Missouri police taser injured boy 19 times (video)

This is unbelievable!!
If this was a black boy, he would have been tasered 50 times. He was injured and you would think the police would help him by... i dont know but this is a police

I smell some nasty bacon.

as a paramedic, if i had concerns about a patient's anti-cop rantings, and tased (we carried one) an injured kid, i'd be in prison for a long, long, long time. no doubt about it.

why's that any different for cops, approaching an injured kid on the ground?

wait a minute...there were how many cops and one 16-year old who apparently just fell off a bridge, or at the very least had a broken back and foot?

Hello....since when are several assumed healthy men (requirement to be active duty) incapable of subduing one kid with a broken back without tasering the kid 19 times?

THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG HERE, and lame excuses for this type of police brutality, or suggestions that we do not have all the information do not make any sense at all.

I am nauseated and sickened by HOW Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset can attempt to justify this type of behavior from his officers. I hate to be crass, but what a bunch of pu__ies those officers are if they can't even take in a 16 year old boy with a broken back without deploying their tasers...give me a break!

Tasers need to be outlawed and removed from our police force. Period.

The TASER is popular with dysfunctional semi-literate folk who are attracted to 'professions' which give them the 'authority' over other people that they would lack in every other normal instance.

An epidemic of abuse is to be expected from a broken system that rewards incompetence and puts marginal, psychopathic morons in positions of 'power'.

right so why should an oficer of the law use ANY weapon against an ingured person lying on the floor, they useualy dont listen to what tazer victims say anyway, so why should they listen to his incohearent garbaling, its not exactly as if he could have kiled the cops, not with a broken back.

bad cop.. no doughnut!

Shoot cops, kill cops,'" Yeahr ight I bet he said that...these cops get immunity from anything they do. they killed a teen a couple of months ago who was african american that story of course didnt get any press. I am glad this one is these guys need to be stopped. They need to be held accountable for using tasers...I mean come on a broke back and ankle..obviously he is wounded and no threat to these cops. It is sad when you feel safer overseas around police than in the USA.

Let's face it folks, unless there is a massive backlash against the use of tasers, they are here to stay.

What I don't understand is why do police have to have absolute control over the speech of a person being apprehended? Who cares what he is spouting off, it is meaningless. Unless the kid had a weapon at the ready, the need for use of a taser on a kid with a broken back to seems like cruel and unusual punishment, with the police officer acting as Judge, Jury and Executioner.

What ever happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?" HUH?

I always thought police had way too much power in the first place and giving them a taser would just exacerbate most cops' abuse of power. I understand that verbal assaults are a cause for concern, but did the kid have a weapon? Oh, that's right they needed to subdue him. So tasering the poor kid after he's injured just makes the process go faster. That's basically the police's justification. Damn, if only calling back-up was an option -- morons!

Are the police trying to tell us that a boy with those types of injuries wouldn't be incoherent? Again they are trying to dumb down the American Public!!!

i swear ppl are stupid and ubuse power as the wish without care...."Is it the cop, or am I the one thats really dangerous? Oh shut up and be a victim of authority" - Warning, Greenday

See, kiddies, that's what happens when you're injured; the police come to taser your brains out!

No one saw him fall of the bridge, this stinks of a cover up by the police.

"he refused to co-operate with police"!!! i thought he had a broken back when they found him?

I wouldn't be surprised if they got into an altercation with the boy and tasered him of the bridge.

My advice to the boy is to find a good lawyer, file against the municipality controlling this agency, and try to get enough money from them in punitive
damates, that they cannot put tires on their cars or fill them full of gas. Next time, the officers will act as if they have some brains. This type of thing is too common. Remember, these officers should serve the public, and I for one, as well as most of the public, would not have wanted the boy tazed. So, thats all the criteria the cops need. Oh, and the boy, when recovering, should ride by in the new car that the cops bought him, and wave and simle.

