More and more people who call the police for help are becoming victims of police violence. Here is another example from Richland, Georgia:
Janice Wells called the Richland Police Department when she feared a prowler was outside her clapboard house in the rural west Georgia town.
The third-grade teacher had phoned for help. But within minutes of an officer coming to her backdoor, she was screaming in pain and begging not to be shocked again with a Taser. With each scream and cry, the officer threatened her with more shocks.
“All of it’s just unreal to me. I was scared to death,” Wells said in an interview with the AJC. “He kept tasing me and tasing me. My fingernails are still burned. My leg, back and my butt had a long scar on it for days.”
One of the officers, Ryan Smith, resigned (although he is already back on the street working for Chattahoochee County Sheriff’s office) and the other, Tim Murphy, was fired as a result of the incident. My question is why have they not been charged with assault?
What reasons did the police give for tasing this lady? Did they believe she was the intruder? I thought that 911 operators are supposed to be on the line until the police arrive. I am not a support of brutal and illegal tactics by law enforcement, I live in AZ and we have an idiot for a sheriff that abuses his authority daily.
The linked article explains that she was pepper sprayed and tased because she tried to get away from a cop who was trying to arrest her for not giving him the name of another person:
Some of the details contained in police department records conflict with those provided in interviews. And only the end of the encounter between Wells and the officers is captured on video.
But all agree that the struggle between Wells, 57, and Murphy, 52, started because she would not tell him the name of a friend who was at her house in Richland, 35 miles southeast of Columbus, when Murphy arrived around 9:30 p.m. on April 26.
….
As Robinson pulled out of the driveway, Murphy asked Wells for her friend’s name.
She refused to give it.
“’You don’t need to know that,’” Murphy wrote in his report was Wells’ response. “I told her that she would need to give me the information that I needed or she would be arrested for obstruction. I explained that state law mandates that we investigate to determine if there has been any family violence.”
She retrieved her purse and began walking around the side of her house until Murphy said he was taking her to jail.
“Janice then backed up from me in a fight or flight stance and I grabbed her arm and placed a handcuff on it,” Murphy wrote. “She pulled away and she took off. I sprayed her with pepper spray. I chased her around the house and tripped and fell, injuring my knee just as I caught up with her. As I was once again walking her to the car, she broke loose again and ran. She tripped and fell and I grabbed her again. As we got to the car, I attempted to get the other handcuff on her and get her in the car.”