Posted on 06/24/2005 10:07:17 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
A deputy Tasered an intoxicated 13-year-old girl who was kicking and scratching two hospital nurses, officials said.
April Rene Burleson, who is 4-foot-9 and weighs 90 pounds, had a blood alcohol level of 0.175 percent and was under the influence of marijuana and the prescription drug Xanax, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.
"You have to understand, she was lashing out, kicking and scratching," sheriff's spokeswoman Ileana LiMarzi. "She was acting like an adult who needed to be restrained. Just because she's 13 doesn't mean she can't harm somebody."
Burleson was charged with loitering, disorderly public intoxication, battery by a juvenile on health services personnel, battery on an officer and resisting an officer. She was sent to the Lee County Juvenile Assessment Center.
Burleson was walking on the street at 2:50 a.m. Thursday when a deputy picked her up on the loitering charge. She was first brought to her mother, who agreed to have the girl medically cleared at Lee Memorial Hospital before being processed.
According to sheriff's reports, Burleson had been combative with Deputy Chad Edwards before they reached the hospital, then screamed at the hospital staff and injured the nurses and Edwards.
Burleson was shocked with the Taser in the chest, then held in four-point restraints during her exam, deputies said.
One of the problems is that physical contact with a nutcase now almost always lands an officer in court and often in jail. Better not to touch them and to taser them instead. Thank you, insane courts of the land.
There was a program on the Discovery channel a couple of years ago about non-lethal weapons. An interesting side note to the show was how the futureists predicted that when non lethal force is commonplace, we will lose our right to protest. If the gubmint wants to, they just use the force needed to send you home. Pretty soon, nobody has the nads to come out against the gubmint. The weapon being discussed was a microwave dish on a truck that heats your skin. You get no more than a sunburn, but nobody can withstand the pain more than a few seconds. Finally, 1984 in the 21st century. I would think a cop could subdue a 90 lb girl without a taser.
They don't teach boxing or martial arts in Medical School or nursing school.
I know nurses that have been very seriously injured by patients.
Have any experience in the matter?
I'm retired from nursing with my last job at the local Forensics Mental Heath facility due to this kind of stuff, the overbearing mandatory overtime, and I just plain became old enough.
Have you heard of the new sound wave weapons that the Israelis plan to use in the West Bank? It is supposed to emit some sort of horrible sound wave that causes headache, dizziness and nausea
Obviously without the taser, his only other alternative would have been to shoot her dead.
A taser in hands of a wimp is a dangerous thing.
"I really dont know what another alternative would be.. whack her in the head with a billy club? "
Please don't ever go into law enforcement nor have any children that do.
But why SHOULD a police officer or hospital staffer risk injury when trying to restrain a wildly out of control girl who, given where and when they found her, is quite likely working as a prostitute and has a way above average chance of having AIDS? Tasering is mild compared to what often happens to 13 year old girls who roam the streets at 3AM while drunk, stoned, and spaced on Xanax.
If there are any LE here who are doing your job for the PUBLIC GOOD, and not just putting in time till retirement, good for you!
Given the available altenatives, any one of which probably would have serioiusly injured her, the officer, or the medical personnel, the tazer was the best way to go.
There is also some kind of thick foam which immobilizes which sounds pretty cool. You could shoot it all over some of these nutjobs roll em up in a ball and roll em right to jail.
In this situation, I've got no problem at all with the Cop using the Taser.
Yeh, yeh, yeh--and hospitals have been dealing with combative patients and 400 pound patients for a long time before tasers. All of a sudden, 13 year old, 4'9", 90 pound girls are overwhelming them. In numbers. Sounds to me like we have some 250 pound, 5'0" nurses & a 5'2" 98 pound Barney Fife packing a loaded taser on the front line in health care.
Obviously without the taser, his only other alternative would have been to shoot her dead.
LMAO! (and the scarey part is that this may be more true than we know.)
I've seen a patient break a nurses jaw but never the other way around.
When you said "batons", it flashed in my mind Hannible Lecter taking the baton to the police officer so effectively. Of course that was a movie. But for demonstration purposes, it was effective.
My daughter's CD player does much the same thing.
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