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But, as I alluded to up-thread, the relationship between brothers is not like that between cops and "kid X".

 dogma wrote:
But, as I alluded to up-thread, the relationship between brothers is not like that between cops and "kid X".

Exactly, the public is not paying attention to you and your brother. But they are watching the police. If an older kid can take on a younger kid whose armed, and win without harm, how come, a fully trained and paid professional cant do the same?

Would you, tazer someone else's kid if it was running around with a knife screaming, or would you disarm it (if you had to stop[ the thing)? Im sure, 99% of the world, would not tazer the kid.

Simply because that can happen does not mean that it will happen. LEOs must deal in potential circumstances, not ideal ones.

Also, I don't have a brother. I was referring to the brother of another poster.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
This is a horrible situation and Im sure the cops are feeling gakky. But sometimes things like this are unavoidable.

I really hope you're right. I doubt it, but I really do hope so.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
And there is nothing "standard" about 1) any mental health call and 2) a mental health call that has a knief wielding, suicidal person of any age.

From an EMT's standpoint, you'd be surprised how inaccurate that statement is.

Mental health calls don't just mean medical mental issues and suicides.

I am an EMT and an RN.

I have worked in a locked psych facility as well as had my share of psych calls.

What I mean by not standard is that every psych patient, nno matter what the call to us, is going to be unique in how we handle them because you never can tell what send them further off the deep end...hell....they may just go themselves for no apparent reason. Hell...one guy I worked with would be talking with me about playing bass guitar and his favorite bassists....and before you could blink he was on his knees prostrating himself before me because he thought I was Mathesula.

Thats what I mean by each call is never just a "standard" psych call.

I don't think anyone can say for sure given that we don't know the layout if the room, posture, the body language the child was using that would force a snap decision.

But generally, it seems excessive to taser a child. Even if they have a knife you could swat it from their hand or distract her and step in quickly, children aged 8 aren't particularly smart, agile or dexterous, it's not like disarming an adult in the street. Yes there's risk but there's also risk of killing or injuring when you taser an 8 year old, they're not a person capable of adult understanding and are clearly in some sort of distressed state making them upset or angry, they shouldn't be treated like criminals when barely at the age of criminal responsibility if even below.

Nkelsch has it on the first page of the thread.

Kid had tried to stab herself.
Had two knives.
Threatening self harm.

Depending on what other options were pursued tazering seems like the safest option to stop an immature, possibly out of control, child with likely mental health issues.

Preventing further harm to the child or others.

Attempting to stab oneself is a symptom of bigger issues than just an 8 year old acting out.

So it appears the cops weren't being brave boys™, just doing their jobs.

On the other hand, they had a hostage negotiator on hand. I know you don't frequently see child terrorists and the like, but still.
Unless the kid was out of control, in which case I agree with using the taser, if only to limit potential injury to the officers.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Four officers could not disarm an 8 year old girl?

I'm sure they tried.
8 year old with a knife?
Trying to hurt herself. Lets not kid ourselves, this child had serious mental/psychiatric stuff going on. Tasing may have actually saved her from real harm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
American police never fails to amuse (and scare) me.
Surprised this story hasn't been on RT yet.

You're right. Russian police would have just down her plane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
How do you know it hasn't already happened?

An eight year old with a knife is not a credible threat to four grown police officers. Give me a break.

Really How many knives have you taken away from people obviously having psychiatric episodes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Byte wrote:
Would a baton to the head be more acceptable?

yee olde attitude adjustment eh?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:


A child of 8 years old has reaction speeds so slow that it would barely register the knife being taken out of its hand by the time it happens. The cops stand about 6 feet away, the child is not going to stab itself. Then move quickly. The child won't even know what happened. Easy and simple.

Yes... a Kid who is holding knives to her own body to stab herself, from 6 feet away you will grab the knife before she stabs herself. The report showed from multiple witnesses that the child was holding the knife to her own body to cut herself.

And then the mother sues because the child was allowed to stab herself by police due to inappropriate 'rushing' to get the knife.

