Ohio officer used stun gun on 9-year-old boy
Mar 13, 2012, 5:32 PM
MOUNT STERLING, Ohio (AP) – An Ohio officer whose use of a stun gun on a child resulted in the shutdown of a village police force said he shocked the boy twice as the 9-year-old lay on the floor with his hands underneath his body.
Details of the Mount Sterling incident released Monday say the boy was warned before the officer shocked him at his home last week following a truancy complaint from the sheriff’s office.
The officer said the child begged his mother to let him go to school instead of with the officer, but she refused, telling him it was too late. The officer said he eventually tried to pull the boy, whom he described as at least 5-foot-5 and 200 pounds, from a couch when the boy dropped and “became dead weight,” kicking and flailing.
He says he fired a warning shock with the stun gun and that the child’s mother told the boy to obey the officer so he wouldn’t be shocked.
Tracy Comisford, an attorney for the boy’s mother tells The Columbus Dispatch the woman did not expect the officer to use a stun gun when he came to arrest the boy.
“She certainly never wanted this to happen,” Comisford said.
The police report says the boy was shocked twice because he did not comply with the officer after the first stunning, and that he screamed and stopped moving during each 5-second shock. Medics checked the boy, his mother signed a waiver of medical treatment, and the boy was taken to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is looking into the matter.
Also on Monday, police Chief Mike McCoy resigned, saying the village can no longer financially support the department. He’d been suspended Thursday for not immediately reporting the stun gun matter to the mayor, and the force of part-time officers has been disbanded. The sheriff’s office is patrolling the village.
McCoy tells The Dispatch he does not feel it was wrong to delay telling the mayor about the stun gun incident because he thought he should first look further into it himself.
“I did what I was supposed to do to maintain the integrity of the incident,” McCoy said.
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