It sounds to me like the kid had a death wish...first by jumping off of an overpass and then, when that didn't work, by pissing off police. I agree that it was wrong, uncalled for, and abusive, but something seems fishy about the circumstances to me

Personally I like petarros idea. I have often said that if we visit retribution upon agents of the state who abuse us things may change. They certainly aren't changing as they are.
The Taser seems to have morphed from a defensive tool to a compliance tool. ANY circumstance that can be construed as "not complying with officers orders" is justification. With the argument that the Taser is a non-lethal tool that prevents injury to the officer and, by extension, the civilian, this thing has become more and more accepted among police departments.
If the police are going to use the premise that it is dangerous out there and they fear for their safety I would suggest that those of this view go to another job. The number of people who assault police as a percentage of citizen contacts is usually so small it does justify this kind of action.
This is terrible. The officer should be fired and prosecuted. If the state does not wish to fix this then it is incumbent upon the victim to obtain justice.

Tase the Officers back...

failure to comply is all they need to tase you.
OFFICER:do you know you were going 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.
YOU: but officer i was only going 50bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

REALY? could they get any lower than this?

Kid: *screaming in pain*

Cops: "ok, just tell us one thing... are you hurt?"

Kid:
*looks down at mutilated body*
*back up at police*
"fffff *ck off, are you F*CKING BLIND?!"

Cop: He's refusing to comply, better taze'm

The cops found this kid on the ground with a broken back? Bullshit, this is probably what really happened:

The cops showed up when this kid was on the overpass, The kid gave them some lip which pissed them off so they tasered him which caused him to fall off the overpass. This makes much more sense to me than cops tasering a kid AFTER he fell off an overpass when he was lying on the ground injured.

Also note in the video the cop said that the kid refused to comply with whatever it was the cops wanted him to. HOw does a kid who is apparently lying on the ground with a broken back refuse to comply????

if the police are so afraid of unarmed civilians how do they think we feel when we see thugs in blue uniforms with guns, tasers, mace, clubs & a code of silence???

All these taserings and beatings are a not so subtle message that you the civilians are slaves of the system. You wanted security America you got it.

First the blind lady with cancer,
now an injured kid.

Wow, the cops keep hitting the jackpot!

:|

WWWWwwwwhat? they're hoping somebody comes forward with informaiton? yeah, how about the fucking officers that were there!

He fell (jumped?) off a bridge, was lying on the ground unable to move, with a broken back and because he incoherently said some bad things about cops, they tazered him?.... 19 TIMES?!

There is DEFINATLY something going on here. I'm disgusted at the cop who stood in front of the camera and could keep a strait face while he tried (and FAILED) to explain why it was necessary to tazer this un-armed, badly hurt boy.

There has to be some kind of law against this.
Before a person can be tazered, they must be physically in a position to actually hurt somebody. I don't care if they're making threats... if a person is unable to physically do any harm... whether it be because they are lying on the ground hurt, already in hand-cuffs, or they're so drunk they can't walk... i dont care, it should be illegal to taze them.

I'm about to rage, this is so awful!

I can understand once or twice, but 19 times is abuse. They should have known that the kid couldn't move after the first time.

The problem often is people fear the police. If police are the protectors of society and it's people, then there should be no need to fear them. However, it is becoming more and more common for officers to subdue people with more force than required.

Take a moment to look at this situation:

If you witnessed someone fall from a dangerous height and land hard enough to break his foot and back, leading to an immobilized and possibly incoherent state, would you take their rantings to heart or chalk it up to stress and injury?

This is inhumane, immoral, and outright abusive what they did to his boy. As a Missouri resident, I hope these officers are punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Kids talk alot of sh*t! With whatever pain he was feeling and what ever emotional tie he has to cops they should have never tasered him once let alone 19 times.this is a power trip and its happening to often.somehow, some way it has to stop.

If he fell, his head was probably hurt. Chances are he was babbling in delirium, and can't really be held responsible for words and lethargy. 19 times? Were they just pointing and laughing while his limp body danced?

