A New Mexico policeman is accused in a new lawsuit of tasering a 10-year-old child on a playground after the boy refused to clean his patrol car. The lawsuit has been filed by a guardian ad litem, Rachel Higgins, and accuses New Mexico Department of Public Safety and Motor Transportation Police Officer Chris Webb of the battery on the child.
Higgins alleges that Webb visited the boy’s school as part of a May 4 “career day” visit to Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School. The complaint alleges:
“Defendant Webb asked the boy, R.D., in a group of boys, who would like to clean his patrol unit. A number of boys said that they would. R.D., joking, said that he did not want to clean the patrol unit.
Defendant Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, ‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’”
The Complaint says that Webb then shot “two barbs into R.D.’s chest” delivering 50,000 volts to the boy who weighed less than 100 lbs. “Defendant Webb pulled the barbs out [of] the boy’s chest, causing scarring where the barbs had entered the boy’s skin that look like cigarette burns on the boy’s chest. . . . Instead of calling emergency medical personnel, Officer Webb pulled out the barbs and took the boy to the school principal’s office.”
The lawsuit is seeking punitive damages for battery, failure to render emergency medical care, excessive force, unreasonable seizure, and negligent hiring, training, supervision and retention.
News reports indicate that the officer insisted that his taser went off accidentally. However, while this would undermine criminal charges, the question remains of the disciplining of the officer who drew a weapon as a joke on a child. The attorneys submitted a letter from an expert finding no likely malfunctioning of the weapon.
Source: CBS and Courthouse
Holy shit!
What Blouise said.
This guy is clearly a menace and has zero business wearing a badge. County orange maybe, but not a badge.
Great lesson for the kids. Hope the lawsuit turns out to be a better lesson for the police department.
Bears repeating:
‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’
“The Complaint says that Webb then shot “two barbs into R.D.’s chest” delivering 50,000 volts to the boy who weighed less than 100 lbs.”
Bullies with badges. He needs to be arrested (tazered several times in the process), fired, charged with battery and whaterever else applies and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Of course this semi literate moron will not be fired and will probably be complimented by his ignorant and racist felloiw cops.
Oh darn, tons of witnesses. How is the “I feared for my life” defense going to work? Not to worry, public sector union will figure it out.
Disgusting story. I have to echo the calls for this officer’s removal. I hope New Mexico and the officer have to dig very deep into their pockets to pay for this atrocious act.
Gotta lose his job for this. Just has to…he could be the nicest guy in the world, but he’s on a barney fife level of incompetence and we just can’t afford incompetent police.
Kids injected with fear.
What a great teacher you are not, officer Webb.
Jack Webb would not have approved:
I’d like to have read that the adults who witnessed this crime immediately descended upon Mr. Webb, beat him like a rented mule, placed him in his own handcuffs, then placed him under citizen’s arrest. Instead, we’ll read about how the city will settle with the victim for an undisclosed amount, while Mr. Webb, after serving a brief token suspension, resumes his duties.
Nothing to see here, folks, now move along.
How about assault and battery charges and loss of his job.
I’m pretty sure it looked like that little sht was pulling a gun! I’m sure the officer was backed into a corner and had no way out!
Anyone else here white & old enough to remember being told “Policemen are your friend”?
Frankly,
Those ten year olds are tough little bast**ds. The officer was defending his life and will be commended for his not using deadly force.
The original quote filed on the comments column, had the notation that the child was knocked unconscious and in a coma . Despite that, emergency services was not called and the officer bore the child’s body to the principal’s office.
Unconscious. Tough ten year olds? Could have been a dead ten year old.
I am still medieval. Ten tazering for misuse thereof.
Twenty more for using it on an unarmed child.
How do they pick these idiots pick the ones who do Career Day.
Kids at ten years are either seeing everybody as a hero, or seeing them as “stupid” adults.
