Restrictions on police stun guns originally uploaded by publik15
In a somewhat similar move to when the Apple Valley Police Department threatened the use of a taser on a physically restrained citizen, a recent incident at Farmington High School has me wondering what everyone thinks about how a situation involving an unruly student was handled by the police officer stationed at the high school.
According to the Dakota County Criminal Complaint (TXT, PDF), an 18 year old (12 days after her 18th birthday) allegedly caused a knee injury to the Farmington High School liaison officer while she was attempting to squirm her way out of his grip.
From the complaint:
When told that there were allegations she had assaulted another female student, the defendant immediately went from rational to completely out of control and screamed, “That other bi _ _h had said she was going to kill me and I ain’t going to let that happen from anyone!” The defendant continued to escalate both verbally and physically, grabbed her purse and fled from L.M.’s office while screaming, “This is f _ _king bullshit and I don’t have to take it”. Officer Dau then followed the defendant Daun the hallway and attempted to grab her arm before she got into the main population of students. As Officer Dau grabbed the defendant’s right arm, she screamed, “You better f _ _king let go of me.” The defendant’s conduct and loudness caused several students to leave their seats and see what was happening. The defendant jerked away from Officer Dau and sprinted Daun the hall near the southwest corner of the commons room at which time she turned around and yelled, “Don’t f _ _king touch me.” Officer Dau then advised that she was under arrest and that she needed to come with him. Officer Dau then took her right arm and placed it in a partial “gooseneck” restraint to get the defendant to comply. The defendant continuously struggled with and screamed at Officer Dau.
After using a restraint which is used to inflict pain to cause compliance, the accused “shoved” the officer and ran towards the woman that supposedly threatened her earlier. While running away, the officer again grabbed the girl’s arm and fell when she twisted free. The accused was finally subdued after she was threatened with the possible fatal use of a taser.
Later, after the officer reported swelling in his knee, he had the injured area checked via X-ray which indicated no fractures but the swelling continued to the point where a felony was filed against the student for obstructing the legal process while causing “substantial bodily harm”.
Does this Farmington High School senior deserve a felony for the officer’s injury that occurred while she was attempting to break free from the pain inflicted by his restraint technique? Go ahead and share your opinion on this topic as I’m interested in knowing what you think!
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May 28th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Don’t know anymore than what’s in the complaint, but if the woman acted as described and continued to resist, attempt to flee and threaten injury to others, including the officer trying to restrain her, I think threat of taser use and a felony complaint (which can always be reduced) for resisting arrest and injuring an officer is warranted.
Will be interesting to see what else we learn about this incident.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
When you become an adult (agewise) then you have to act like an adult and when you don’t you have to pay adult consequences. Grow up.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I agree with Tim. If the events occurred as described, then absolutely it is warranted.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I agree with the first three comments.
For one thing, this is completely different than the restrained guy that got tasered (the previous incident referenced). In this case you have a suspect accused of assaulting another student then fleeing a police officer in a school. What should the police officer have done? Just let her go back to class? Maybe head to the cafeteria? The police officer hadn’t searched her yet, he didn’t know if she had a weapon or what her state of mind was (although apparently she was angry and upset enough to have assaulted a fellow student). I have a feeling that wouldn’t have been a very popular response.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Good thing this was F’town and not AV. You know that AV has bad motherfuckers there and this wouldn’t have ended well.
But seriously, resisting an officer is a crime. Go figure.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
From the description of what happened, I think the felony arrest and the taser threat were justified. I do think tasers are used when they’re not necessary sometimes, but in this case, I think it would have been warranted if it came down to it.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Oh please. There are less violent and safer ways to stop a fleeing student than electrocuting them.
Another teen taser death story from CNN today under the same sort of circumstances. Would this have been a different discussion if this girl had been the center of that story?
May 28th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Seriously. “Bad motherfuckers” is perhaps the best moniker ever. Maybe Farmington is trying to keep the bad motherfuckers in Apple Valley so it is stepping up police activity starting with the children (tame the bad motherfuckers before it is too late)!
I can only hope some enterprising young Farmington student will seize the opportunity to create some “DON’T TAZ ME, BRO” tshirts
May 28th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I wouldn’t freak out about threatening to use a tazer. Just words in an effort to calm the situation; we have no idea if there was true intent.
For the record, my opinion is that the tazer is a great alternative to shooting someone with bullets. Not to be used when a good old fashioned whoop ass is sufficient.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
JP,
I was responding to Tim’s statement that he thought the use of a taser would be warranted in this situation.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I say no felony. If they only do it to scare her, but then drop it that’s fine, but there is no way that you give a sassy senior who just got in a cat fight a criminal record and possible jail time over this. We can’t afford to put people in jail for things like this. The kid needs to grow up and be punished but a felony is too much in my opinion.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
In the story you linked to, Bill, it doesn’t sound to me like the use of a taser was warranted, although it’s not fully clear. If he was just not coming along when told but otherwise not currently endangering others, then yeah, it should have been dealt with differently.
