10 year old having a major hissy fit cos she wouldnt take a shower, apparently the child has a history of behaviour and emotional problems. The mother gave permission for the police to use the taser and when child reacted violently to police trying to take her into custody she was tasered. The action has been described by the Police Chief as:

"We didn't use the Taser to punish the child, just to bring the child under control so she wouldn't hurt herself or somebody else. If the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg"


The police officer is now facing disciplinery proceedings. The father believes his child has been dealt with innapropriatly and the local mayor is demanding that the FBI should investigate.

so whats your thoughts on this?

anne xx

Personally, I think that's a 'bit' harsh. OMG...a taser on a 10 year old? You mean adult police couldn't get a 10 year old CHILD 'under control' by any other means? I find THAT difficult to believe.

The world has gone mad!

Taser the parent of the 10 year old....If a parent cant control a 10 year old then theres a real problem with the adult responsible .....

Don't tell me ......................it happened in America........................

I agree with you, its shocking to believe that they had to use so much force on a minor.

Sue x

I read this on yahoo news yesterday, I'm horrified that they used this tactic, no matter how uncontrollable the girl was, I was also concerned that the girls seems to have emotional problems, I hope this is investigated too, if it hasn't been already ?
If a copper used a taser gun on my kids, I'd want to use it on the police, where the sun dont shine !
The mother was well out of order imo, if the police cant restrain a 10 yr old girl, there dont seem to be much hope for the criminals !

disgusting, barbaric, not amused at all

I hope that little girls ends up being ok too,

To me it does sound like the mother is at the end of her tether, but it does make you wonder if because she said its ok to taser the child, what else is going on? I mean who suggested it in the first place? I think it is very extreem and I seriously dont approve and I if I was the local child services I would be considering looking for signs of abuse, ideally from both perspectives.

anne xx

What i think too Annie, somethings not right !

I don't really have an issue with the girl being 10 and tasered....it depends what she was doing....(look at the Jamie Bulger killers...some kids as young as 9 are using knives...) If a animal is out of control no matter what age then it would have to be controlled....so would a person...of any age....we don't know what she was doing.....maybe it was for her own safety...and that of the officer.

I do agree though that for a child to be that out of control the problem lies with how she has been raised...the parents are the ones to blame but as always with that sort of person they will try and shift the blame onto someone else....(the officer)

What if the girl had done something horrific to the mother or herself....then people would have been saying "why didn't the officer do something"...he did do something and he is still in the wrong.

Get with the programme, it's 2009.

Ask my mum if she wanted a taser when I was a kid and I bet she would have preferred a taser over the wooden spoon.

Maybe i'd be a different man these days.

Sure there is cynicism in this post, but apparently we cant discipline kids these days.

Bring on the kids taser, (perhaps 15,000 volts rather that 30,000)

I think you have raised some valid points Angie and the answer to your question the child was kicking and hitting out so badly she did in fact injure the police officer. I do feel that the officer was put in a bad situation, one in which it was hard to win so to speak. But I still think being tasered is too extreem. What about he psychological effects on the child? would you trust your mother if she allowed this to happen to you? Are the emotional/behavioural issues medical if so how are they being dealt with? And more importantly how has it managed to go this far out of control?

anne xx

The police were called because she was having a paddy and wouldn't take a shower??? Have I read this wrong?

We don't really know the full story here, or the full extent of her emotional problems or behaviour issues.

When I taught in special school one of my pupils used to take around 7 specially trained staff to restrain them; and that person still regularly injured us. How would one police officer be expected to deal with that?

Taser does seem harsh, but I doubt it was done lightly. The police aren't completely stupid after all lol.

What child likes having a bath or shower, let it go dirty, no harm in that but a taser it's disgusting. If that was over here the kid would be on to Childline in a shot!

It wasn't that many years ago that children were being caned in school by teachers, and parents would have apologised to the teachers for the behaviour of their children rather than trying to sue them.