Indiana Police Tase 10-Year-Old (With Full Incident Reports)

Lucky them. Just kidding. Although I certainly know that 10-year-olds can be to “unruly” what a close-range shotgun blast is to “lethal.” Oops. Got a little violent there (I’m applying fora job with Sarah Palin’s Facebook team). “Martinsville police say the officers were called Tuesday to the home, where they had gone several times on reports that the boy was combative and trying to harm other children and caretakers,” Fox News reports. “The department says that when officers arrived they found the boy out of control, hitting and kicking and refusing to listen to the officers. The department says the officers then used a stun gun and slapped the boy [note: in the reverse order]. Assistant Police Chief Dan Riffel says the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department will conduct a complete investigation.” We contacted the Martinsville Police after this morning’s press conference. They faxed us a statement (IN ALL CAPS) and the incident reports. Download the pdf here. Bottom line: things got out of control after an epithet was uttered. I’ve transcribed the relevant part of the “investigation narrative” after the jump.

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New Zealand Moving Towards Arming Police

Once upon a time, England was known for the fact that its police didn’t carry firearms. At least by Americans, whose law enforcement officials have been armed and dangerous for well over a hundred years. The UK’s rep for non-ballistic solutions to criminal problems outlasted the reality. British police began the transition with specially-trained armed response units, steadily and inexorably moving towards in-car weaponry for increasing numbers of police, to po-po strolling the streets of The City with machine guns at the ready. Meanwhile, New Zealand has maintained the now-extinct tradition of unarmed police. But political pressure to arm the long arm of the law is growing. The New Zealand Herald reports that a recent violent attack against the police in otherwise sleepy Ngaruawahia—a confrontation that left two police officers with serious injuries—has added fuel to the debate over whether or not Kiwi cops should carry.

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Taser to SF: We’ll Be Here When You Figure It Out

Yesterday, the San Francisco Police Commission rejected the Chief’s request to arm his force with Tasers. The Commission was worried about the lethality of the world’s most famous non-lethal weapon. While ambulance chasers lawyers have shadowed Taser International since the company began, the company has fended them off. Aside from a loss in Arizona back in ’08—where the judge ruled that Taser was 15 percent responsible for a civilian’s death—Taser has prevailed in court. In fact, the company recently “celebrated” the 100th failed attempt to tag them with a wrongful death lawsuit. After The City by the Bay decided to keep Tasers out of law enforcement’s arsenal, I contacted the company for a statement. And a statement I received, courtesy Steve Tuttle, Vice President of Communications:

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