This is a great read for those of you who think that tazers aren’t dangerous. I WAS going to say that it’s fools like this who give LEOs a bad name. However, this now seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
We have sooooo many monsters like this running loose within the society: We have New hampshire State lawyers like Jeanne M. kincaid sending porn to a child, and being provided the coverage for such from guess?
The immorality, and debauchery does not get any worse: But as long as the judiciary continues to sponsor corruption, and uses the citizens (many of them government workers under subtle threat of job loss) more of this will continue
True to form, kid get scars and PTSD, the cop gets 3 days off.
“Following the May 4 incident, Webb, who claims he accidentally discharged the Taser, was given only a three-day suspension.”
from Salon.com
Children must learn respect….. And what better way than using a taser…. Spare the taser use the rod… Police issued of course…..
What would be appropriate punishment?
(1) Allow the boy, RD, to taser the pig multiple times, as well as use the pig’s pepper spray.
(2) Ten years mprisonment at a minimum, and the pig be labelled a child abuser and a corrupt pig, then put in general population with all convicts knowing what he did. He probably wouldn’t last one year.
The Taser went off accidentally???
This is what would have had to happen for the Taser to be discharged…
1) The Taser would have had to had its safety mechanism switched from the OFF position, to the Fire position. This requires a thumb to push the switch from the down position to the upward position. All the Taser holsters that I have seen and used will automatically place the safety to the OFF/Safe position when they are inserted into the holster. It cannot be stored in the holster with the Taser in the Fire position. I don’t have specifics if the standard holster was used here.
2) Once the safety is in the Fire position, the trigger would have to be pulled in order to discharge the Taser.
In reading the Taser was inspected and found to be in proper order, I would opin there was no malfunction.
Speculation: The officer got into the habit of drawing the taser and throwing the safety OFF in the draw. THis is a not standard training He did not think of the Taser safety and discharged it. The trigger pull on a Taser is very light. He should not have put his finger on the trigger unless he intended to discharge it.
This does NOT excuse him from pulling out the Taser in the first place, which in my opinion in reading the above, there was totally no justification for pulling it on the boy to begin with.
Standard PR seems to be bury rhe corpse as quickly as possible before it begins to stink and draw attention.
Having done that give symbolic closure by “punishing” in a non-pynishing fashion. Then sit back snd block all attempts to dig up the corpse and do an autopsy.
First, he ENDANGERED that child and every other child in his vicinity. Second, he could have KILLED that child. This act appears willful on the part of the LEO and for that, he should lose his job and never be able to enter any other position in law enforcement ever again. The LEO is not mentally capable of acting responsibly in discharging his duties to the community. I hope the boy’s family sues for all they can get. That boy will need a lot of counseling to ever be able to trust law enforcement.
The officer has committed a felony. He needs to be arrested… Even if it was an accident, it is STILL a felony….. AND child abuse too…. Where us the court on this…. Take it Federal, See: Instructions For Filing Complaint Under Civil Rights Act Or Bivens Action…………
Ok lawyers out there. Come up to speed. A taser is a deadly weapon. The Superior Officer(s) issued this schmuck a taser. The municipality is on the hook for municipal liability for issuing tasers to schmucks and telling them to use it if deadly force is not warranted. Titile 42 United States Code, Section 1983 suit for violation of civil rights by an officer in his official capacity. Atty fees are authorized under Section 1988. You can sue the cop and the Superior Officer for punitive damages. Sky is the limit but limit it to something that will deter the cop and his Chief from doing this again. Not too many lawyers know about this genre of litigation. It is in their economic interest to learn. When all that is over, some cousin of electro boy should find this cop and electrocute him.
SeaNEyeDog, why don’t you visit Taser.com and read some of the countless independent medical research that has been conducted on tasers. I’m not defending this piece of crap since he obviously does not deserve to wear a badge, but a taser is not a deadly weapon.
To me it sounds like there was not intent to fire the thing. It makes no sense. But he was negligent and a moron for pulling it out and pointing it at the student and should be held accountable for that.