EBD Blog

Jack Leonard and Richard Winton reported that a California police department will investigate whether an officer who used a taser stun gun to subdue a boy with Autism acted according to police guidelines. The investigation was prompted by a complaint from the boy’s parents. Under the headline “Hawthorne police review use of Taser on middle school student,” Mr. Leonard and Mr. Winton recount the incident from September of 2008 when Officer Vincent Arias tased the 12-year-old boy who had assaulted a teacher and a school security guard.

Lt. Michael Ishii said police were called to Hawthorne Middle School after a student grabbed a counselor in a threatening manner and punched and kicked a security guard who intervened. The boy, described as about 5 feet 7 and 130 to 150 pounds, threatened to kill staff members and continued assaulting the guard, who tried to protect other staffers, Ishii said.

“He bore the brunt of the assault,” Ishii said of the guard, who was knocked to the ground at one point. “He was doing his best to block the kicks and punches.”

Officer Vincent Arias arrived at the school about 11:30 a.m. The boy, whose name was not released, continued behaving violently and kicked Arias in the groin as about 200 students looked on from the school grounds, Ishii said.

School officials called the boy’s adult sister to the site but she was unable to calm him, Ishii said. Arias, he said, fired a hand-held X26 Taser when the boy dashed toward the school’s exit and the area where the other students were in a physical education class.

Link to Mr. Leonard’s and Mr. Winton’s story from the Los Angeles (CA, US) Times. Read previous posts on EBD Blog about use of force by police to subdue children with Autism from 21 September 2007 and 22 August 2006.