Missed this one when it happened. The quickness of ill-trained American police to reach for this potentially-lethal electrical torture device is a national shame. Not to say the Taser doesn't have a proper place on the use-of-force continuum, but it's a go-to far too often for cops who don't know how to control a situation with presence, voice, and lower levels of force -- or who just get pissed off and think it's their right to administer some "street justice" via electric shock. The case also illustrates the hazards to students of having so-called "resource officers" in schools.
Texas student tased by police exits coma, enters rehabilitation, attorney says (CNN)
A 17-year-old Texas student who spent 52 days in a medically induced coma after police used a Taser on him at school entered a full-time rehabilitation facility Friday, his family's attorney said.
Noe Nino de Rivera was transported to the hospital on November 20 after Bastrop County Sheriff's Deputy Randy McMillan, serving as a school resource officer, used the device on him after the teen tried to defuse a school fight involving two girls, one of them his girlfriend, said attorney Adam Loewy.
The parents have filed a lawsuit alleging their son never posed a threat to the deputy and that Nino de Rivera suffered a permanent brain injury when he hit the ground after McMillan tased the teen.