One of the key symptoms of CNS injury is altered level of consciousness and combativeness. Such a situation should be painfully obvious to all but the most waterbrained public servants. These cops assaulted an injured kid. They should be charged with felonious assault and handled by the legal system appropriately. I am sure there is more to this on both sides (that is what court is for) but given the basics, it sounds like bad news for the officers.

a significant head injury, i.e. a 30 foot fall, almost always causes a person to become incoherent and combative, particularly to restraint. whether he was disoriented from his injury, or consciously screaming hateful things to the cops, i don't understand what the threat was. plenty of people make threats on a daily basis; only very few of them follow through. why, with guns drawn, could the cops have felt like this kid needed to be tased ... and tased 19 times? grab his ass, and cuff 'em. it's really not that hard. he's a little kid for christ's sake!

Be afraid of the Police.

"Cops need to start wearing video cameras (with audio) on their bodies (just like on their cars) so we won't have to worry (as much) about the blatant abuse of power when no one is watching."
~Damnneargenius

Great plan, but is it realistic? If we cannot even enforce and trust that fellow humans will act civil and humane to their own citizens and neighbors; Is supplying audio and visual systems to the state departments truly solving anything, other than to act as a piece of evidence, or is there a deeper problem within our law enforcement agencies (maybe like why the hell should this happen in the first place), or will it be a waste of tax dollars and failed attempt to help the corrupt system (and ultimately the corrosive, failing state judiciary systems)..

but i like the idea, in theory

wow ... most ppl on current know that i would automatically side with the police.... i hereby declared that i willl never do so.... (unless it's obvious that they were right)

deffitantly agree, but what is even more frightening - many law enforcement agencies across the US require the lowest secondary degree and many states require only a high school certificate of completion or GED with very little secondary education (other than on-the-job training); and we trust many of the cops with our justice, freedom, and well-being; and mind you, this is not to say that America is ridden with unqualified law enforcement officials, but it is to prove that it does happen, just as these horrible crimes against innocent people happen..

oh and a trend that has been going on in just the past 8 years - police brutality has descreased by almost 60%, but media coverage has increased by 400%.. sip on that

It is very frightening how a lot of police officers think they are above the law... and how many of them actually are.

Cops need to start wearing video cameras (with audio) on their bodies (just like on their cars) so we won't have to worry (as much) about the blatant abuse of power when no one is watching.

Why don't I believe the kid really wanted to talk about killing cops when he's badly injured on the side of the road? If this is true, though, then this event is just a case of moron on moron violence.

Trauma to the head or back can cause you to actuallysay random things when police or any person are around as a Nursing student you see weird things with people who have injuries to their Central nervous system. So calling him an idiot is pretty insensitive and crass.

It's not that they are tasering more often it's that one story pops up that someone thinks is unfair they start something where other people look for them and in order to justify their fear they share it to say SEE this is an epidemic when it's not even nearly that.

Sociology.

Anyway I think that this case is a little more confusing. I want to know why does it matter that he was saying what he was saying? If he did say it then he's an idiot but that doesn't mean one should be afraid of something and harm an already harmed person just to get back at them for saying their stupid feelings.

OK Dumb ASSeS

Jeez, the cops tasered another "he's coming right for us" one?

I am growing very sick of this nation.

Lol life gone crazy

How do they know the kid didn't have a head injury?!?Head injuries are not always evident and they cause people to do stupid things.

GAWD...I'm half scared of Law Enforcement anymore.

what is it with cops and tasers today. they just seem to think since it doesn't kill you, it can be used liberally.

I understand that the injured unarmed kid was saying same hateful stuff to the cops, but tasering him is only making his hate justified.

Did he have a gun? Or any weapon that he used against them? As far as I know sticks & stones may break your bones but words never hurt you...

So the officers are saying that they tazed the kid, as he lay on the ground with a broken back, to keep him from getting injured. See, perfectly logical explanation.

Wait.....what?!?