Here is another story out of denver where im from, there are two links about the same story and how its turning out http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4511046,00.html
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4474215,00.html

Here's a link to a blog post I wrote about a year ago on this subject in Birmingham...
http://twofeetin.typepad.com/elisa/2005/03/it_looks_like_t.html

Here's one of a 12 year old girl getting tasered.
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050909/NEWS01/509090434/-1/CINC

how about 7 year olds?
http://www.cincypost.com/2005/01/05/taser010505.html

Here's one from Cape Coral, FL.

Apparently, the 16 year old student who got tasered was being arrested for dumping a bottle of urine on another student. He was tasered for resisting arrest.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060329/NEWS0101/603300337/1001/ARCHIVES

Here's one. A 14-year old kid in Madison, Wisconsin.

Even easier, just google taser high school and hits from more than a dozen states appear, plus a school safety bulletin claiming those who miss use tasers are isolated incidents and should not be used to categorize the majority of school resource officers. Sounds just like at abu ghraib.

Aw, come on you guys! Everyone knows that compared to Ritalin, tasering is eminently safer and more cost effective!

Shock and aggghghghghg!

I live in Cincinnati, and the tasering issue has been very controversial. It's hideous and one would think unnecessary. Still, I don't know why you add such emphasis to "a 14-year-old girl." What's the huge difference between that and a 15-year-old student? (Assuming he's male since, you know, all people are male unless proven female.) I went to school with some pretty rough teenage girls, and at 14 I myself was 5'9" and weighed 140. We're not necessarily weaker and it's not necessarily more pathetic to pick on us.

I know, strange thing for me to focus on, but I can't help but notice such things.

Here is a taser of a six-year old boy. Only in Florida, where I live. :)

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/taser_6yrold.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0328-02.htm

My work is in trying to get schools to take a different approach, something (wildly enough) called POSITIVE behavior support (pbis.org for more). While my peers around the country and I try to turn the tide through teaching, supporting and rewarding prosocial behavior, the powers that be have found tasers a much more expedient way to make our schools more harmonious. This is widespread in several urban/suburban areas of this state. The tasering is actually only a momentary action...what follows almost every time is a long term (here in NC that equals 365 days) suspension or even permanent expulsion. And guess what we have started to notice about those being tased? They tend to resemble each other, especially in skin tone. This certainly is a recipe for behavior change, huh? Keep on building those prisons, stormtroopers...you'll need em.

Well, nothing can surprise me from the Fascist USA. The real question is, has ANY OTHER country ever done this?

I dont have a link, but there was a big fuss within the last year about a MIDDLE SCHOOLER being tasered here in Miami, FL. The story was that the kid was uncontrollably upset, had broken a shard of glass out of a picture frame, and was threatening to harm himself. The school cop (yes, some schools down here have their own police force--but I'm sure this is the exception, not the rule), decided that attempting to subdue the kid any other way than the taser was more likely to harm him, so zappo! No one died, but most folks thought it was egregiously heavy handed.

OK, maybe I should really READ the previous posts before (redundantly) posting myself. EdR beat me to it a full day ago.

I don't suppose that any one here has any real experience working in Middle/High schools? Being a public school teacher of 15 years experience, I have taught students that: One threatend to go home and get a gun and come back and shoot every one. He had already been arrested for chasing his mother with a running chain-saw, and for beating the hell out of a parked car; another was arrested when he was caught pouring gas around his mother's bed, ready to light it up. There have been drug dealers, bullies, and other crazies. Do you wish us to try to control them by rapping their knuckles with a ruler?

Just for clarification, the link I posted was not regarding a middle schooler although there have been many students tasered in South Florida, one actually beaten to death recently in one of the boot camps for troubled youth (so they're referred to). The link I posted refers to the tasering on a six year old. That's a first grader. They tasered a first grader. Guess they have to use em.

Charlotte/Mecklenberg (North Carolina, US) uses tasers in schools:

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/12343526.htm
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/13017381.htm
http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/local_news/mecklenburg/?AC=&ArID=106083&SecID=3

Unfortunately, I cannot find the report anymore, but there was a study done in Canada examining the actual safety of taser devices. What they found is that tasers are very dangerous when used on children and the elderly, or anyone with heart problems. The last is hard to figure out before using a taser, but it should be obvious that children are more susceptible to harm from these devices.

By "susceptible", I am referring to serious long-term injury, or death. When reports of deaths from taser use come up on various newswires I watch, they are almost always because a taser was used on someone aged 16 or younger; particularly in the 14 year old age group.

It should really be stressed that tasers are not a safe alternative for control of children. There are much more effective ways of dealing with children that are not as much of a risk to their lives.