NEWS: 8 Month Pregnant Woman Assaulted by Police With Taser

Well I think rational discussion has gone out the window now.

There are those that are firmly entrenched in their belief that tazering the pregnant woman over a speeding ticket is acceptable. These letter of the law types I usually have zero problem with except when cases of enforcing the law endangers innocents - such as this.

How many heavily pregnant women resist signing speeding fines? Not that many I would assume. Is it really that out of the question to refrain from using force in this kind of situation? She wouldnt of stayed in the car all day (unless she was Lois from Malcolm In The Middle ) so let her have her stomp and issue her an arrest warrant for resisting arrest when she calms down. Same resolution could be had by telling her the scenario "charged with resisting a police officer" letting her go and following her home. Every ones happy, the cops get their purp, the unborn child isnt harmed.

But no, what do we see? Cops want lady to SIGN A BIT OF PAPER and she refuses so they send a bolt of electricity into her to STUN her. Do any of you understand whats a possible outcome in that situation? She could have a heart condition for all the police officers know. Stunning her stops her heart and the baby dies due to lack of oxygen, its more common than you can imagine. Yet, knowing the risks to the obviously pregnant woman, the cops tazer her - over a speeding ticket.

We all know that its the womans fault for putting the unborn into this but you need two sides to tango here. Maybe the woman wanted to lose the baby? Abortion by cop? The cops didnt have to lay a finger on her if they didnt want to you know. It wasnt that much of a serious offence.

[edit on 11/5/05 by subz]

I still do not quite get it.

You see lots of complaints on here about human rights issues in other countries and yet this seems ok to some.

People say that a woman getting a beating for having sex before marriage is wrong (and I agree) and yet electricuting a woman and unborn child for not sign ing a peice of paper/speeding is all good.

I really do not get it.

Kriz_4

Yes the cops tasering the woman sounds bad. but you have to remember that this was done as a last resort.
I mean think about it, all she had to do was sign the ticket which means that she acknowledges that she is being order to court.
The signature does not in any way imply guilt.
All this was explained to the woman.
The officers were ordered to take the woman into custody by thier supervisor.
The officers attempted to remove the woman form the vehicle but were not able to (strong woman!).
The woman was shown the taser. and had it demonstrated to her.
After all this she still refuses to co-operate.

If you were in the officers position, what would you have done differently? I suppose just to let her go. I am sorry, but this woman broke the law by speeding (12 miles over the speed limit) in a school zone. I have children who are in school and I get flaming angry when I see both men and women fly through these zones.
School zones are not there to inconvienance the drivers, they are there to protect our children! I wish there were enough officers around to enforce the speed limit in the school zone.

The woman was roughed up. Yes there could have been injury to her unborn. That does not mean that she be allowed to ignore the law. Ignore the lawful orders of the officers.

A number of times in this thread, it has been mentioned that the officers should ahve just let the woman go that this should have been approached at a later time (when the woman had settled down), that the woman was not thinking straight due to the hormones created by her pregnancy.

This is a disservice to both the officers as well as to each and every woman out there and goes to setback the womans liberation a 100 years! Women have been battling the misconsception by men that they are prisoners of their bodies. That their hormones control their thoughts, thier emotions etc. Arguments such as has been presented here in this thread backing the release of the woman and condemning the police due to the woman hormones is utterly ridiculous and demeaning to women.

If it is found that the owman should have been let go, the next thing you will hear is that a woman should have been let go because of PMS. Hey may be Eva (Ava never can remeber which one) Gabor can have her conviction overturned by claiming that she punched the cop because she was PMS'ing.

Hey we can even go so far as allowing people to break the law just because they are having a bad hair day!

Wow what a country this will be then!
The arguments so far against the police and for the women sound almost as bad as the threads started by GD!

Yep, the problem here is people not reading the article / previous responses and getting all caught up on the false notion that this is all "over a speeding ticket." It's not.

It's not like she was speeding, got pulled over, and then when she stopped her car, the cop asked for her license and registration and then tased her.

No, no.

