1) Her Mother got to the point where she had to call the Police to control her (this tells a story on its own)
2) One Policeman turns up
3) She is now out of control and a danger to herself
4) The Policeman has been in this situation before and knows what could happen
5) Mother agrees that he can give her a mild stun
6) He complies and it calms her down and they send her off to an institution again
So in that situation, she is going off one one, what other means can he attempt to keep her, the Mother and himself safe?
Firstly, it's Arkansas. It's a country state where the capital city is the size of Portsmouth. The state is almost infamously stupid. I don't think someone calling the police because their child won't have a shower is outside the realms of all possibility.
The answer to what he should have done? Subdue her, without a taser. In this country every night police constables subdue
aggressive fully grown adult males. In this situation we are dealing with a
10 year old female girl. What serious threat did she pose to the police officer in a physical situation? Almost none. She would not have been able to stop him taking physical control unless she's the daughter of Hulk Hogan.
You also make a point of age again - a 10 year old child as though she should be exempt for her actions and especially since the environment has failed her.
Does this mean you also think that Jamie Bulger's killers should have been exempt?
(At one time they would have been until the age of 12 but the Bulger case changed all that)
Should a 10 year old child be exempt for their actions? It depends what you consider exempt. I don't think, for example, that it would have been a really good idea to lock them up and electrocute them better. However, those two boys killed another child. They are a potential danger to the public and should be held in custody and given whatever help they need so that we a) find out why they did what no normal 10 year old would do and b) help them move on from that and be normal members of society when they are eventually released.
If the murderers of Jamie Bulger wouldn't take a shower, does the fact that they once killed someone mean that the appropriate means of control is electrocution? I don't think it does, just like because this 10 year old girl is clearly in dire need of help as she is causing problems regularly, that it is appropriate to taser her to calm her down. If she was in a position to seriously injure or kill another person, then I could maybe see a reason to taser as a means of control. But to calm her down? It stinks.
If you really honestly truly believe 100% that the headline is all there was to the story and she ended up getting thrown back into juvenile prison then I'll leave it here.
It sounds like you might be giving the American system of treating problematic children far more credit than it's due.
