A video of an pregnant woman who was tasered by cops in Illinois is causing quite an uproar on the net.
According to The State Register Journal , Lucinda White, 29, had called police after she and her boyfriend, Frederic Thomas, were involved in a minor car accident on March 30 in the parking lot of a Best Buy store in Springfield, Illinois.
Once law enforcement arrived on the scene, the driver of the other vehicle allegedly denied responsibility for the crash.
Police reports say Thomas then got violent and began yelling and cursing at the driver.
The officer reportedly asked Thomas to calm down or he would be arrested, but Thomas persisted and then allegedly resisted arrest, “swinging his arms” wildly at the officer’s head.
As the struggle continued, White, who is eight months pregnant, kept yelling at the cop to get off Thomas, and eventually pulled on the officer’s shirt, reports said.
A second policeman arrived and applied a “drive stun” to Thomas’ hip and tried to pull White off, reports said.
After White continued to protest, the officer then turned the weapon on her and brought her to the ground.
“White continued to resist until I applied a one second drive stun with my Taser to her left thigh, and was able to force her to the ground and secure her in handcuffs,” the report by Springfield police Sgt. Edward Higginson said.
Both White and Thomas were arrested following the ordeal. White was released without bond. Thomas paid 10 percent of his $3,000 bail. They are both due in court in May.
After cellphone footage of the ordeal hit the net, many web users expressed their anger that police would use a taser on a pregnant woman.
A spokesperson for the Springfield police, however, justified his officers’ actions, saying said it appeared they had followed protocol.
“The video actually mirrored the reports that they turned in before we even knew about the video… They [the officers] followed policy.” Springfield police deputy chief Cliff Buscher told CNN.
Watch a video of the incident below and let us know: Do you think the police were warranted in their decision to taser White? Is tasering a pregnant woman an excessive use of force in your opinion?
HLNTV discusses Lucinda White’s tasering:
