10-year-old girl Tasered

oh and PS... did anyone read the article?

he drive stunned the girl, drive stunning doesnt affect the CNS and is just a localized pain... Me and my friends have messed around with stun guns and shocked ourselves with them, they just hurt for a few seconds and the pain immediately stops when the shock stops...

there was no skin penetration or anything, the result is pretty much the same as a slap just with less damage...

also the father admits the girl had "emotional issues", seriously!? he admits it, doesnt live with the girl and yet now acts like the caring father, if the child is psychotic then its possible that she could have easily hurt herself or someone else in her rage...

so just to clarify if he full on tasered her then bad cop, if he just drive stunned her I'm all for it...

 

lol. although i understand the generalisation.... meet my pa (British)

As i said, parents should of already had the situation in control, cop is in fault, parents to blame.

@coldon; alternative to tazer? reassurance and talking to on a level, explain and listen, reason?
a firm chat? non lethal restraining postions / take down at most... what their trained to do.. not just point click zap. naughty girl.

 

yeh, but if the girl is emotionally unstable that may not work. I've got a friend that's also quite unbalanced (slit her wrists in a club bathroom after a fight with a boyfriend, drove her car straight into a tree with another boyfriend in it jsut to get back at him, smashed a beer bottle over the head of a girl that she got into a fight with) and i know from experience reassurance and talking doesnt help when she's in one of her states.

if the girl has got emotional problems then she should be getting professional help and the mother should be instructed on how to deal with it.

like i said it was a drive stun, so i dont see what the fuss is all about...

 

A 10-year old has not yet entered the "Formal Operational" (hypothetico-deductive) stage of cognitive development: that ability that allows it to run a bunch of scenarios in its mind and reliably predict the outcome/consequences of its behaviour. Frontal lobes are still developing, you see? That growth spurt is still to come.

For that reason we don't allow 10-year olds to do things that, say, 16 year olds can. They cannot handle the responsibility because they do not yet have the insight.

Of course, this particular girl has "emotional difficulties" so it is likely that there are some developmental problems to start with. And of course, we do not know what shining example her parents have set her in rational conflict resolution, discipline or boundaries. But if mommy has to call the cops because she cannot get her wayward 10-year old to have a bath, I can make some educated guesses.

Ah, the "It never did me any harm" argument... OK, probably it didn't because your educational and parental discipline occured in the context of a firm attachment framework. You knew that they cared about you; you knew that you could trust them. If they hit you, you knew that you must have deserved it. It is not the chastisement --it is the context in which it happens.

You have not been reading this thread then. I already gave a sensible alternative. The cop himself reported that the child was lying curled up on the floor, screaming. She was not doing anything that was a threat to herself or to others. Just leave her be. Calm down the mother (who is supposed to be the adult here) and you calm down the situation. Then eventually the child calms down too.

The fuss is that the child has not learned anything good from this experience. It has not taught her boundaries or discipline; it has just escalated the matched aggression between mother and daughter to a higher level. Next time she has a stand-off with mommy, she'll be prepared to go a bit further too.

 

Maybe next time the little girl will do something really bad... like play with electricity and electrocute someone...

 

@nexxo: you make very valid points, but the incident occurred after the girl kicked the cop in the groin... Which is not acceptable behavior for any child, and I'm sorry in that situation, I really think that if a person responds violent to a situation they need to be shown that there are major repercussions, not just a grounding or a talking to...

i guess we can carrying on discussing it but at the end of the day: stupid mother, emotionally unstable girl, girl attacks police officer, police officer responds with a DRIVE stun, not even a proper tasering, media blows it out of proportion...

I'm not a fan of the whole soft approach to parenting, kids need boundaries, and they need to know those boundaries will be enforced, if you just keep giving them a talking to after a while they'll figure out that the only consequence is a speech...

 

I agree completely with everything Nexxo has said.

Media blows it out of proportion? She is a 10 year old girl that probably just kicked out in, self defence, anger, just for the sake of lashing out, and caught the guy in the gonads. Plain and Simple.







EDIT: Blame iPlayer... 'BBC iPlayer is down for maintenance. We'll be back shortly.'

 

And why did she kick him in the groin if, according to the cop's own statement, she was lying on the floor when he arrived?

I still think the police should not have responded to this call. If they didn't know the details, then the officer should have left as soon as he found out what it was all about.