Negligent mother was gonna sue 'regardless'. Terrible child is terrible. No one should be required to get knife wounds while trying to subdue a suicidal person simply because they are 8 years old.

impartial investigation and eye witness showed the cops acted fine and it was the least risky of the options available to them and best way to safeguard the suicidal child. Going all last action hero is all good in your mind but hardly works out in real life.

We disagree often, but in this instance I am completely onside.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Nkelsch has it on the first page of the thread.

Kid had tried to stab herself.
Had two knives.
Threatening self harm.

Depending on what other options were pursued tazering seems like the safest option to stop an immature, possibly out of control, child with likely mental health issues.

Preventing further harm to the child or others.

Attempting to stab oneself is a symptom of bigger issues than just an 8 year old acting out.

So it appears the cops weren't being brave boys™, just doing their jobs.

Someone threatening to harm self and someone actually willing to commit suicide are two different things.

After all, it is a child; even if she has issues, if she truly wanted to kill/harm herself, she wouldn't have waited for the police. There would be already a corpse or a bleeding girl on the floor the time the officers came there. Would be interesting to know what happened so that she came to that situation.

No real threat for the police, a doubtful threat to herself; thus, I think the taser was excessive. But of course, it's always easy to say what would have been better after the action.

By the time I moved from home as the age of 17, he has attacked me with shovels, axes, rakes, shears, hammers, brooms and sporting goods.

Maybe if you didn't give your parents lip, they wouldn't have lined the hallway with shovels, axes, rakes and sporting goods

 Sarouan wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Nkelsch has it on the first page of the thread.

Kid had tried to stab herself.
Had two knives.
Threatening self harm.

Depending on what other options were pursued tazering seems like the safest option to stop an immature, possibly out of control, child with likely mental health issues.

Preventing further harm to the child or others.

Attempting to stab oneself is a symptom of bigger issues than just an 8 year old acting out.

So it appears the cops weren't being brave boys™, just doing their jobs.

Someone threatening to harm self and someone actually willing to commit suicide are two different things.

After all, it is a child; even if she has issues, if she truly wanted to kill/harm herself, she wouldn't have waited for the police. There would be already a corpse or a bleeding girl on the floor the time the officers came there. Would be interesting to know what happened so that she came to that situation.

No real threat for the police, a doubtful threat to herself; thus, I think the taser was excessive. But of course, it's always easy to say what would have been better after the action.

The first sentence is 100%. A person wanting to kill themselves doesn't go the top floor and wait for the police negotiator. The get a knife and do their wrist or put a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger. If someone truly wants to self harm or die they don't make a song and dance about it. From the sounds of it this kid is no different, she just wanted attention or her way. Probably the kid wanted Burger King for breakfast and the babysitter said no so the kid threatened to kill herself, not knowing how serious the implication actually was.

And you know A MENTALLY DISTURBED EIGHT YEAR OLD is going to act like this how?

 TheMeanDM wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:
And there is nothing "standard" about 1) any mental health call and 2) a mental health call that has a knief wielding, suicidal person of any age.

From an EMT's standpoint, you'd be surprised how inaccurate that statement is.

Mental health calls don't just mean medical mental issues and suicides.

I am an EMT and an RN.

I have worked in a locked psych facility as well as had my share of psych calls.

What I mean by not standard is that every psych patient, nno matter what the call to us, is going to be unique in how we handle them because you never can tell what send them further off the deep end...hell....they may just go themselves for no apparent reason. Hell...one guy I worked with would be talking with me about playing bass guitar and his favorite bassists....and before you could blink he was on his knees prostrating himself before me because he thought I was Mathesula.

Thats what I mean by each call is never just a "standard" psych call.

I get that, I do, and I agree. It's obviously a miscommunication as to what we're meaning by the word standard. Perhaps a better word would be average or most common. At least on my runs, the most common mental health calls aren't involving actual mental health issues, but people/children acting out(due to some temporary situation that has often played itself out by the time we get there) and alcohol related issues where, while you're ready for anything, there is a fairly common outcome that you're most expecting.

