A 12-year-old Autistic Boy Got Tased for Making Trouble at School

Posted on: March 9th, 2009 34 Comments
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A 12-year-old autistic boy was shot with a police stun gun outside Hawthorne middle school. It all started when the boy, that’s also an African American, didn’t want to line up for his photograph during a photo day at school. He started running around the school with a school’s security guard chasing him and trying to rush and detain him. Police lieutenant Michael Ishii said that the boy assaulted a security guard and kicked a police officer. The school called the boy’s family, but when his sister wanted to interrupt she was pushed back by the police, though they claimed that she spoke to him and couldn’t calm him down, so they decided to shoot him with a 50 000 volt Taser. “To watch my brother shaking on the ground, it was very traumatic,” the sister said. “He wasn’t the same for days afterward.”

The boy urinated himself and was immediately taken to a medical center to have two electrode darts removed from his back. The issue of using Tasers on children has become controversial in recent years and more research is needed to determine the health effects of shocking small children, still the Hawthorne police chose to use it on the autistic boy. The attorney said that if the boy successfully completes a counseling program, a criminal case will not be filed against him. Get useful psychotherapeutic interventions with psychiatry books and proper living.

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34 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    THIS IS JUST DOWNRIGHT RETARTED. Why wud u use 50000 volts on a minor. atleast like put it on 200 volts

    • Anonymous says:

      I think what happened is COMPLETLY wrong, somebody with autistim does not know half of what they are doing, it is bull

      • Jens Juul Larsen says:

        I am autistic as well, and I’m in full control of what I am doing.
        Autism Spectrum Disorders is a wide spectrum from fully independant to almost vegetable.
        Just because he has autism, doesnt mean that he doesnt know what he was doing (double negative on purpose)

    • Anonymous says:

      Why would you use a word like retarded especially in an instance when dealing with someone whose got a disability? Spread the word to end the word. Clearly there are other words that would fit this situation much better like dumb, stupid, senseless, ignorant, absurd, the list goes on and on! Get respect for these individuals.

  2. Anonymous says:

    yeah, great comment.

    this is a bunch of fucking garbage.

    anyone that uses a taser on someone with autism should be fucking gutted.

    i hope this cop decides to walk off a cliff soon.

    ACAB.

  3. Nom says:

    True, but maybe a better choice of words…

  4. MNS says:

    this is a bunch of bull he should have atleast put at a level on which it wouldnt nearly kill him and he just didnt want to take a picture you cant blame him for that.

  5. Race says:

    just to respond to other comments:
    tasers usually only have one setting
    50k volts is low
    Tasers are supposed to be tools to prevent damage to people.
    Tackling a frenzied adolescent is more dangerous than a tense adolescent falling down by him/herself.
    The probability is that there will be no lasting harm to the child, so the use is warranted for the prevention of injury. I don’t condone it off the bat, but I might have done the same with the same training in the same situation. Personally I would not want to be electrocuted, but fear mongering your expectations of grievous injury are akin to the fear mongering surrounding vaccines, and quite frankly show an inability for a chunk of americans to think beyond emotions or consider multiple perspectives.

  6. HANNES says:

    I think your statement proves that you are unopen to the idea of police violent you consider the police all just and all knowing like a religious fanatic considers god. how quaint that police violence is real.
    you will say that people are close minded when ever they do not agree to your view yet even when you are wrong you will never see yourself as closed minded when you do not agree to other peoples view.

  7. Mike says:

    what an odd response, perhaps my late night punctuation led you to believe I had a strong emotional response devoid of thought and full of motive. There is nothing above in my previous post which proves anything, it is all opinion, and as a lone opinion late at night you couldn’t possibly infer a stereotype of my everyday thoughts or opinions. I certainly do believe police violence is real, I live in chicago, and the police here have a terrible history with current violence common as well. Your last statement was really difficult to read, but your accusing me of being a hypocrite with respect to open mindedness which can only be from your inference that I believe fear mongering is the root of the problem while not admitting police brutalize people. Just to set you straight a bit, there is nothing above which says I don’t believe that police illegally harm people, neither do I attribute fear mongering to a majority of the ill will towards police. What I do disagree with, and potentially attribute fear mongering to, is an inaccurate view of the use of tasers which if published data is reliable (and I have not audited it, but cannot go beyond healthy skepticism without reading), then it is sensible to assume that the healthiest solution to many situations is to disable dangerous people from harming themselves or others. I think that fear drives many reactions to those who view this because it is really not pretty to see someone lose control of their body in what appears to be (and probably is) agonizing pain. Through pain is temporary and I would gladly take pain over injury.
    Please use a bit of critical thought, your emotion driven rage responses are difficult to read and insensible.

