TASER announces wildlife management stungun - taser animal
Things escalated quickly. The teen was shocked repeatedly with an electroshock weapon - a Taser delivering voltage and an electrical discharge causing an immense amount of pain.
"To do the Drive Stun Mode, even though it was through the young man's clothes, is especially bothersome, because that is done to cause pain. Pain compliance, and the use of pain to get young people to comply, is just wrong, especially for a broken window," Thurau said.
The 14-year-old boy scratching his head and the girl next to him was being questioned by Sauk Village police about a broken window.
Thurau's nationwide examination of decades of lawsuits involving Tasers, also called "Conducted Electrical Weapons," found the devices were used on a disproportionate number of children of color and children with disabilities.
Thurau pointed to other cases of Tasers she says were wrongly deployed on children, including an 11-year-old girl in Cincinnati who was suspected of shoplifting, and a 16-year-old in Florida who was simply waiting for his girlfriend at her backdoor. He fell and smashed his head.
Thurau: "Regrettably, there is no uniformity, no consistency in data collection within states, across states, between departments. It is highly problematic, so we don't know how often Tasers are used, know when they are used on kids. We don't know what the outcomes are."
Washington calls the boy her son. CBS 2 showed her body camera footage that had been kept secret for a year and a half. A chilling sound that lasted for 11 seconds.
As her son got away from the Taser, he started to sprint. At that point, his encounter with police became nearly fatal. The other officer, Sergeant Scott Langan, drew his gun from his holster, aimed it, and fired - shooting the teen just below his belt on his hip.
Bettina Washington is upset that neither officer was charged for their role in injuring the teen, and she's also upset to learn a police disciplinary investigation into the incident didn't even begin until last month - a year and a half after the teen was tasered and shot.
There are two settings for Officer Seth Brown's Taser; one setting shoots darts connected to wires, penetrating skin to immobilize a person. The other setting is called Drive Stun Mode, where the device is directly pressed against a person like a cattle prod. Brown was seen pressing his into the teen's clothing.
Days later, Sergeant Langan told officials investigating his actions that the shooting was an accident and he thought he was firing his Taser.
"This is what I call use of force for officer expedience," Thurau said. "No, that is not why you use force with anybody. You don't do it so that you can punish or cause them pain. You don't do it to subjugate them and teach them their place. You don't do it because you don't feel like running. That's not what an officer uses force for. That's not an acceptable justifiable use of force under any legal framework in the United States."
"Each time I see something like this, after doing this for so long, I am still outraged, terrified, and revolted. I feel for this kid," she said.
Thurau: "Without understanding the lethal and sometimes long-term consequences of Tasers, you're putting a whole lot of kids at risk, and you're not giving officers what they need; which is policies, training, and guidance about the risk of this kind of weapon on kids."
Lisa Thurau has studied the misuse of Tasers on children around the country as director of the nonprofit, Strategies for Youth.
Fire Hooks Unlimited is a leading manufacturer of Forcible Entry and Firefighting tools such as the Pro Bar, New York Hook, K-Tool, Rabbit Tool, and more.
"He has to live with those bruises from getting tased the rest of his life. The gunshot wound. He has to live with that," Washington said crying.
Her organization works with law enforcement and kids, by helping to create policies and training programs to avoid situations like this.