Cop Tasers 10-Year-Old

Cop Tasers 10-Year-Old Boy For Refusing to Clean Patrol Car

Officer demonstrates what police do best on school “career day”

Steve Watson

Oct 30, 2012

A state police officer in New Mexico is being sued after he allegedly tasered a child in a school playground for no reason other than he refused to clean the cop’s patrol car.

The boy’s legal guardian, Rachel Higgins, claims that Officer Chris Webb shot the boy, referred to as “R.D.”, with a 50,000 volt stun gun while visiting on a “career day” at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School on May 4.

The complaint notes that the officer approached a group of boys and asked which of them wanted to clean his car. When R.D. said he had no desire to clean the patrol vehicle, Officer Webb is claimed to have stated “‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’”

He then pointed his taser at the boy, according to the report, and fired two barbs directly into the 10-year old’s chest, electrifying him and causing him to blackout.

Webb then extracted the barbs from the child’s chest, leaving scarring ” that look like cigarette burns”.

“Instead of calling emergency medical personnel, Officer Webb pulled out the barbs and took the boy to the school principal’s office,” the complaint states.

The complaint claims that the boy has suffered mental trauma and night terrors and is now afraid of going to sleep at night for fear he will not wake up again.

Ms Higgins stated in Santa Fe County Court that “No reasonable officer confronting a situation where the need for force is at its lowest, on a playground with elementary age children, would have deployed the Taser in so reckless a manner as to cause physical and psychological injury.”

Higgins is suing on the grounds of battery, failure to render emergency medical care, excessive force, unreasonable seizure, and negligent hiring, training, supervision and retention.   read on...