Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
OZARK, Ark. — Ozark’s mayor said Tuesday he wants an outside agency to investigate a local police officer’s use of a TASER on a 10-year-old girl.
Arkansas State Police declined a request to investigate Tuesday, and Mayor Vernon McDaniel said he will seek a review through the prosecuting attorney’s office.
“People here demanded an investigation from an outside agency just to try to show we are trying to be fair to everyone,” McDaniel said. No one would see an internal investigation as unbiased, he said.
State police spokesman Bill Sadler said the agency declined to investigate because the request was for administrative review of the town’s policy, not a criminal investigation.
McDaniel said he told Police Chief Jim Noggle to request today that Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons try to persuade the state police to conduct the investigation. Failing that, McDaniel said, he would ask the FBI to investigate.
A report by officer Dustin Bradshaw, said he used a TASER X26 on the girl after she kicked him in the groin. The girl later was taken to the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil.
Noggle defended Bradshaw, saying he was justified in using the TASER on the girl. He said the officer has not been disciplined and is on the job.
“Age can’t be a factor,” Noggle said. “The factor is are they going to hurt you? That’s the factor.” The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock of Ozark, said his daughter has emotional problems but she didn’t have a weapon and should not have been stunned.
“My daughter does not deserve to be tased and be treated like an animal,” he said.
Medlock, who is divorced from the girl’s mother and does not have custody rights, said he called McDaniel to inquire what action would be taken against the officer. Medlock said Bradshaw should be removed from the force, and the department should institute an age limit for use of the TASER.
The report by Bradshaw said the girl’s mother was present in the house and told the officer to use the TASER if necessary. The report blacked out the names of those involved and the address of the incident, and no telephone number could be found for the girl’s mother in Ozark.
The incident occurred on Nov. 11, Medlock said. Bradshaw’s report said he was dispatched to a home in Ozark on a reported domestic problem.
When he arrived, according to the report, the girl was curled up on the floor crying and screaming as her mother tried to get her to take a shower to get ready for bed. Bradshaw’s report said he saw the girl kick and scream whenever her mother tried to touch her.
Bradshaw tried to help the mother carry the girl to the shower but she continued to protest.
Bradshaw’s report said he decided there was not going to be a peaceful resolution to the dispute so he moved the girl into the living room and told her was going to take her to jail.
He described the girl as kicking and crying and thrashing about wildly as he tried to handcuff her.
“While she was violently kicking and verbally combative, [the girl] struck me with her legs and feet in the groin,” Bradshaw’s report said.
Because she was resisting arrest and he was having difficulty putting handcuffs on her, he stated in his report he “administered a very, very brief drive stun with my TASER.” Fayetteville police Lt. Tad Scott, a stun gun instructor, said a `drive stun’ is touching the gun to the skin and pulling the trigger to deliver a jolt of electricity. Normally, he said, when the trigger is pulled, the gun shoots out two probes that stick in the skin and deliver a jolt of electricity for up to five seconds.
He said the TASER X26 Bradshaw was using is designed to function by shooting the probes or touching it to the skin.
The report said the girl immediately stopped resisting after receiving the jolt. Bradshaw placed handcuffs on her and carried her to the patrol car.
The Fort Smith Police Department restricts the use of the stun guns on those 14 and under unless they are being physically violent and aggressive, department training officer Sgt. James Hayes said.
“If there’s a 12 year old who is 6 feet tall and about to punch you in the face, you can tase him,” he said.
Such a scenario played out shortly after the department began using the TASER two years ago, he said. A 12-year-old boy was stunned after several officers could not control him and after he broke the nose of a female officer.
Scott said the Fayetteville Police Department recently changed its policy on the use of the stun gun and other controls such as pepper spray or a baton when a person becomes aggressive and uses or threatens to use violence. He said there was no age limit on who can be stunned; the officer uses his judgment.
Steve Tuttle, TASER’s vice president for communications, wrote Tuesday that young people need to be protected. But situations can arise where police must subdue minors in order to prevent them from harming themselves or others.
“It is up to the individual agencies to determine and set forth use of force policies and guidelines based upon Constitutional standards and the totality of the circumstances for any response to resistance,” Tuttle wrote.
Copyright 2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette