Post by King Ghidorah on Apr 3, 2013 12:11:50 GMT -5
www.ksdk.com/news/article/373098/3/Woman-8-months-pregnant-tased-by-police-department
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/CNN) - A woman 8 months pregnant was tased by Springfield police after she reported a car accident in the parking lot of Best Buy on Saturday.
The woman in question is 29-year-old Lucinda White. Her boyfriend, 31-year-old Frederic Thomas was also tased and taken to jail for assaulting a police officer.
Was it excessive force, tasing the pregnant woman, or did Springfield police act accordingly?
Thomas and White were released from the Sangamon County Jail on Sunday evening.
His bond was $350.
Hers? Nothing.
While they're both looking to put this situation in the past, there is still the question of who exactly is the victim here? Is it the expecting couple, or officers who say the two just wouldn't follow their instructions?
We have to wait for any surveillance video, even for an actual police report of the incident, but not for their accounts of what happened.
"I'm pulling on my daughter's father. I did not touch a police officer. I know not to touch a police officer," said White.
Hell broke loose after the man she accuses of hitting her car at best buy denied it, and Springfield police were called to resolve the situation.
"I was face down in the pavement after being tased. That's when I seen my daughter's mother, knees in her back, stomach all in the concrete, face down," said Thomas.
Springfield police say the couple's behavior warranted officer restraint.
"She was, her and her boyfriend were both actively fighting with an officer and they used the force that was necessary to affect the arrest," said D.C. Cliff Buscher with the Springfield Police Department.
We found out about the incident from Paul Newton, who works here at ABC NewsChannel 20.
He was there, watching it all unfold on Saturday.
"They told her get down on the ground face down, and she's trying to plead with them 'I can't get on the ground, I'm pregnant. I can't do that,' and they told her once again. And she, she's just trying to plead with them and then right away they hit her with the taser," said Newton.
Newton says Thomas appeared to get more aggressive when officers threatened to tase his pregnant girlfriend.
"I thought she was trying to comply with them, but I, it sounds like she was worrying about her pregnancy and she didn't want to get face down on the ground," said Newton.
"Our policy is, we would try to avoid it if at all possible mostly because not the taser itself but the secondary, the fall. We don't want somebody falling and hurting their self or their baby," said Buscher.
He says officers drive stunned both White and Thomas, meaning any pain should have been localized to the place the taser touched their bodies.
On the pregnant woman, that place they say was her thigh.
The incident was captured on a cell phone video and can be viewed on YouTube
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/CNN) - A woman 8 months pregnant was tased by Springfield police after she reported a car accident in the parking lot of Best Buy on Saturday.
The woman in question is 29-year-old Lucinda White. Her boyfriend, 31-year-old Frederic Thomas was also tased and taken to jail for assaulting a police officer.
Was it excessive force, tasing the pregnant woman, or did Springfield police act accordingly?
Thomas and White were released from the Sangamon County Jail on Sunday evening.
His bond was $350.
Hers? Nothing.
While they're both looking to put this situation in the past, there is still the question of who exactly is the victim here? Is it the expecting couple, or officers who say the two just wouldn't follow their instructions?
We have to wait for any surveillance video, even for an actual police report of the incident, but not for their accounts of what happened.
"I'm pulling on my daughter's father. I did not touch a police officer. I know not to touch a police officer," said White.
Hell broke loose after the man she accuses of hitting her car at best buy denied it, and Springfield police were called to resolve the situation.
"I was face down in the pavement after being tased. That's when I seen my daughter's mother, knees in her back, stomach all in the concrete, face down," said Thomas.
Springfield police say the couple's behavior warranted officer restraint.
"She was, her and her boyfriend were both actively fighting with an officer and they used the force that was necessary to affect the arrest," said D.C. Cliff Buscher with the Springfield Police Department.
We found out about the incident from Paul Newton, who works here at ABC NewsChannel 20.
He was there, watching it all unfold on Saturday.
"They told her get down on the ground face down, and she's trying to plead with them 'I can't get on the ground, I'm pregnant. I can't do that,' and they told her once again. And she, she's just trying to plead with them and then right away they hit her with the taser," said Newton.
Newton says Thomas appeared to get more aggressive when officers threatened to tase his pregnant girlfriend.
"I thought she was trying to comply with them, but I, it sounds like she was worrying about her pregnancy and she didn't want to get face down on the ground," said Newton.
"Our policy is, we would try to avoid it if at all possible mostly because not the taser itself but the secondary, the fall. We don't want somebody falling and hurting their self or their baby," said Buscher.
He says officers drive stunned both White and Thomas, meaning any pain should have been localized to the place the taser touched their bodies.
On the pregnant woman, that place they say was her thigh.
The incident was captured on a cell phone video and can be viewed on YouTube
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRZRPQlv4OE&sns=em&fb_source=message
[/youtube]
