What the hell? The days of friendly Officer Pete and career day fun are long gone. Now the cops bring tasers to teach kids what happens when they disobey.
A 10-year-old boy attending a Tularosa, N.M., Intermediate School’s Career Day expected it to be fun and educational, but instead he ended up in the emergency room.
The boy, identified as R.D., blacked out after receiving 50,000 volts of electricity when struck by a police officer’s Taser gun.
Rachel Higgins, a guardian appointed by the court to protect the child’s privacy filed a lawsuit Oct. 26 in 1st Judicial District Court in Santa Fe County against Police Officer Chris Webb and the New Mexico Department of Public Safety on behalf of R.D., claiming that Webb fired his electronic control weapon at the boy on May 4, 2012.
Webb has been charged with battery, failure to render emergency medical care, unreasonable seizure and excessive force.
Higgins will appear in court to represent the boy because the family members live in a small town and do not want to reveal their identities.
The lawsuit claims police officers drove their patrol cars onto the intermediate school campus, where Webb asked a group of boys which one would like to clean his patrol unit.
R.D. raised his hand to say he did not want to clean the police officer’s car.
Webb then said, according to the lawsuit, “Let me show what happens to people who do not listen to the police.” He then “shot his Taser gun at the boy’s chest,” said the family’s attorney Shannon Kennedy of the Kennedy Law Firm of Albuquerque.
I hope the judge or jury awards the kid millions and this cop goes to jail for a very, very long time. There is no excuse -- zero -- for that kind of sadistic behavior toward a kid, or anyone else for that matter.
[Photo credit: ABC News]
