Advocates urge Perry to ban Tasers in schools
After a Round Rock high school resource officer used a Taser on a 16-year-old student to stop a fight Monday, some youth advocates on Tuesday sent a letter to Gov. Rick Perry, urging him to ban the use of Tasers and pepper spray in public schools.
“Use of Tasers and pepper spray has become far too routine in public schools, despite rigorous restrictions in other child-serving settings, including juvenile lockups,” Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit that advocates for social justice, wrote in the letter.
Appleseed, along with seven other groups, has sent Perry two letters in recent months — the first one on Feb. 26 — regarding what they called “abusive uses of force” in schools. The letters came after a November incident in which then 17-year-old Noe Niño de Rivera suffered traumatic brain injury after collapsing when a Bastrop County sheriff’s office deputy tased him at Cedar Creek High School. Rivera was in a coma for 52 days and is currently in rehabilitation, Appleseed deputy director Deborah Fowler said.
Some law enforcement officers, however, are skeptical of the requests for a ban, arguing that they need more options to handle violence in schools.
More at http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/advocates-urge-perry-to-ban-tasers-in-schools/article_96078d96-c822-11e3-a4d6-001a4bcf6878.html .