As reported last week, an Arkansas police officer was suspended, not because he used a Taser on a ten year old girl (reportedly with the permission of the child’s mother), but because he did not record the incident with an attachable video camera. The report stated that the girl in question was ”violently kicking and verbally combative” when the officer attempted to intervene in a domestic dispute between her and the mother and the adults decided that a short shock from the stun-gun would be preferable, because forcefully trying to restrain the girl was more likely to result in injury to someone. Accordingly, the officer applied “less than a second” of shock to the girl, handcuffed her and took her away.
According to the local police chief, stun-guns can help safely subdue people who are endangering themselves and/or others. ”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,” the chief said. The officer was suspended for seven days, with pay, for violating the department policy requiring use of a video camera when operating a Taser. The girl is being cared for in a local youth shelter.
We mentioned in an earlier post that Taser International recently introduced the AXON (Autonomous eXtended On-Officer Network), a video recording system that could be worn on the body and discussed how a pilot program in the United Kingdom that used video recorders in conjunction with stun-guns resulted in reduced claims of abuse against law enforcement officers and increased numbers of guilty pleas. Recorders not only serve as a deterrent to stun-gun abuse, but also provide evidence that proper procedures were followed throughout the incident.
Mobile video systems have made strong in-roads into the transportation market, with a large number already installed in police and first-responder’s vehicles. This article demonstrates the growing trend to push these technologies into man-portable, wearable systems as they become smaller and less expensive.
