing injuries to police and the citizens they arrest. Seattle police officials declined to comment on this case, citing concerns that Brooks might file a civil lawsuit. But King County sheriff's Sgt. Donald Davis, who works on the county's Taser policy, said the use of force is a balancing act for law enforcement.
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Brooks' run-in with police Nov. 23 came six months before Seattle adopted a new policy on Taser use that guides officers on how to deal with pregnant women, the very young, the very old and the infirm. When used on such subjects, the policy states, "the need to stop the behavior should clearly justify the potential for additional risks."
"Obviously, (law enforcement agencies) don't want to use a Taser on young children, pregnant woman or elderly people," Davis said. "But if in your policy you deliberately exclude a segment of the population, then you have potentially closed off a tool that could have ended a confrontation."
Brooks was stopped in the 8300 block of Beacon Avenue South, just outside the African American Academy, while dropping her son off for school.
In a two-day trial that ended Friday, the officer involved, Officer Juan Ornelas, testified he clocked Brooks' Dodge Intrepid doing 32 mph in a 20-mph school zone.
He motioned her over and tried to write her a ticket, but she wouldn't sign it, even when he explained that signing it didn't mean she was admitting guilt.
Brooks, in her testimony, said she believed she could accept a ticket without signing for it, which she had done once before.
"I said, 'Well, I'll take the ticket, but I won't sign it,' " Brooks testified.
Officer Donald Jones joined Ornelas in trying to persuade Brooks to sign the ticket. They then called on their supervisor, Sgt. Steve Daman.
He authorized them to arrest her when she continued to refuse.
The officers testified they struggled to get Brooks out of her car but could not because she kept a grip on her steering wheel.
And that's when Jones brought out the Taser.
Brooks testified she didn't even know what it was when Jones showed it to her and pulled the trigger, allowing her to hear the crackle of 50,000 volts of electricity.
The officers testified that was meant as a final warning, as a way to demonstrate the device was painful and that Brooks should comply with their orders.
When she still did not exit her car, Jones applied the Taser.
In his testimony, the Taser officer said he pressed the prongs of the muzzle against Brooks' thigh to no effect. So he applied it twice to her exposed neck.
Afterward, he and the others testified, Ornelas pushed Brooks out of the car while Jones pulled.
She was taken to the ground, handcuffed and placed in a patrol car, the officers testified.
She told jurors the officer also used the device on her arm, and showed them a dark, brown burn to her thigh, a large, red welt on her arm and a lump on her neck, all marks she said came from the Taser application.
At the South Precinct, Seattle fire medics examined Brooks, confirmed she was pregnant and recommended she be evaluated at Harborview Medical Center.
Brooks said she was worried about the effect the trauma and the Taser might have on her baby, but she delivered a healthy girl Jan. 31.
Still, she said, she remains shocked that a simple traffic stop could result in her arrest.
"As police officers, they could have hurt me seriously. They could have hurt my unborn fetus," she said.
"All because of a traffic ticket. Is this what it's come down to?"
Davis said Tasers remain a valuable tool, and that situations like Brooks' are avoidable.
"I know the Taser is controversial in all these situations where it seems so egregious," he said. "Why use a Taser in a simple traffic stop? Well, the citizen has made it more of a problem. It's no longer a traffic stop. This is now a confrontation."
Any child hit by any car at ANY SPEED can be killed!
How long are you going to continue to selfishly drive around in a potential child murder weapon? Shame on you.
She broke the LAW?
What an ass.
Don't you have a clue as to understand that an officer isn't there to just enforce the law?
But to do so in a just and legal an sane manner.
Hey Lou, there are some old ladies jaywalking, let's go shoot them?
No thought there in your brain there huh bub, just IT'S THE LAW.
It's my opinion that government largely ignore and control the population, as opposed to working for us, so when I heard about government giving and taking priviledges, I sorta snapped. I hadn't finished my coffee yet.
Lololololol I knew you spoke like one. Attorneys and used car salesmen, are the only people on the face of the planet that could sell an icebox to an eskimo. They do have the gift of gab. I'm not slamming you, honest. It's just your post struck me as the way an attorney speaks. Lololol
Contrary to your beliefs, a law is a law. Speeding is breaking a law. And officers are there to enforce the law. This woman broke a law. She should have been cited for it. If she wanted to protest it, she can do that in front of the judge, don't argue with the officer. If you would like to change a law, you yourself can take it up with your state legislature to have all speed limits removed from your area. That is your right.
I just started reading this thread and this may have already been answered but one of the reasons for the lower speed limit in school zones is that if a child runs out in front of you, you are more likely to get stopped at a rate of 20 mph than 30 mph.
Come back when you have a valid point, not colored by your crappy attitude
What words did I put in your mouth?
Your statement flies in the face of reality. For a child sake I wouldn't want you to be responsible for their safety since you think all children should behave like little adults concerning safety. Children are children. They don't always look both ways before crossing a street. They don't always think before darting out between two parked cars chasing a ball.
I knew you spoke like one. Attorneys and used car salesmen, are the only people on the face of the planet that could sell an icebox to an eskimo. They do have the gift of gab.
The powers that be, the ones we elected must have done a study that determines what the mph should be in that certain area. The speed limit in the one the woman got a ticket in was 20 mph. She exceeded the limit and was ticketed for it.
Rules, our lives are dictated by rules. Without them there would be mayhem and chaos.
I agree. Some people apparently don't believe in the law of physics. Forward energy is easier to stop at 20 mph rather than 32 mph.
Then I spoke those words. I didn't put them in your mouth.
You're welcome. I have supported my position. She was speeding and was pulled over for it. She exceeded the posted 20 mph limit.
I'm slowly reading through the thread and I think there's plenty of blame to go around here. The pregnant woman was nuts not to sign the ticket or get out of the car when told to. I have 5 kids and I can't imagine getting into a confrontation with ANYONE while I was pregnant. It wouldn't even have occured to me to do something that stupid. That said, the cop was also wrong, tasered a pregnant woman?? Good grief, what are they hiring, Jethro Bodines?
I do think the slow speed in school zones is extremely important. Kids just don't pay attention to what they are doing, especially at the end of the school day and they are excited about going home.
I don't agree with the tazering of a pregnant woman either. What was his other options? Sitting there till the cows come home? I don't know what I would have done in his place. Maybe pull her fingers off the steering wheel one by one till they had her free of it. She would probably be fighting them if it got to that point.
His was told my his commander to arrest her. You and I would just sign the ticket and be on our merry way and argue it in traffic court if we thought we were right. She brought the officers actions upon herself and is now crying foul. She should have obeyed the school zone speed limit, and thought of her baby first, which she called her unborn fetus. I recoil that an 8th month pregnant woman would use that term concerning her baby.
WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST "SHOOT" HER!!!!
Nice clean 9mm to the head!!!
"Pregnant woman shot resisting arrest for refusing to sign speeding ticket."
The wheels are coming off, folks!
Some of you conservatives need to get a grip and quit justifying whatever LEA does, under ANY circumstances.
(FROM A FORMER FED AGENT, BY THE WAY!!)
But I strongly beleive too that Police have one of the toughest jobs in the world. They have to work with the absolute dregs of society day in, day out, 24/7/365.
Thank goodness I'm not a Police Officer because I'd probably use about a clip of ammo a day just out of frustration of dealing with derelicts all the time. I'd probably leave body counts in my wake that would make General Westmoreland proud.
She used the term "fetus" because she was already thinking "lawsuit".
I'm with you, the minute I found out I was pregnant I used the term "baby". My baby, to be exact. A pregnant woman using the term fetus to describe her baby is more than creepy.
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