Tazing When Not Needed

Last night on the 11 o' clock news there was a news report about a seeming unruly middle school child. I cannot recall what State this happened in, but the middle school child was sent to the principal's office for one reason or another. When the 4th or 5th grader got to the principal's office, the reporter tells us that he or she goes on to hit one of the teachers that was there. We don't know what the situation was; all the report said was that the child hit a teacher. Following the alleged assault by the middle schooler, the child was then tazed by a police officer who was in the principal's office as well. The middle schooler was then arrested.

One question that someone should be screaming out here is, "Why should this be allowed to happen in a middle school in the United States?" First of all, the news briefing indicated that the officer said that he treated the situation of tazing the child as he would have any other situation outside of the school building. Why, though? What kind of idiot finds a 4th or 5th grader to be as threatening as, let's say for the sake of argument, a criminal situation outside of the school? What kind of inhumane training did this police office go through to learn that he has a right to taze another parent's child? We all know very well some of the harmful effects that a tazer can do to regular adults. What would have happened if the child had died? You can bet that there would have been a lawsuit against the officer for his abuse of power, and there should be anyway!

Furthermore, one has to consider why the child acted as he or she did in the first place. Was the child unwilling to go to the principal's office and, therefore, hit a teacher for dragging him or her along? Or was this simply an outburst of the child? Whatever it was, one does not handle the situation by tazing a 4th or 5th grader. Any clear-headed adult should know that that would clearly be no way to deal with a child. Instead of being tazed, the child's mother or father should have been called on the spot! What has happened to good, old fashioned discipline? I suppose that went right out the window after the invention of the tazers. Or at least that seems to be the mindset of the police officer.

But after looking at the whole situation, however, one should question further the scenario. What kind of home life does the child have? Perhaps he or she is subconsciously acting out of frustration because of trouble in their home. Is there something more serious going on, like child abuse? Or has the child just acted out from a lack of discipline that he or she receives at home? All of that should have been checked out by the school itself or by Children's' Services.

Whatever the reason, the case, or the argument, one can definitely realize, or should anyway, the danger and idiocy of using a tazer on a little middle school child. Where else is this going on in the United States? Schools, which are supposed to be institutions that are safe for children, will not be safe as long as police officers such as this one think that they have a right to abuse their power, like in this situation. Our schools are not safe if teachers, police officers, and other authorities think that there is no other way to discipline a young middle school child, who has plenty of more discipline and lessons to learn, than to shoot them with a tazer. More importantly, though, perhaps instead of tazing and arresting the child, different tactics should have been used. Perhaps the school, police officer, and the other adults involved should have cared more about the child to refrain from whining, "You hurt me - let's taze you," but instead looking deeper into the root of the problem so that it could be fixed immediately and the child could end up growing up to be a successful, productive member of our society.