Cop uses taser on father and baby trying to leave hospital

Houston Tx:
This story is really remarkable, not just because of outcome but also what caused it.
A couple with no apparent child abuse charges in their past try to leave a hospital with their newborn baby and a cop uses a taser on the father who is holding the baby.
I didnt realize that there was a law in Texas that gives a hospital and the Police Dept the authority to do this.
By the way, there is no mention of the baby,s life being in danger by leaving the hospital and there is also no mention of them having ever neglected a child.
Arent people allowed to have babies at home? I never heard of a family being convicted of not going to the hospital to have a baby. So how is the hospital and this OFF DUTY-cop justified in using any kind of force to stop them from leaving after theyve delivered?
More often than ever before, I am seeing evidence of the beginnings of a police state. A state where health care and govt officials believe they have the right to tell a family how to raise a child and then use force or other types of discipline when they dont agree with their decisions.
This isnt the only example ive heard or read, its just the latest one. There are numerous storys like this out there, just use google for more.
I know that some on here will mock my opinions but as a parent i really dont care.

Source

HOUSTON — In a confrontation captured on videotape, a hospital security guard fired a stun gun to stop a defiant father from taking home his newborn baby, sending both man and child crashing to the floor.

Now the man says the baby girl suffers from head trauma because she was dropped.

"I've got to wonder what kind of moron would Tase an adult holding a baby," said George Kirkham, a former police officer and criminologist at the University of California-Berkeley. "It doesn't take rocket science to realize the baby is going to fall."

The trouble began in April when Williams Lewis, 30, said he and his wife felt mistreated by staff at the Woman's Hospital of Texas so they decided to leave. Hospital employees told him doctors would not allow it, but Lewis picked up the baby and strode to a bank of elevators.

The elevators would not move because wristband sensors on each baby shut off the elevators if anyone takes an infant without permission.

I am seeing evidence of the beginnings of a police state. A state where health care and govt officials believe they have the right to tell a family how to raise a child and then use force or other types of discipline when they dont agree with their decisions.

Lets not go over the top here. Some idiot makes a horrible decision and its the start of a police state? Who knows what they security guard was told. Did he know it was the father? There are all kinds of info that Im sure we havent been made privy to just yet.

In the end it could be what I said....some jerk decides to use his taser in what can be considered a criminal manner.

How that equates to the entire country lining up to be run by a police state is a bit of a stretch.

Since the elevator couldn't open, I don't see this as just a horrible decision, a off duty cop who is a security guard should have had training and would have known this infant would be injured.
What was he thinking?

I hope the infant is allright and that she gets tested, and that she doesn't end up having seizures 20 years from now due to the head injury.

I see a legit lawsuit here.

The cop should be fired and charged with assault. This story sickens me to the core. Cops these days seem to think they can taser anyone for any reason whatsoever. If I was the person who was tasered and my baby was injured because of some dimwitted cop I would probably have assault charges laid on me by the cop because he would get a damn good beating thats for sure.

I also agree with the previous poster. It is the mans child, not the hospitals. He may leave with his own child at any time.

My son was born last year in a hospital in Orlando, Fl, and the security was crazy. You need to get a pic ID, then pass two guards, then on each floor if a child is moved a certain distance from the crib, the alarm goes off. Seems that a flash from a cell phone will set it off also. It was a long week.

The senselessness of using a Tazer on a man holding a baby, with them bieng the father, is ridiculous. This is not the beginning of a police state but an ignorant officer playing "johnny lawbreaker" and doing what he wants.

When I see a medical facility working in coordination with law enforcement to deny a families right to leave with their child, it reminds me of the story a couple of years ago when a parent was arrested and charged for not medicating her child with Ritalin. In that case though, it was an "educator" and I use that term lightly, that went to Law Enforcement.
There is also the case of another family here in Texas that was forced by a Judge to give their daughter chemotherapy.
There are more but those are the couple that stick in my mind right now.
You can call me crazy all you want but what I see is the State digging its way further and further into our family's lives and thinking that they own our children.
This isnt so much about what the cop did, even though cops are taze happy all over the country but this more about what the Hospital did by forbidding the parents from leaving with their child.

by the way, I had a son in 1993 and a daughter in 97 and I would be pretty damn mad if I wasnt allowed to walk outside holding one of my chidlren.
At these hospitals all we had for security were matching bracelets with some kind of matching code in them.


[edit on 8/15/2007 by Kr0n0s]