But yes, you're right that things don't always go as expected, even in instances that seem to go similar to past experiences.

Tricky one. Not sure what I would have done in this situation, though Taser wouldn't really be an option for us anyway as only firearms officers carry it.

Knife calls should never be taken lightly though, the last two cops stabbed in my area were both stabbed by elderly males, one a 92 year old and the other was in his seventies or eighties (I forget exactly) who was in the final stages of terminal cancer. Neither are the kind of individual who you would turn up to deal with and realistically think you'd end up being stabbed by. A bladed weapon is a credible danger whether the person who has it intends to cause injury or not, which is why we all get lectured from a young age to behave responsibly with knives/scissors etc.

As I've said before though, there's no 'nice' or perfectly safe way to restrain someone. All things considered Taser carries a hell of a lot less risk than going hands-on and risking even an accidental knife injury to either the child or the officers involved. Or risking significant bruising or more serious injury to the child, which would probably have led to headlines of 'Cops beat up 8 year old girl'.

The lawsuit sounds a bit iffy to me though - the child was thrown against the wall by the Taser? Doesn't sound right, your muscles should all seize up when hit by a Taser. The most you should do is collapse. Wouldn't be the first time I've heard of dramatic license being used in a lawsuit though....

Tasers aren't certified as safe for use against children, and there have been a couple of hundred deaths linked to taser use since their introduction.

The kid could have died as a result of this.

I haven't personally disarmed someone with a knife, though I have had a knife brandished at me by a teenager. I didn't feel that I need to take any violent action in that case, I can accept that action was needed in this case, but tasing a child is not acceptable to me.

My father has been in the situation where he's had to disarm a fully grown woman with a knife who had barricaded herself into a youth hostel. He managed to get the knife off her without hitting her with his baton, or headbutting her, or any of that. She tried to bite him, but didn't manage to because of the padding in his work jacket. That was a fully grown woman, threatening to stab anyone who came in or slit her own wrists. Obviously it wasn't a pleasant or risk free experience for my dad, but that's what policemen get paid for.

Yeah, what's that saying? Protect and serve*?

*at any cost for the good of the American people?

 Da Boss wrote:
Tasers aren't certified as safe for use against children, and there have been a couple of hundred deaths linked to taser use since their introduction.

The kid could have died as a result of this.

I haven't personally disarmed someone with a knife, though I have had a knife brandished at me by a teenager. I didn't feel that I need to take any violent action in that case, I can accept that action was needed in this case, but tasing a child is not acceptable to me.

My father has been in the situation where he's had to disarm a fully grown woman with a knife who had barricaded herself into a youth hostel. He managed to get the knife off her without hitting her with his baton, or headbutting her, or any of that. She tried to bite him, but didn't manage to because of the padding in his work jacket. That was a fully grown woman, threatening to stab anyone who came in or slit her own wrists. Obviously it wasn't a pleasant or risk free experience for my dad, but that's what policemen get paid for.

How do you disarm a child with a knife to her own throat who is 10 feet away? Are you the flash? Can you get the knife before she cuts herself? "she is faking, she won't do it" isn't a defense or a battle plan when someone, especially a child is suicidal.

Disarming someone attacking you with a knife is different than disarming someone who is suicidal and trying to use the knife on themselves.

Read the actual report. The child was running around the house, running through rooms and hallways, every time a police officer came near she tried to cut herself and the officer with her TWO KNIVES. She was out of control, a danger to herself and others. She wasn't 'negotiating', she wasn't 'standing on a ledge' so officers could get close and grab her. If they did nothing or one of your guys terrible bro-dude solutions, she could have been harmed more or even killed herself.

The report found the handling of the incident totally ok and the best course of action for the situation. That child being tazed was the best thing which could have happened compared to the alternative which could have included:
*Pepper spray
*Getting close enough so she could have harmed an officer and gotten a criminal record (which right now the child was not charged)
*Getting close enough so that she would have been intimidated into stabbing, cutting or actually killing herself.
*Getting close enough that some action johnny cop would have grabbed her and harmed her as he tried to disarm the weapon.

