PLANTATIOIN, Florida -- A Plantation, Fla., police officer accidentally tasered a 10-year-old boy right after telling him and his brother that the stun gun was not a toy to play with.
The child received only minor injuries, although if the probes had penetrated further into his skin, he would have collapsed and been “incapacitated until the Taser stopped emitting the electrical charge,” investigators said.
Officer Iris Stan was staying with a friend and her two sons after being displaced by Hurricane Irma. On Sept. 14, while still in uniform, she decided to discuss gun safety because her bedroom door didn’t lock and there were children in the house, police said.
As they stood together in a circle, she told them the gun was dangerous and shouldn’t be touched. Then she removed her Taser from her duty belt and accidentally pulled the trigger, according to records. She later told investigators she had no idea how it got turned on.
It fired two probes, striking one of the boys in his right leg, both above and below his knee, according to Internal Affairs documents released Wednesday.
“My brother dropped, he ran around the bed, dropped on top of the bed and started jumping up and down,” the boy’s brother, age 13, told investigators.
The boy’s mother told investigators: “It was a total accident.”
Stan, who was hired in January, could not be reached for comment.
Police blamed the incident on fatigue, saying Stan had worked eight shifts in the previous 10 days, changed shifts as part of her training, and was displaced from her own home. Still, investigators said she was careless, had the Taser pointed at the child, and had her finger on the trigger.
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