[WFTR]

Regardless of whether the officer's actions were justified, the mother certainly wouldn't have lamented the officer not using the Taser. If the girl had been killed, the mother would have complained about the officer chasing the girl, but attributing the "If he would only have used his harmless Taser" line is not realistic. The person who more likely would have used that line would have been the spouse/parent of some innocent person killed in an accident if the girl darted into traffic and caused an accident.

We have incidents like these because our society is doing poorly. I don't have a ready answer to that problem. This officer shouldn't be punished if the event happened as described, and I don't know whether the policy needs to be reworked.

Bill

[robertpaulsen]

"... the mother would have complained about the officer chasing the girl, but attributing the "If he would only have used his harmless Taser" line is not realistic."

You're correct. Artistic license on my part.

But, I bet that Taser option would be presented by someone in front of the jury in the civil case against the city that followed. And the jurors would all nod their collective heads (Yeah, why didn't he? She'd be alive today.) and award the mother $20 million.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

In both instances if the children would have been acting appropriately none of this would have happened. I think they should go taser the parents too.