Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Tasing A Teen

A 15-year old boy was tasered in Texas on Monday for running from a police officer:

WHITESBORO, Tex. -- A 15-year old student was tasered by law enforcement at Whitesboro High School Monday morning. Police say it happened around 10:45 Monday morning when an officer went to the school to arrest the student on a juvenile authority warrant.

Police say the child was escorted out of the high school where the officer tried to pat him down and handcuff him, but the student broke away and ran. Police say the boy has a long history of bad behavior, and the officer warned the student that he would be tasered, but the boy kept running.

"We couldn't rule out that the juvenile didn't have a weapon. I’m not saying he did or anything like that, but when you have a juvenile flee like that from the police officer, it heightens your sense of security and well being and him refusing to follow instructions, we didn't know if he might turn around and pull a gun." Whitesboro Police Chief Scott Taylor said.

After being tasered, the boy was medically evaluated and then taken to the Juvenile Detention Center.

Wow. It's great that the brave, brave officer was able to fortify his feelings of security and well-being by tasering a child.

Even the University of Florida now gets that tasering someone running away isn't cool.