She refused to sign the ticket.
"Sign it or we have to arrest you, ma'am. Signing it does not mean you're guilty, it just means you have to show up to court."
Nope.
"Ma'am, please just sign the ticket. We have to take you to jail if you do not sign the ticket."
Nope.
(Calls supervisor for advice.) "Ma'am, please step out of the car."
Nope.
"Ma'am, you are under arrest. If you don't step out of the car, we will have to force you out of the car."
Nope.
"Okay, you guys push her and I'll pull her."
Nope.
"Ma'am, this is a taser. Watch this. ZAP. That's what will happen if you don't relinquish your grasp on the steering wheel."
Nope.
"Don't make me do this, ma'am."
Nope.
"Come on, seriously, just get out of the damn car or sign the ticket or something."
Nope.
"I'm gonna do it!"
Nope.
"Seriously, on the count of three!"
Nope.
"1!"
Nope.
"2!"
Nope.
"Here it comes--"
Nope.
"I'm serious!"
Nope.
(bzzt.)

Everyone keeps talking about negotiators. Guys, ALL COPS are trained to deal with stubborn morons. Bring in a negotiator? Please. That's like a janitor (who is trained in dozens of cleaning arts) "bringing in" a guy who specializes in mop-sweeping to clean puke from a hallway.

Zip

Guys let me try and explain it visually:

heres the importance of the life/saftey of the unborn baby -> *

























heres the importance of the traffic ticket and everything that surrounds it -> *
heres the importance of what the woman was doing that needed to be punished ->*

No matter what happend the life of that baby should not of been put in any danger. The police should of sooner left the scene and done nothing before endangering that child.

Last post from me this is a circular argument.

[edit on 11/5/05 by subz]

Electrocuting a woman for refusing to sign a piece of paper is absurd. A country who's laws are such that people can point to these laws written by politicians and justify the electrocution of a woman who refuses to sign a piece of paper, needs to seriously think about their laws and the politicians making them.

It's really unbelievable what's happening in the USA these days.

She wasn't electrocuted. Come on.

This is the problem with 5 page long topics... Nobody even bothers to read the last page, let alone the first 4.

The punishment for speeding is monetary.
The punishment for refusing to allow yourself to be monetarily punished is physical imprisonment.
The punishment for resisting physical imprisonment is whatever it takes to physically imprison you. If tasing were harmful to fetuses then tasing would not be authorized on pregnant women.

This isn't some woman who is refusing to sit at the back of a bus, y'all. This is a woman who is refusing every care that the cops are providing her and her child.

Her baby was OF COURSE born completely healthy because it was completely unharmed by the tasing AS IT WOULD BE because tasing is NOT HARMFUL to fetuses when done correctly.

Zip

[edit on 11-5-2005 by Zipdot]

Unfortunately, my really poor choice of words may have negated the spirit of my previous post. Replace "electrocuted" with "providing a little electric shock treatment to" and "electrocution" with "electric shock treatment" and reread.

I'm not disagreeing that the law, as it is written, makes this acceptable. I'm saying that the laws need some work. "I'm sorry mam, but the law allows me to provide you with a little electric shock treatment if you continue to refuse to sign this piece of paper." If she was wielding a gun and threatening to let a few fly, than I might be okay with this approach.

To everyone who says she shouldn't have been tasered, have you every heard of personal responsibility? Or that there are consequences for every action? In the case of an unborn child, the mother is in control of that child, and she CHOSE to put it in danger. Don't blame the cops, as much as I dislike them; they did their job. The woman chose her action, and by doing so chose her consequence as well. It's not "someone else's fault," as too many try to whine and cry about when it comes to anything unfortunate, it was THE WOMAN'S fault, so why is there any debate? That's just how life is. We are all responsible for our actions, and our actions have consequences, be they good or bad. If you're old enough to post on here, you should have learned that LONG ago.

I don't think there's anything left to argue here. The people who have steadfastly opined that the cops are in the wrong here will continue to reduce the whole incident to its parts ("she got an electric shock because she refused to sign a little piece of paper! Pshaw!") and ignore the massive complexities of constitutional law, social contract, authority, safety, justice, responsibility, civilization, government, you name it.

The ticket may as well have read "Sign here if you don't want to go to jail" or "Sign here if you don't want to be forcefully ejected from your vehicle and arrested" or "Sign here if you want to take every precaution to see that your unborn daughter is safe from harm" or "Sign here if you want to TKAE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS."

"Sign here to accept a hearing that will investigate the allegation that you put childrens' lives in danger by barrelling through a school zone at deadly speeds."

...And she didn't sign it.

Oh, but it's just a little piece of paper! Come on, what's more important between that and the life of an unborn child?

Everybody agrees that the child's safety is more important than the speeding ticket. That's not the issue, and if you concentrate on that and try to make that the issue, then you have no one to argue against.