Now I’m not an LEO, but from what I know of the Use of Force Continuum, it was followed in this situation in Farmington. Tasers do unfortunately come with a very small chance of injury or death, but so do other nonlethal methods; it’s just that the taser stats are the ones that get brought up. People have died from allergic reactions to mace and pepper spray, not to mention “hard” strikes meant to only incapacitate. And if you made me choose between getting shot with a taser or getting smacked by a baton, well, I’d take the 50K volts in that I’d have less chance of being badly and possibly permanently injured.
May 29th, 2009 at 6:56 am
From what I hear, in the direct reports from my two high school kids at Apple Valley High School.. School’s a lot different now than it was, even a few years ago. There’s a culture of violence and angery kids that is taking over these schools, even Apple Valley Middle school, which, according to both my boys is “run by nasty gang of girls who the administrators and teachers are afraid off”. Meaning, these kids do what ever they want and the teachers work around them…
I hear ya on the taz, but on the other hand, if the girl flew off the handle as described, and I’m inclined to believe it, and conintued to resist throw her down and jack her up with cuffs as far as I’m concerned. Also, make sure we throw her out of school for good.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Interesting. If this is the case then the officer should have arrested her immediately and put her in cuffs at that time.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:19 am
12 days ago she was a juvie, now she’s an adult. just ask her. she made her bed as the saying goes. it seems officer friendly tried everything but the taser to get her to comply. my take is she made ALL the wrong decisions, she can pay the price.
tim says,” And if you made me choose between getting shot with a taser or getting smacked by a baton”, don’t forget the third choice, yes sir, no sir, i’ll gladly leave with you, sir.
rubber bullets anyone?
bb
May 29th, 2009 at 8:24 am
I guess we’re concentrating on the taser issue. My biggest question was whether she deserved a felony because a copy twisted his knee.
I’m sorry but there are very few instances where I could believe that an adult male police officer should be injured in a felonious way by an 18 year old female in high school without the use of a weapon.
I guess it’s a little hard for me to swallow that what appears to be an ineffective officer can complain that his swollen knee could be attributed to this girl and not his lack of skills in controlling an unruly high schooler.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:35 am
well, did she get taser’d or not? i guess the threat was/is always there. all this WOMAN had to do is play by the rules. then there’s no issue.
bb
May 29th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I was under the impression that all of the following were bad things, and might result in a felony:
Assaulting an officer.
Threatening violence on an officer.
Fleeing an officer.
I would love to agree with those of you who say there are better ways to handle these things, but we live in a society where people dont take responsiblity for thier actions, and at some point examples need to be set. Sure, this was an 18 year old girl. What if next time its a heavyweight wrestler, or a football player, etc. Boy, girl, 17, 18, 19. It makes no difference to me. In the environment we live in, you cant set any sort of example that might make kids think its EVER ok to commit violence to a police officer.
Bill, the fact that she hurt is knee is actually not material in my opinion. If I walk up to a cop and punch him in his kevlar vest and it causes no injury at all, I should still go to jail.
It sucks to charge this girl with a felony and ruin her life, but what if 10 other kids realize that there are consequences to thier actions and it saves someone elses life?
May 29th, 2009 at 8:42 am
The charge seems appropriate to me.
As the seriousness/permanence of the injury becomes more apparent and the investigation/process plays out, they can reduce the charges and the student can enter some sort of diversionary program or plead to a lesser charge. There are a whole series of discretionary steps in this process.
She’ll end up with some sort of misdemeanor, community mediation-type thing and the whole thing wiped from her record if she stays straight for a year or two.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:47 am
While in most cases I am on the side of the police when dealing with someone who is out of control, I really think that the police officer in this case used poor judgment and showed an apparent lack of training when he handled the situation.
It wasn’t until the officer used a painful hold (apparently incorrectly) to get her to comply that she broke free and he injured himself. This is nothing more than a trumped up charge (and as MSPD says above, one that will likely be reduced later) and thus IMHO one that wasn’t necessary in the first place.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:11 am
/shrug
I guess I am unwilling to say that a cop who was trying to prevent violence was in the wrong without knowing more info.
It sounds like he underestimated her, that I would agree with. But if thats the path you want to go down, then to be on the safe side, and not risk underestimating the violence/strenght of a possibly dangerous person, he should have just tasered her and been done with it.
Everything we do, every action we take has ramifications and consequences. You are saying that because he did not initially incapacitate her, it was ok for her to resist and cause injury to him.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I’m saying that he caused her physical pain (the gooseneck) and I’m not surprised by her (likely) involuntary response or squirming to get away.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I can totally see this situation playing out in my mind. Oh, and I agree with you 100%, the cop should have cuffed her right there and been done with it. This girl, if the story is accurate, is walking around with a hair trigger set. There’s a ton of these kids out there. And when she went off, an 18 year old afterall in size and strenght is an adult. A full sized adult not a kid who can be controled simply by grabbing their arm, I’m sure the cop panicked a bit
Right? No. Scary reality? You bet your ass. Taser material? Probably not, but suggesting that he could have just talked her down or restrained her isn’t realistic. Felony? I don’t know about a felony I don’t know enough about what makes an assault a felony or not.. but the fact that it occured in a school and that an officer was attacked, it was an attack the moment she flew off on stopmed out, makes me lean in that direction.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I think she deserved a felony after reading the description.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Bill, he caused her physical pain because she physically fled from him twice. She had already assaulted another student. She swore at him and became violent. She moved from an isolated area without innocent bystanders into a heavily populated area. The officer had no way of knowing if she had a knife, or a gun, or mace, or any other weapon.
