Bathe or Tase: Police Officer Tasers 10-Year-Old Girl Who Refused to Take Shower

Arkansas police officer Dustin Bradshaw, used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl at the mother’s request after the little girl refused to take a shower and refused to obey him.

Bradshaw went to the house on a domestic disturbance call and found the girl on the floor screaming and refusing to listen to her mother.

Bradshaw proceeded to try to arrest the little girl, who kicked and resisted. He says that one kick hit him in the groin and he tasered the 10-year-old girl.

The girl has emotional problems, according to her father.

Most people would find tasering a little girl to be inexcusable and brutal but not Fort Smith Police Chief Jim Noggle. He insisted that Bradshaw was acting properly and even protecting her by shooting her with a taser. He has stated that, if she had not been tasered, Bradshaw might have broken her arms or legs in placing her into custody, here.

So that appears the full range of responses to an “unruly child,” as Noggle put it, is a broken arm or a tasing by deputies.

The little girl was charged with disorderly conduct.

It appears that no one is too old (here, here, here, here and here) or too young (here, here, here, here and here).

For the full story, click here and here.

15 Responses to “Bathe or Tase: Police Officer Tasers 10-Year-Old Girl Who Refused to Take Shower”


  1. 1 Anonmously Yours 1, November 19, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    Hmm, CPS sounds like they have work waiting for this family.

    The police force??? What ever happened to Jimmy Hoffa, Sr.? Lining the streets, fish bait, supporting pillar of a bridge? Sounds appropriate to me. The Ice man commeth.

  2. 3 CEJ 1, November 19, 2009 at 1:44 pm

    This police officer Dustin Bradshaw and this chief Jim Noogle are meeping meeps! I don’t care much for the parents either. She is a ten year old child, will someone please call CPS!

  3. 4 J Smith 1, November 19, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    Here we go again.
    Too many cases of cops finding a reason to use tasers.
    Like a kid with a new toy they can’t wait to play with. Even in cases that so call “warrent” their use – what did we use before these things came along? Would it be unthinkable to use other methods?

  4. 5 Mike Spindell 1, November 19, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    Were I still a CPS supervisor I would have immediately gone to court to remove this girl from the home. The mother called the police because her 10 year old wouldn’t take a shower. To me that is prima facie evidence of parental incompetence. Trouble is I imagine the Foster Care system in Arkansas is no better. Now as to this police officer he is an incompetent and should be fired. He arrested and tased a 10 year old for not listening to her mother?
    Any decent LEO would have said sorry Maam this is outside my range of duty.

  5. 6 Flipkid 1, November 19, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    Let me get this straight: a couple of loser parents who can’t control their 10-YEAR-OLD GIRL call the cops to clean up their mess (so to speak)? Jeezus… when are we going to start requiring training, testing, and licensing for people who want to have children?

    The cop was an idiot for even responding to the call, and when he got there and saw what the actual “problem” was, he should have cited the mother for a filing a false police report. Don’t the Fort Smith police have anything better to do, like, I dunno, actually fight crime????

  6. 7 TomD.Arch 1, November 19, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    “Well, ya see, normally we beat children mercilessly round here .. you know, broken bones, internal bleeding, all that stuff. But we got these new fangled shocker thingys, so electrocuting the kid was for her own good…”

    Really?

  7. 8 GWLawSchoolMom 1, November 19, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    oh come on. lets be honest. those of us who are parents have certainly wished more than once during some marathon tantrum for a purse-sized taser. I know I did.
    but…. and this is important.
    I never did get a taser. i never used any weapons on my kid,including my hand
    of course that doesn’t mean I never wanted to jump out of a window or leave her on the side of the road with a sigh that read “better yours than mine”
    but then she’d do something lovely like smile and tell me I’m the best mommy in the world. which is always good for a $50 or tuition at a fancy school

  8. 9 yankee 1, November 19, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    “The officer had been called to the girl’s home in Ozark, Arkansas, by her mother because she was behaving in an unruly manner and refusing to take a shower.”

    Um. So people get to call the cops when their parenting skills run out?

  9. 10 Excited-Delirium.com 1, November 19, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    My Spidey Sense tells me that there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Mommy is divorced and works part time as a Detention Officer. Officer gets involved with parenting a (naked, by some reports) 10-year-old little girl. It’s either strangely perverted, or it’s a family-like setting. I prefer the latter explanation. Which implies that maybe there’s more to the story (relationship-wise) than has been reported so far.

    Pure speculation.

  10. 11 rafflaw 1, November 19, 2009 at 11:47 pm

    The officer should be fired and the chief along with him and the child should be removed from this derelict parent. It would be for the parent’s good. It would prevent her having to have her shot the next time the child acted up.

  11. 12 harlan 1, November 19, 2009 at 11:58 pm

    This is the sickest thing I have heard today.. We as a country are in big trouble when these actions are defended by our police..

  12. 13 Cowpunk 1, November 21, 2009 at 2:29 am

    It seems likely that the police officer is a boyfriend of the mother, or knows her well. His own statement shows that he tried to help carry the girl to the shower. Forget about the taser for a second, what the hell kind of cop would do that-force a little girl to take a shower? If the 10-year old was undressed at any time during this debacle, it would add a whole new level of depravity to the officer’s actions. And what the hell does forced bath-time have to do with “maintaining order” and “keeping the peace” as the police chief put it?

  13. 14 Simone Benedict 1, November 24, 2009 at 12:32 am

    um this very bizarre story took place in Arkansas need i say more


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