The issue is whether this is police brutality or if the police went overboard, or if this is "excessive use of force," and the evidence shows that the police did not go overboard and were not brutal to this woman, period. They used just enough force to get the "lady" out of her car and into the back of the cruiser. Everything else is sensationalism.

Zip

Originally posted by saturnine_sweet
To everyone who says she shouldn't have been tasered, have you every heard of personal responsibility? Or that there are consequences for every action? In the case of an unborn child, the mother is in control of that child, and she CHOSE to put it in danger. Don't blame the cops, as much as I dislike them; they did their job. The woman chose her action, and by doing so chose her consequence as well. It's not "someone else's fault," as too many try to whine and cry about when it comes to anything unfortunate, it was THE WOMAN'S fault, so why is there any debate? That's just how life is. We are all responsible for our actions, and our actions have consequences, be they good or bad. If you're old enough to post on here, you should have learned that LONG ago.

Are you aware of the police policy to call off some high speed car chases when they enter residential areas?

They are called off because there is an undue risk of injuring innocent people and the benefits of catching the criminal are far outweighed by the risks. The criminal gets away but the police wear it on the chin because the lives of others are more important than catching said fellon.

The same reasoning should been used here, yes it was the womans actions that started it all but they should not of been met with physical force because the unborn baby had no choice in the matter. The could of called the whole thing off purely for the protection of the unborn.

Zipdot, police are here to "serve and protect". How did the police "protect" the unborn child in this scenario? Thats the part that most of you seem to gloss over and try and redirect blame to the mother.

If the child was not in the mothers womb and could be removed from the situation do you not think the police would of moved the child before tazering their mother? Of course they would! Why? Because there would of been a risk that the child would of been harmed. The fact that the child WAS in the womb should not of changed the dynamics of the police obligation to "protect" the unborn child. Get me?

[edit on 11/5/05 by subz]

I do beleive that police should have some other recourse for this type incident...
Maybe an immediate revocation of drivers license, for not signing a ticket. Maybe impounding the car, at the owners expense, or requiring mental health services to come and "escort" her away for mandatory 24hr observation at her expense, or some such...
the policeman needed to find some other way to get her to comply, becuase violence was not needed... and now he might be guilty of child endangerment (much as he would if he ran over a child in a residencial neighborhood during a chase)

but women, pregnant or not, need to comply with the law... being pregnant doesn't make you a congressman...

Originally posted by subz
The same reasoning should been used here, yes it was the womans actions that started it all but they should not of been met with physical force because the unborn baby had no choice in the matter.

I swear, man, some people here act like the cops punched the lady in the stomach or something...

Zip

Zipdot, do you know anything about pregnancy?

The mother's heart has to pump blood to an almost fully grown baby as well as her own body. Add to that the stress of the situation and any other unknown ailments and tasing her could of stopped her heart.

There is an acknowledged risk in tazering a pregnant woman. Even if only 1 in 100 pregnant women would have an adverse reaction to a tazer the police should of weighed up the pro's and con's of it all.

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
I do beleive that police should have some other recourse for this type incident...
Maybe an immediate revocation of drivers license, for not signing a ticket. Maybe impounding the car, at the owners expense, or requiring mental health services to come and "escort" her away for mandatory 24hr observation at her expense, or some such...

1) Driving on a suspended license is a felony and would result in the woman being arrested. This would require that she be ejected from the vehicle.
2) Impounding the car implies that we would still need to get the woman out of the car somehow and she was not budging without a little help from Mr. Taser.
3) She was "escorted" away to jail by a "mental health professional." Remember, cops are well trained in dealing with all kinds of people, in all states of sanity.

the policeman needed to find some other way to get her to comply, becuase violence was not needed... and now he might be guilty of child endangerment (much as he would if he ran over a child in a residencial neighborhood during a chase)

Well, he's not. The fetus was unhurt, as this happened a long time ago.

Zip

Originally posted by subz
Zipdot, do you know anything about pregnancy?

No. Absolutely nothing. Me stupid.

As for weighing the pros and cons, I think that was done, sir.

Zip

Zipdot, answer me this one question:

Would you personally feel any guilt if you were the police officer that tazered the woman AND the fetus had aborted?

Before I answer that, I'd like to repeat something that I said earlier.

Everybody agrees that the child's safety is more important than the speeding ticket. That's not the issue, and if you concentrate on that and try to make that the issue, then you have no one to argue against.