Again, I think the officers only mistake was that he underestimated how this girl would respond, and the strenght/violence of her response.
It scares the hell out of me to think of what my child is going to go through when he starts school. I would have no problem at all with a zero tolerance policy around violence.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Time after time I am surprised to see / read people run away or otherwise resist cops, especially if they properly identify themselves and say, “Stop, police!” Um, duh. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, the moment you resist arrest you’ve committed a crime.
Obviously I’ve never been part of a group that has been treated poorly by cops, which I think could drastically change one’s response.
In this situation, given the details we have, if she had not been subdued and allowed to return back to class, there’s a good chance there would have been another incident later in the day or later in the week, and that would have made the papers and the school would have looked really bad. This is why schools have zero tolerance policies.
I’m with the others who said that attempting to injure the officer in any way warrants charges of some kind. I don’t think she should get a lesser charge because she’s a girl or because she just turned 18. That would be completely unfair.
Perhaps what is really warranted in this situation is a little lesson for school kids on how to respond appropriately to cops. Just a thought. We do it in elementary school; why not continue that on in high school? A little reminder that, hey, you’re 18 (or close to it) now, and the cops are going to treat you differently. Here’s the law and here’s how to appropriately respond, and here’s the phone number of legal aid if you get into a situation.
Flame away.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
That I can certainly agree with 100%!
May 29th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
There was no threat of escape, the officer knew the student, so the arrest could have been made at any time. Was there an immediate threat of violence against the other student or others? If so, then the attempt of arrest was justified. Otherwise, the officer needs to know when to call for backup, because it doesn’t sound like he had control of the situtation.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Chad said:
Well, I guess Chad is a member of the Bad Motherfuckers Club!!
;)
May 29th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Where do I sign up for the South Metro B.M.C. Mrs. M???
May 29th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Well, what have you done lately that would qualify you as a B.M.C. member? Have you broken into any dwellings and left stinky socks in the homeowner’s couch? Have you punched a cop in the chest for the hell of it? Have you ordered a Coca Cola at a chain restaurant? Have you eaten Dunkin Donuts in your ’seats 18 comfortably’ gas guzzler parked/running in the cross walk near the HOC? Have you written any fake news releases that make regular readers do a double take only to realize you’ve written something clever and witty and laugh out loud-able?
You might already be a member and you just didn’t know it because you haven’t been issued an official South Metro B.M.C. tshirt.
May 29th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I’m sorry but BMC just sounds gross ;)
May 29th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Before I read the other comments I will comment. I think it will work out better.
Certainly, a felony charge is called for. When an officer of the law orders you to comply, you do so, or face the charges. Fail to comply, and continue such that the officer is injured in attempting to restrain you, and you just comitted a felony. Pretty cut and dry.
Using or drawing down with a taser? It depends on department policy. My guess is the officer found that verbal orders were not being responded to. The citizen was then placed under arrest and attempted to flee rather than complying. The officer attempted restraint which the person under arrest resisted, and escaped only after injuring the officer. That escalates things. to where, that’s up to department policy.
She will want to get a good lawyer and either find a way to get the felony charge reduced (pleading to something lessor perhaps) or, plead guilty to the felony as part of a deal in which the judge will order sentence to serve, plus so many years of probation. Upon the successful completion of sentence to serve, and probation, the felony will take on one of two aspects. In the best circumstance, the felony is set aside, never to be on her record. In the second best circumstance, the felony is reduced to misdemeanor and will stay on her record as a misdemeanor.
The last option is often the result of first offender mid level felonies. the first option is for the low level felonies. Since it involved an officer of the law, it may be considered mid level.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Should a citizen be able to disobey a officer of the law as described and resist arrest leading to injury of the officer and not be charged with a felony? Come on… trumped up charge? not in my book.
May 30th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Mike wins. You can add all the excuses or spin you want, but it boils down to the fact that an adult assaulted another person (was the other student a minor?), then resisted arrest (2 times), fled from an officer, and finally assaulted an officer. In the course of fleeing the officer she also moved from a secure area into an area with innocent bystanders, possibly endangering the people around her.
She should be charged with a felony. Everyone should know she was charged with a felony, and she should have the opportunity, as Mike detailed, to have it expunged or set aside if she can show that she is a responsible adult and has learned from her previous mistakes.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
[...] it and I found absolutely nothing remotely newsworthy or even close to what was described when an unruly Farmington High School senior allegedly injured an on campus police officer during a scuffle. I must admit that it’s a little confusing to me why the local media would decide that an [...]