  8. BBB says:

    Nice to see we can all express ourselves here. What about the 12 year old autistic boy who hasnt got a voice to express what its like to live in a society barbaric enough to torture him.

  9. No says:

    I would count him lucky in that he doesn't have any social obligation for communication. Where the rest of us have the need for expression where all perspectives implicit/explicit therein apparently is equally appreciated in a universally relativistic world, and thereby completely meaningless. I would rather say, screw all of your expressions because mine is right, and the lot of you are mud dwelling fringe people… He has a free ride in another respect where many people emulate this and sometimes become from want and experience. All people are tortured if you allow yourself to dwell on the negative, who is to say whether the autistic are/aren't able to make the best out of what is had.

  10. Autistic says:

    As an autistic victim of police brutality myself and a neurodiversity advocate, I can safely say that this article rekindles my determination to put an end to this kind of behavior. We are sick of being beaten, handcufed, and tased.

  11. Jake says:

    If the police had to jump on him and fight him, there would be more outrage. 5 seconds of pain without injuries is better than a busted lip or broken arm.

    Don't call the police if you don't like the response.

    • Jake, a police officer being called for something like this is absurd. A cop needing to use a taser to subdue a 12 YO child is obviously so physically incapable the cop should be looking for a new line of work. When police respond as thugs, it simply confirms the preconceived notions that all cops are idiots and not to be trusted. This is a perfect example of a cop not using their head.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Yo Bro,
    WHen your posting anonymously you don't need to defend your argument especially when they get it wrong. Ignore them

  13. Student says:

    Teachers lie about their students in order to avoid doing their jobs, they hear about how overpaid teachers are, and how little work they do, and then decide that it's easy living.

  14. PIGS says:

    Taste my diving knife you mother fucking PIGS!

  15. Ironic says:

    That little fucktard of a kid. Why the fuck would he kick a police officer.
    He deserved to be taserd.
    He learned his fucking lesson.
    They should of put it on 100K volts.
    Then he'l learn his lesson

    • Eve says:

      The kid’s autistic. Ya think he has a regular thought process like “Oh, kick a police officer=unnecessary violence against me. Better not do that.”?
      No.
      Get real, the cops were power-tripping. If they had let the sister intervene, then this most likely could have been avoided.
      Nobody should be tasered, much less a kid.
      By the way;
      *?
      *tasered
      *should have
      *he’ll

  16. Anonymous says:

    yes officer, you already did that, remember.

  17. Anonymous says:

    wtf it was a 12 year old boy… you can restrain him wit out the tazer

  18. taze says:

    so, ahhh, why taze, why tackle why do anything to aggressively apprehend a kid that just ran away from a school picture? let him run around, chase him for a while, call in the parents, then have the talk in the principal's office. the school has a security guard, and they had to escalate it to the police? this is absurd. i remember a troubled 12yr old ran away from our middle school during lunch. i watched him from the cafeteria window as the vice principal chased him about a block down the road before returning empty-handed. the kid was in school the next day. i don't know the rest, but geez, if the kid gets tazed that counts as resisting arrest, he is a 12yr old autistic boy. give me a break.

  19. tasehimbro says:

    First of all, did this happened in the United States. If it did people all around the world knows what a race conscious society the U.S. is. Now, "The attorney said that if the boy successfully completes a counseling program, a criminal case will not be filed against him." Please explain to me why this 12 year old autistic boy has to complete a counselling program and then to say a criminal case will not be files against him.How fucking inhuman this act is, how fucking stupid. What the fuck is wrong with this attorney. Maybe someone should explain the mind of a 12 year old autistic person.