The issue is whether this is police brutality or if the police went overboard, or if this is "excessive use of force," and the evidence shows that the police did not go overboard and were not brutal to this woman, period. They used just enough force to get the "lady" out of her car and into the back of the cruiser.

Now, we can talk about the dynamics of pregnancy all day long. I don't like seeing pregnant women ice skating, for instance.

Maybe pregnant women have no business being in cars at all, since the odds of wrecking are astronomical. I dunno. Whatever.

I don't like hearing about a pregnant woman being tased by police. That's horrible! She should have defused herself BUT WHATEVER, I won't get back into that.

I will repeat another thing that I said earlier -

In court documents, Madison states she saw what happened to her father, screamed, and asked the officer to stop. The officer allegedly turned the Taser gun toward her and threatened the bride with it, according to the lawsuit.

Madison ran into the home, and one of the officers followed. That officer then allegedly shot Madison with the Taser gun twice in the abdomen, despite being told by witnesses that she was pregnant.

A prong from the stun gun reportedly became lodged in Madison's stomach and had to be removed by paramedics, Ferguson said.

A third officer allegedly held a gun to Madison's head as she was being arrested.

After being released from custody, Madison sought medical care and doctors told her the unborn child's vital signs were weak and that tests would show whether she would lose the baby, according to a news release from the law firm of Richardson, Stasko, Boyd & Mack.

"It is unclear, the condition of the baby, but we hope for the best," said Elliott Richardson, the woman's attorney.

THIS is an example of excessive use of taser force versus a pregnant woman. Get up in arms at THIS.

To answer your question --

Of course! I would be devestated. My guilt would consume me.

Zip

Originally posted by subz
Zipdot, police are here to "serve and protect". How did the police "protect" the unborn child in this scenario? Thats the part that most of you seem to gloss over and try and redirect blame to the mother.

Yeah, the poor child!

Hey, I guess they were trying to protect those of us OUTSIDE THE WOMB INSTEAD. Fact of the matter is that, as Zip said, she had every chance to sign that ticket. After the time for that had passed, she had every opportunity to get out of the car. It's like putting a lit smoke in her mouth...she ahs every opportunity to spit it out, but she took a drag instead. Don't fault the police for the mother's stupidity. The officers are just doing their job, a hard job. And now, it's that much harder because of these kinds of attention-grabbing, BS stories.

DE

Kenshiro2012 says: "Unfortunately Seattle as most states, you MUST sign the traffic ticket or be taken to jail."

Not true. Police officers frequently DO NOT require the driver to sign the traffic infraction ticket. Whether the driver signs the ticket or not has no effect on the validity of the ticket and does not require that the driver be arrested, booked, or jailed. When the driver refuses to sign the ticket, the officer has discretion whether or not to arrest the person. The officer is not required to arrest. S/he may simply hand the unsigned citation to the person, file the citation in court, and sign a document verifying that the person was served with the citation. The court takes it from there.

The person who was served in that manner has a duty to respond to the citation. If the person does not respond to the citation or appear in court, she will be found guilty, the verdict and nonappearance will be report to DOL, and DOL will take adverse action against the person's driving privileges. The court will enforce the fine.

Those of you think the officer acted appropriately because he could be off on another call or home watching a mariners game if she responded more quickly to his commands, remember, the US is not a police state yet, but your approval of this kind of police conduct will help it get there much more quickly.

What if the officer had whacked her on the head with moderate force using his billy club. Would that be OK with you? How about mace or pepper spray in the face? He has her identification, the year, make, model, and license plate of her car, her car registration, and her insurance information. This was nothing more than an exercise of force by a brute with an "If you don't do what I say when I tell you I'll punish you on the spot" attitude. This is totally unacceptable in a civilized non-police-state non-dictatorship non-fascist society. If you want to live in that sort of country, you have lots of relocation options.

The tasing of any person for a speeding violation is an outrage regardless whether that person is pregnant, overweight or just obstinate. The officer committed a gross breach of duty in doing this to a citizen for a noncriminal infraction and, in my view, the police officer's overreaction and use of a taser to assault the driver is a crime in itself. Police officers have a duty not to use excessive force. The force used on this woman was clearly excessive and not called for under the circumstances described by the article. No doubt the City of Seattle will be paying a hefty sum in monetary damages to this woman.

[edit on 5/11/2005 by dubiousone]