The Wichita school district needs to work with the Wichita Police Department on a policy restricting the use of Tasers in schools. Tasers can be dangerous and potentially deadly, so they shouldn’t be used on children except in extreme situations, such as a brawl or when a student has a knife. Based on initial reports, the use of a Taser on a 15-year-old student at Wichita North High School last week doesn’t meet this standard. The district also should report to parents and the public when a Taser is used, which it didn’t do in this case.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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24 Comments
This is a CLASSIC case of very bad Monday morning quarterbacking. It is so easy to sit back, after the fact and criticize.
To sit in post judgment and say this incident did not meet certain arbitrary “standards” which are not what the Police Department has defined, is utterly ridiculous. Is the newspaper now the official body to set standards for the Police Department?
This after the fact judgment is asinine. Phillip, you were not there. How dare you pass judgment on something you clearly are not qualified to even report, let alone pass judgment about?????
This kid was already on in-house suspension. We’re not talking about somebody’s little angel here. After reading the report, it’s obvious the little hood resisted several attempts to subdue him.
Sounds to me like he got what he so richly deserved.
Raptor how dare you use common sense…the police or teachers or anyone else who is this “poor kids” way should take what he wants to dish out…. and people wonder why we live in a world of more and more fear…when the good guys become the bad guys why would we feel safe…
Perhaps if the parent(s) had shown a little less coddling when he was 5 it wouldnt have happened. This kid was probably a candidate for the nanny!
Phillip refers to the kid as a child, and I suppose that is not technically false, but it makes the issue sound worse than it is. When you say ‘child’ it conjures images of a ‘darling little angel’ which, if they were acting in a manner that called for taser, would resemble rosemarys baby!
More likely (I speak in ignorance not seeing the kid) he has a more or less full size body.
Sounds to me like the cop didn’t have a whole lot of choices – try to subdue the kid physically might have been worse.
I’d like to see a tox screen on the kid.
Kids are scary now. Why risk it? The taser won’t kill him. It just might remind him, “Oh yeah. Authority. I forgot about that.”
good way to look at Tara
We’re talking about an incident at North “HIGH” School, so this wasn’t some unruly 6 year-old. I notice Mommy is screaming at the top of her lungs. Maybe if she’d tried some parenting…..
Interesting thought, X. Maybe mommy just sees this as her ride to riches? Sue the city, get millions….?
Don’t tell JR – He’ll SUE!!!
Raptor, watch the news. It happens all the time. I’ll bet dimes to donuts Mommy sues. There’ll be a settlement, and Mommy walks away with a few grand after her lawyers get their cut. The cop that was just doing his job will get roasted and we’ll all piss and moan about police brutality.
I’m sorry, but I have no patience for the little thugs that seem to inhabit the schools nowdays. Parents need to teach their little monsters about dicipline.
XXX is dead on again. Most times common sense overules idoitic behavior.
But raptor, to answer your question: “How dare you pass judgment on something you clearly are not qualified to even report, let alone pass judgment about?????” Well, it’s called journalism, and sometimes it’s right and other times it’s wrong. It also called a judicial system, as in no one on a jury knows what happened, nor were they there. They have to rely on evidence and word of mouth, the same thing journalists (at least the good ones) try to rely on. Anything else is anarchy.
So who is Philip to question the police action? A concerned citizen and journalist doing his job. In this case I think his judgement is incorrect, but he is entitled to his, and he gets paid to voice it.
From what I read in the paper the kid was 15 (which usually means full grown or very close to full grown) and his mother admits that the kid likes to talk big. He was supposed to be in in-school suspension.My conclusion is that an obviously fully trained police officer took the means he considered necessary to adaquately subdue the student in question – the kid deserved it.
JM..you make sense. My argument with Philip is his grandiose statement about how there should be standards, and how he goes ahead and decides what those standards should be. The WPD already has detailed standards for the use of these things, and Philip is just uninformed.
Unfortunately, his misguided and irresponsible opinions will assist mommy in her lawsuit…which will be paid by all taxpayers in Wichita.
You mean the Police had standards?
