Sheriff alleged tasering of youth reflects heavy-handed approach to justice in Texas

 

[caption id="attachment_21112" align="alignleft" width="300"] Taser[/caption]

Gordon Matilla---"Eventually, school officials called for EMS and N.N. was airlifted to St. David's Medical Center, where he immediately underwent surgery to repair a severe brain hemorrhage and was placed in a medically induced coma. "N.N. remains in a coma, and has not been able to communicate with his family since his hospitalization." The lawsuit brings attention to the problem of using tasers to control children at school.

Maria Acosta has sued Bastrop County, the school district and a county sheriff named Randy McMillan. McMillan is a school resource officer who allegedly tasered Acosta's son following an altercation at Cedar Creek High School. Acosta claims two girls had been fighting, and her son had intervened to break up the fight and stop it from becoming worse. When McMillan arrived, however, he told Acosta's son to step back. She said her son obeyed the officer and did so with his hands in the air, but the sheriff Tasered him anyway, causing the son to fall and hit his head on the floor. While he was unconscious he was put in handcuffs and medical assistance was delayed, the mother maintains.

Languishing in jail from February until June was 19-year-old Justin Carter. His father said he was making a joke on Facebook, arguing with a friend over a video game called “League of Legends when someone said, “'Oh, you're insane. You're crazy. You're messed up in the head. Justin's father said his son had responded, “Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head . I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still-beating hearts.” This the father said was simply a sarcastic comment and a joke, not a real threat. Yet Justin was put behind bars facing the potential of years in prison for terrorist threatening which is a felony that could theoretically bring a sentence of up to eight years.

He was released on bond when an anonymous donor provided bail. He was allegedly beaten up while in jail.

 

Texas has its problems with prisons, with a highlighted report about the conditions for teenagers in the State's jails. Research has noted Texas to house too many teens in adult jails, under conditions that facilitate violence and lack of supervision and controls. There is also criticism of authorities for being particularly heavy handed with juveniles.