A Tallahassee police officer tased a 62-year old African-American woman in the back while she was walking away from him.
The incident, which was caught on tape, has resulted in an internal investigation and the officer being put on leave. It happened while police were responding to calls about drug deals on Tuesday evening.
Video of the woman being Tased was released by Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo who announced the internal investigation of the officer, Terry Mahan, at a news conference on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Based on the video, I have enough concerns to call for an internal investigation,” DeLeo said, according to the Associated Press. “We will conduct a thorough investigation into this incident. We want to be transparent with the community by sharing what we can at this point, including the video.”
In the video, Mahan is seen walking past two police cars toward the woman, Viola Young. Young turns around and Mahan pulls out his stun gun and shoots at Young’s back. Young falls down straight onto the ground.
A released police report said that Mahan said Young and another man were yelling at officers. When Mahan told people to step back, the man complied, according to the report, but Young did not.
“I just want to know what is going on!” she said.
The report said that Mahan said Young had “obstructed officers while in the course of completing their legal duties.” According to Mahan Young refused another call from police to back away. He then said to Young that she was under arrest. Young “yanked away” according to the report and walked away “in an attempt to defeat her lawful arrest” which prompted Mahan to use his stun gun.
Watch the video of the woman being Tased below, which occurs around 2:30 in the video:
She was going for his gun, she moved in a threatening manner, his life was in danger, her actions were menacing, yadayadayada.
Maybe they will test her for marajuana and a super secret police source will reveal the results.
Glad it was taped Otherwise they’d charge her resisting arrest and obstructing justice. She was leaving and didn’t interfere at all. Assholes.
Don’t forget that they’ll post unflattering pictures of her drinking and smoking 30 years ago. If they can’t find some, they can just pull any black woman’s photo and the RW blogs will run with it.
AND post pics of the innocent officer with a battered eye socket and say that she attacked him with the intent to kill.
Unfortunately you are right; it’s a damn good thing there is video. They would have indeed made the claim that she was obstructing justice - as he did in the repot - and no one would have questioned it, blinked and eye and it would have been taken as the unvarnished truth.
So is Young a woman or a man?
So she was complying after all with his order to step back when he tased her.