I figured by the way Phillip was talking they just issued all new Police recruits a Taser upon graduation, patted them on the back and said have fun!
Who would have thought that maybe, just maybe, the police were trained in the use of them and given policy too.
How many of you have a kid in a Wichita High School? Or one that has graduated in the last 4 years?
I don’t think any of you who answer “No” know how sick our high schools are…and I am not talking about the kids. The administrations policies are completely FUBAR.
Taser the BOE.
For the first time ever Todd is right.
I would sue.
The “no child left behind” “compassion” bush policy might better be stated as tow the line, pass the tests, or get yourself marginalized and pidgeon-holed into a school of behavior cases.
Given that and the Wichita Police Departments policy of BLAMMM “stop or I’ll shoot!” i guess the kid is lucky he was “only” tasered. He might well have been dead.
Parents are worked too hard to have time to be parents anymore. That is a failing of society that placing police in the schools and letting them use tasers or guns will not fix. It will only make it worse.
Amen, JR. “Tasering” the behavior is not focusing on the underlying problems to the behavior. Until we look at and come up with serious solutions to getting the schools under control again, expect to see lawsuits from parents whose little darlin’s butt got shocked.
Welcome back, Janabanana!! We’ve missed you!
Hubby and I expressly moved out of Wichita school district when our oldest started school because we’ve heard all the stories. We started in the Valley Center district and our oldest did well. He’s done even better since we’ve changed districts and he goes to an even smaller school. (Total K-12 is less than 600). He does really good with the one-on-one attention that can be provided. He still has problems in some areas but we and his teachers make a concerted effort to help him and not just pass him along. I’ve heard too many horror stories about kids graduating from Wichita schools and not even being able to read or do simple arithmatic not to mention the gangs and violence that can occur. We’ve got a friend that has a 12 year old girl in Wichita that gets beat up at least once a week by other kids and the administration does NOTHING!!I know this post is off topic but it’s in semi-response to Janabanana.
Thank you Damoon!
You were smart Julie for picking a small school.I don’t know what the real drop-out rate is hear in Wichita, but I can’t find any of the school districts statistics. The last USD 259 public record where the drop-out rate was discussed was in 1999!My son is missing a lot of classes and I have called 3 different people at the school to work out a solution. It took weeks for one to get back with me. I called the continuation schools and they are all full. One guy at one of the schools said they are having problems graduating the kids that are enrolled. The VP of the high school my son is currently in told me that now that he is 17, they really can’t do anything.They have a sweep-and-keep policy in which if the kids aren’t sitting in their seat when the bell rings, they are locked out of their classrooms. This has sent a big message to the kids that it just isn’t necessary for them to be in school. I am sure that this wasn’t the intended outcome of the sweep-and-keep policy, but it has turned into what psychologist call the hidden curriculum.I have seen groups of kids hanging around the parking lot, in front of the school and across the street from the school during classes. I have seen the school rent-a-cop pull up next to a group of kids in the parking during classes and not bust them…but joke around with them and join in the conversation.I have read today’s paper and USD 259’s plan to change high schools. I just read the same rhetoric that they make up after 300 hours of meetings. None of the new policies get the kids to class. No new plan will work unless the kids are in the classroom.
My niece is a very strict mom, when she found out that her son ditched school one day, not only was he grounded forever, she also promised him that if he ever did it again, she’d go to school with him and sit beside him in class everyday for a month to make sure he attended. He never did it again because he knew she’d make good on her promise.He’s doing great, graduated in the top 3% of his class and got a full academic scholarship to college.
I held my son back in the 7th grade because he blew off the entire year. All the teachers tried to talk me out of it because they worried about his “self esteem” (this was back in the 80’s), so I let him switch schools so he wouldn’t be so embarrased. It worked, he never gave us any trouble again. He didn’t drop out of school until he was in his 3rd year of college. Now married with a baby on the way, he wishes he had his degree. Oh, well.Sometimes it pays to be a hard ass when it comes to getting kids to tow the line.You have to hand the responsinity to them and make their life miserable if they make the wrong choice.
“I would sue.”
You would lose.