Two white sheriff’s deputies in Colerain Township, Ohio, were caught on video using a Taser on a 12-year-old black girl at a skating rink Saturday night after she reportedly attacked them and refused to leave the skating rink when asked.
Brian Liette, an employee of the Skatin’ Place, told Fox19 that the girl was asked to comply with a rule requiring all patrons to wear skates, and she was given a time frame within which to do so, but she refused. She was told that she would be asked to leave if she did not comply.
After she was asked several times to put skates on and refused, Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies got involved.
WCPO reports that the deputies’ use of force is currently under investigation, but Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mike Robison said it appeared that the deputies had followed policies and procedures when using the Taser.
Robison said the deputies were working a security detail at the Skatin’ Place on Saturday when the incident occurred. Skatin’ Place staff and the deputies reportedly told the girl several times that she needed to leave the skating rink, but she refused and allegedly used “extremely disrespectful language.”
Robison said that as deputies escorted the girl out, she hit a deputy in the face twice and then kicked both deputies.
From WCPO:
When she wouldn’t stop resisting, a deputy stunned her once with a Taser, Robison said. The deputy didn’t fire barbs into the girl, Robison said: instead, he “drive stunned” her on the back of the leg. The “drive stun” mode doesn’t incapacitate a person but is used to inflict pain to get the person to comply with orders, according to Taser’s website.
“Deputies have been working at that skating rink for a number of years,” Sheriff Jim Neil said. “This is the first time in a long time that there was a major incident at this venue.”
Neil spoke about the incident at a news conference announcing deputies would soon have body-worn cameras. “This is an example of — if these deputies were on duty wearing body-worn cameras — how much more expedient” the investigation might be, he said.
Robison told WCPO that the girl has been charged with two counts of assault on an officer, one count of resisting arrest and one count of disorderly conduct.