Elementary schools have had “Career days” for decades. Kids get a chance to learn about professions and jobs that might interest them when they get older. One such day at the Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School likely left many children wondering if growing up to be a cop would involve daily child-police brutality, and it left one with both physical and psychological scars.
According to Reuters, a 10-year old boy identified only as “R.D.” was victimized by Officer Chris Webb of the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. Officer Webb was speaking to the class about his career when he asked if anyone wanted to clean his patrol car. Several in a group of boys said they would, while “R.D.” said he didn’t want to clean the patrol unit.
Something about this didn’t sit right with Officer Webb, who offered to show the kids “what happens to people who do not listen to the police.” Webb then fired two barbs from his Taser directly into the child’s chest.
The barbs penetrated his shirt and attached to his skin. Rather than calling for emergency medical assistance, Webb took “R.D.” to the principal’s office to try and remove the barbs himself. That’s when the child passed out.
“R.D.” has scars on his chest that resemble cigarette burns, according to an attorney representing the family. He also wakes in the night clutching his chest, having nightmares about the incident.
“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,” said Rachel Higgins.
It isn’t clear what Webb was thinking. Obviously, he has kept quiet about the incident. There are similarly no reports or comments coming from his employer.
Was R.D.’s dismissal of the condescending request to clean Webb’s car just too much for Webb to bear? Did he expect compliance from the youngest members of the community to his request that was borderline out-of-line?
While this incident is a rare one and cops typically only deploy such force against criminal suspects (though very often under unnecessary circumstances), it does illustrate the quickness in which many officers turn to physical force—particularly when they are armed with state-of-the-art weaponry.
And it starts with the false assumption that tasers are not “deadly” force, and therefore it’s completely acceptable to fire them off casually. People are seriously injured and die from taser strikes at a disturbing rate. It is clear cops employ tasers in situations that are completely inappropriate, whether its subduing a person who is already in handcuffs, or causally blasting an unwitting 10 year old in a classroom. They are a frequent element of police brutality complaints.
The time has come for serious restrictions on police rules and situations where tasers are appropriate.
About David Matson