To anyone saying 'we don't know'. We do know. The report was posted in PDF form.

Tazers being certified to be used on 8 year olds (current vs body size/weight) is probably the biggest single question in this.

I do think that if there is any kind of manufacturer statement saying "don't use on children" or "minimum weight X" the family probably has a case no matter how warranted the use may have been.

 liquidjoshi wrote:

One of the officers was a Taser instructor, while another was a hostage negotiator, KSFY reported.

So... I guess they just couldn't be bothered to do it properly then?
"Hey, should we try to talk her out of it?"
"Nah, CSI is on in like ten minutes. Just taze her bro."

I mean, my primary reaction to seeing a child holding a knife isn't usually to send 50K volts through them. Only ocassionally

actually.... I have thoughts about inventing baby tazers every day... for just this kind of situation

the baby ether just doesnt cut it when the kids go all crazy.

patents are also in the works for child sized tranq guns.




*serious mode*

the title of this article should be "police tase 9yr old weilding a KNIFE"

explains the situation much better, and make sense, sure she could have been hurt by the tazor, but she could have hurt other people as well as herself with the knife.

I am sure if she had hurt herself with the knife the cops would still be getting sued/blamed.

so what, should the cops just walk away in a no win scenario like this then?

They shouldn't walk away, they should deal with the situation professionally.

 Da Boss wrote:
They shouldn't walk away, they should deal with the situation professionally.

HOW?

She's killing herself what do you do? You have two seconds. Too late

 Da Boss wrote:
They shouldn't walk away, they should deal with the situation professionally.

And please explain a way to do so.

This whole "grab the knife wielding maniacs arm" is not a valid answer.

 djones520 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
They shouldn't walk away, they should deal with the situation professionally.

And please explain a way to do so.

This whole "grab the knife wielding maniacs arm" is not a valid answer.

"Throw a baterang to knock the knife out of her hands", "grab the knife with a golden lasso" or "use heat vision to super heat the knife to be too hot too hold" are about as equally valid and reasonable as "Just walk up and grab the arm."

 djones520 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
They shouldn't walk away, they should deal with the situation professionally.

And please explain a way to do so.

This whole "grab the knife wielding maniacs arm" is not a valid answer.

I know what I did last time I was confronted with a knife weilding maniac (who happend to be small of stature, easily my phsycial inferior)

Despite my training on how to disarm someone with a knife, my educated decision was simply to get the feth out of there and leave her to it.

I guess the cops should have just left her to it as well then.

To people suggesting things like grab the arm..
FFS bro, do you even ninja?
anyone suggesting that has 0 clue... its like telling the cops to just shoot the guns out of the bad guys hands, and blaming them for not catching all the crooks cause all bad guys wear black hats and have evil moustaches to identify themselves.

She's alive and receiving treatment for her mental illness, right?

No feths shall be given today.

 kronk wrote:
She's alive and receiving treatment for her mental illness, right?

No feths shall be given today.

Oh hey, she didn't die! That's a good thing.

I mean people would defend the tazing even if it had killed her, so it's not like its a big thing right.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 kronk wrote:
She's alive and receiving treatment for her mental illness, right?

No feths shall be given today.

Oh hey, she didn't die! That's a good thing.

I mean people would defend the tazing even if it had killed her, so it's not like its a big thing right.

And the people who are anti-tazing are the first people who would have condemned the death should they have rushed her like they were a ninja and she ended up slicing her own throat and bled out. There is no way anyone could win.

Sounds like the mother knew this and was like: "Mentally ill child interacting with cops? If she lives I sue, she dies, I sue, I can't lose!"

 Da Boss wrote:
They shouldn't walk away, they should deal with the situation professionally.

From the details of the report, and the findings of the people with all of the facts, that's exactly what they did.

They should issue the babysitter a tazer and save the taxpayers the cash.

 Platuan4th wrote:
Was she carrying quantum physics books through the ghetto?

This just made my day, I seriously almost spit soda on my monitor.