No Kidding

An Australian Civil Liberties group has made a statement that a 16-year-old, who was struck and killed by a car after hitting the ground in compliance with police brandishing a taser, was too young to be targeted by the device.

Check out the comments section of the article. Contrary to their "tough on everything, nobody bosses me around" image sold here in the US, these Aussies seem to have lots of hate for anyone questioning authority. If that's your standard level of crush (aka hero worship) for law enforcement, I welcome you, Australia, to the outrageous tasing festival that North America's been enjoying.

Our brave heroes love tasing teens (and in plenty of places, the state has their backs). Just search this page for "teen." Plenty of links should get highlighted on the right. Most of the incidents involve unarmed teens. Just this past week, information has come from Kansas and Alabama about teen-tasing activities.

From Kansas:

A Wichita Northwest High School student was jolted with a Taser this week after she got into a fight with another student, resisted a school resource officer and then refused repeated orders to stop, authorities said.

Two 15-year-old girls got into a fight at the school at about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, police said. ...

It's the second time a Taser was used on a USD 259 student this school year, district spokeswoman Susan Arensman said. A Curtis Middle School student was stunned with the device in October, she said.

Two students were jolted with the devices last school year, and school resource officers pulled the devices from their holsters but did not use them two other times, Arensman said.

The school resource officers in all 22 Wichita middle and high schools carry Tasers. In the Police Department's use of force policy, the devices fall "in the middle," Deputy Chief Robert Lee said -- coming after the use of verbal commands and before deadly force.

"The Taser is designed to stop an assault, stop a threat, when verbal commands are not successful," Lee said.

From Alabama:

Eleven students at Booker T. Washington in Toulminville claim they were forced to wash patrol cars and threatened with taser guns by Mobile Police.

The same group of students was reportedly horse playing a few days earlier across the street from campus and believe that's why they were punished. Another parent tells us the punishment happened after the students vandalized the school gym.

According to the kids, police showed up on January 26th and hauled them to Precinct 3 in patrol cars. The kids tell us they were forced to run laps, wash police cars, smacked on the back of the head and threatened with taser guns.

At least two of the parents with kids involved say they were never contacted by the school about the form of punishment. Brozana Goodwin says she knows her kids aren't angels but wanted at least a phone call before her kids were taken away. "They contact me about everything else but they didn't contact me about this."

Jeez. Talk about a literal "nanny state." Where is the civil libertarian outrage that's all over the place when the government wants to do things like stop bad banking practices or provide healthcare? I love how I'm a "liberal weenie" for saying that our paid public serveants shouldn't have torturing citizens, and do I seriously need to write "children", as an option.