Ethics

Cop Tries to Write False Ticket, Tasers Woman

By Ed Brayton

Here's another example of Scalia's "new professionalism" that Balko found. A cop pulls a woman over for allegedly talking on a cell phone while driving when she did not, in fact, even have a cell phone. The cop ended up tasering her despite the fact that she clearly posed no threat whatsoever, then arresting her for resisting arrest and, of course, disorderly conduct. Then he left the children in the vehicle to wait for someone to pick them up while he took their mother to jail.

The woman has now filed suit. The charges against her were all dropped after prosecutors viewed the dashboard camera footage, which showed that she didn't do anything at all other than get out of her car and ask him a question. There was nothing even remotely threatening in her actions, nothing that could possibly justify tasing her or arresting her.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on August 21, 2009 (boomark / email).