-monkey

 

I swear I posted something absolutely awesome here earlier, but now it's gone

 

The girl was 10 years old and HE was a FULLY GROWN POLICE OFFICER. Mental issues or not it doesn't make it any less a fact that in order to subdue a 10 year old girl this police officer immediately considered it too dangerous a situation and go straight for his tazer. Another problem here comes in that what happens when you put the same officer in an actually dangerous situation. He presumably would just go off the rails and start firing everywhere.

I didn't read the whole thread im ashamed to say, but imagining this is the second post, "the way he hasn't even been punished is mind boggling".

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...gun-to-subdue-10-year-old-girl-suspended.html


This just gets better...

 

he didnt go for his taser first, he had to subdue the girl, and for the last time he didnt tazer her he DRIVE STUNNED her!!! There is a hell of a difference. A drive stun is no worse than a slap, actually i'd take a drive stun over a slap anyday as i've experienced both!!!

next time the officer will probably try and subdue the flailing girl and maybe break her arm in the process of restraining her, then we can all laugh and saw what a good job he did cause he didnt use a non damaging, non dangerous tool...

because obviously kids are super easy to control and aren't dangerous at all, that kid could NOT have hurt anyone no matter how hard she tried (sarcasm)

anyways...

 

Good point Bogomip

I can't believe how many members agree with the little girl being tasered
Can you imagine being put in handcuffs for not having a shower

I feel sorry for the girl, not just for being tasered, but for having such shite parents

 

I blame the mother.... she needs to be tazed.... and slapped.

Where was the father when this was happening? I can see he was quoted but was he actually present?

 

Great to see so many people yet again with massive opinions based on what is probably 1% of the information and context of the situation

Without knowing the specifics, I can't comment on whether the cops actions were justified, I can say, having been trained for, and dealt with this kind of situation before that "taking down" a child with "emotional issues" when they don't want to be, is probably one of the hardest things you can do.

Having seen a 9 year old take down and break the nose of a 90kg ex-special forces instructor, and need to be restrained by 4 highly trained professionals I can say for sure that most people under-estimate what a child can do.

Drive stunning was probably preferable to trying to physically restrain the child by an officer on his own, who more than likely is not trained to deal with "difficult children", as doing so could would almost certainly result in injury to bot the child and cop.

I'm not condoning what the officer did, given I know nothing of the situation etc, what I am trying to do is put it into perspective as to how difficult it can be, and how easy it is to cause injuries even when you have several people who are trained for it.

 

+1

 

Whether it was a "drive stun" or full-on use of a taser is irrelevant. The point is that from the facts presented as they are, the officer had no reason to escalate the situation that far to begin with. He did not have to play into the mother's game by trying to subdue and handcuff the girl. She was a child curled up on the floor having a fit about bathing: at what point did her actions justify any police intervention?

-monkey

 

Do the Americans have a Duty of Care? In this country it is a very important thing. There is no denying that the mother phoned the police and in doing so the police HAD to attend. As soon as the officer arrived he had a Duty of Care to the child, thats why he never left straight away, its obvious that the mother wasnt in a fit state to care for her (as proven by the call to the police) so the policeman had no choice but to becaome involved. Now we dont know what set the kid off and what made her kick the copper in his gonads, however the fact is she DID kick him and an officer of the law (tbh anyone) has the right to defend themselves wether it be from a 10 year old girl or a 25 year old man. I wouldnt stand and let anyone hit me, man, woman, kid or beast. If you try hit me dont be surprised if I put you on the ground immediately. Personally I think she got off lightly, she has to learn that actions have consequences. Its my opinion and I wont change it so any flaming towards me will be in vain.

 

If the officer had no choice but to become involved, then he certainly had a choice as to how he became involved. Your argument is that he was responsible for the girl's care because her mother was apparently unfit. In that case, why would he try to subdue the girl and place her in handcuffs? That hardly seems caring. If his duty was to care for her, then talking with the mother would seem a better option, in my opinion.

I would hope that we're all above flaming, being the rational adults we are. In my opinion, your statement here is a bit flawed. I agree that a person should be allowed to defend himself, but only with such force is necessary, and only when actually threatened. According to the article, the girl did not pose any threat until the officer tried to physically subdue her. Some people here don't think the officer needed to try to subdue the girl to begin with. I believe the use of a taser was unjustified because the officer had no reason to get involved in the dispute.

-monkey

 

Indeed the officer should not have needed to be involved. The parent should have stepped up to the mark and been a parent.

Overall this comes across as a failure of parenting to me.