A 9-year-old handcuffed girl was swearing, thrashing and attempting to kick out a patrol car window when a South Tucson police sergeant used a stun gun to subdue her..
The girl is 4 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 85 pounds.
The Taser administers 50,000 volts and four-thousandths of an amp. It can be used in contact with a person or through two probes connected to 21-foot wires fired out of a cartridge. The shock overrides the central nervous system and causes complete, involuntary muscle contraction.
An official with the Scottsdale company that manufactures the Taser told the Star earlier this week that the stun guns have been used on children in other incidents nationally, but they do no more harm to children than adults and often result in less-serious injuries.
story
~It's a judgement call. Police officers are professionally trained to use appropriate force and kids are more limber and more resilient than adults(?) Although I found the taser manufacturer's statement unnerving: "often result in less-serious injuries" sounds to me a little like "always results in some sort of injury". Not as reassuring as the other experts quoted in the article. (Can a 85 pound kid kick out a car window? Only (after being tasered) in Tuscon, Arizona?)