Deputy zaps boy, 10, with Taser

Again, unless the kid is threatening you with a knife or gun, or the deputy is also 10 years old, he should not have need to use the taser and should not have used the taser.

Yeah, I did.  A 10 year old boy with a stick?  Threat of a bruise is not the same as a threat of death.  

He could have just as easily been apprehended physically by 2+ officers then.

Maybe when a pip is being wielded by an adult, but it wasn't.  The pipe was being wielded by a little kid.  If the pipe was big enough to even reach the cops head, then it will be too heavy for the kid to swing with sufficient speed, and the officer could have easily seen the pipe coming, and blocked/caught it.  If the pipe was too small to reach the officers head, then he still isn't in danger because it is too light to cause more than a bruise, likely to an arm or leg;  but once again, probably could have just blocked it.  If the officer is so incompetent in physically dealing with people that he cannot subdue a 10 year old kid throwing a temper tantrum without using a taser, he should not be wearing a badge.  

Eville, have you ever watched a little league game? Those kids can whack those balls pretty far. Imagine the feeling if it was your knee he whacked.


Plus, why do we keep going back to "If the officer could have died, he could have used the taser"? The taser isn't meant for life threatening situations. If it gets life threatening, the firearms are brought out. The taser is there for bodily harm.




But, explain something to me. What age IS appropriate to tase? Why are we using age as the determining factor if someone can harm you or not? At what age can a kid cause enough harm to you to make it justified? And while we're at it, at what age can an old person no longer hurt you?    

Where did you see 2 foot lead pipe?  I could only find that in the comments.  I found 2-foot long pipe, but no mention of the material.  It could have been PVC for all we know. 

Also, I would not consider an officer to be underarmed even if he was unarmed in this situation.


Edited by Eville - 05 December 2009 at 1:12pm

Why not?   One tased a kid with no pipe at all.

Eville wrote: Where did you see 2 foot lead pipe?  I could only find that in the comments.  I found 2-foot long pipe, but no mention of the material.  It could have been PVC for all we know.  Also, I would not consider an officer to be underarmed even if he was unarmed in this situation.

Does the material really matter. If the kid gets a good enough swing, some form of bodily harm could be inflicted. Say he nails the officer in the knee before he can get a hand on the pipe and it blows out his knee or the kid cracks the officers fingers because he couldnt get a hand on it quick enough. Granted they get comp for being injured on the job. Still if the situation presents the possibility of injury to the officer it does give them the right to use a non-lethal method to subdue the person if necessary.

Working under the assumption that the pipe was metal, how strong do you really think the kid would need to be to cauuse injury with the pipe? IrishGunner nailed it- think of knuckles, fingers, knees, thigns like that. Permanent injuries can easily be sustained. Even with a minor injury the cop could be off duty for weeks waiting for a hand to heal up.

brihard wrote: Again, I invite you, go give a metal pipe to a behaviourally challenged ten year old and make him a 50 dollar bet he can't hurt you with it. I sure as hell wouldn't be willing to do it.

Of course I wouldn't do that.  Even if the facility let me in, there isn't very much chance that the little bugger would be able to payup.  Heck, slacker can't even get 5$ together.