  20. tambrathegreat says:

    I just don't understand the need to taze a mentally handicapped boy. Okay, so he kicked the police officer. If he was close enough to kick then he was close enough to grab and restrain. It just seems like when ever there is a confrontation, regardless of the circumstances, the police escalate the situation. If the child, and he is a child, had risen from that electric torture and run around some more, would the police have taken the initiative to escalate the situation further and shot him?

    As for the anonymous person who said: "That little fucktard of a kid. Why the fuck would he kick a police officer.
    He deserved to be taserd.
    He learned his fucking lesson.
    They should of put it on 100K volts.
    Then he'l learn his lesson"

    I hope one day that you or someone you love aren't incapacitated or handicapped in some way and 'require' the torturous lesson this child received. I suspect if that happened to you or your own, you would be right up at city hall asking for monetary redress of your grievances.

  21. richard ludwig says:

    Anonymous said…

    That little fucktard of a kid. Why the fuck would he kick a police officer.
    He deserved to be taserd.
    He learned his fucking lesson.
    They should of put it on 100K volts.
    Then he'l learn his lesson

    =====

    YOU are the fucktard – YOU had better do the world a favor by getting a life and then blowing your brains out.

  22. nojustice says:

    There is no defense for this police officer. 12yr.old boy, who's autistic. What did the police have before tasers. If he can't subdue a 12yr old boy he has no business being a police officer. Because he didn't want his picture taking he gets tased. Who ever thinks 50,000 volts is not bad should have his head examined. And for anybody who thinks that this kid won't remember and have no problem with this is an idiot. Having police officers in the family I have first hand knowledge on how officer's think. They have the blue wall of silence, and I can tell you, any chance they can tase someone, to see them flop like a fish and laugh about at the precinct with other cops. And all the cops have to say is I feared for my life. If our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were using tasers people in this country would be up in arms calling our sodiers terrorists. But it's ok for a cop to tase an autistic child. I hope the cop has a family and his kids get tased.

  23. mother of a 12 yr old autistic boy (not the one who was tased) says:

    This never should have happened. If the people in the school were properly trained (most autistic kids have a special ed aide assigned to them who are with them all day, my son does)… then this never would have happened. So… he had a “meltdown” because he didn’t want his picture taken. Its not a big deal. He was outside… so let him run around a couple of minutes and get it out of his system. once he calmed down, if he still didn’t want the picture, then so what! you can NOT get through to an autistic kid while they are in the middle of a meltdown. you have to wait until its done. attempts will cause the child further frustration, and escalate the situation. if this had happened to MY 12 yr old son… the school and the police of that town would have legal action taken against them. this happened for one reason… THEIR inability to properly deal with him in the way he NEEDS in order to process the information, and for him to be given the extra processing time that he NEEDS in order to let go if what he wanted, in order to switch to do what they wanted. I can’t believe that it escalated to that, and that he was tased. it is outrageous. for those who feel this was acceptable, you obviously have not educated yourself on autistic disorders prior to offering your opinion. basically, the boy got tased JUST for being himself, and the lack of being given his processing time that he needed, resulting in this escalation. it wasn’t the boys fault. I’m sure he never would’ve kicked anyone if he had been handled properly according to guidelines that I’m SURE are in his IEP.

  24. Surveillance and security cameras are one of the best ways to keep your loved onessafe and secure.

  25. AJ says:

    So he kicked a police officer…DID IT REALLY HURT THAT MUCH? OMFG fucking cry babies. Poor kid is autistic and they KNOW this and yet they still do this to him? NOT RIGHT. They have a rent a cop and they escalate to the police for what?? WASTE OF TAX PAYERS MONEY AND JUST GOES TO SHOW THAT THEY’RE OVERLY VIOLENT AND SICK IN THE HEAD.

  26. David says:

    That cop should be executed plain and simple

  27. howard wulkan says:

    you dumb fuckers saying the cop should be killed, unnecessary force, power tripping etc.

    tasers wont do SHIT to you at a low voltage of 50k volts
    considering the site has a bias to make cops look bad im not surprised they didnt use anything else to make it shorter (more numburrs means it moor dangurus!!!!)
    im also convinced that all of you are under the age of 18
    why did they list he was black??? yeah cops are racist KILL THEM ALL!!!!!!

  28. terry wagar says:

    The Portland Oregon police break into children’s homes early in the morning and they rape children in their bedrooms and they photograph it making child porn!

    Cops in

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