Great moments in police work.

It used to be that I would think that stories like this were exagerations or fabrications...

...and then I started seeing videos on the internet that showed exactly this kind of thing occurring.

The first woman's alleged offenses were minor. She did not pose an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others. She actively resisted arrest insofar as she refused to get out of her car when instructed to do so and stiffened her body and clutched her steering wheel to frustrate the officers' efforts to remove her from her car. She did not evade arrest by flight, and no other exigent circumstances existed at the time. She was seven months pregnant, which the officers knew, and they tased her three times within less than one minute, inflicting extreme pain on her. A reasonable fact-finder could conclude, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to her, that the officers' use of force was unreasonable and therefore constitutionally excessive. However, at the time, there were three circuit courts of appeals cases rejecting claims that the use of a taser constituted excessive force; there were no circuit taser cases finding a Fourth Amendment violation. The second woman also stated a claim for excessive force; however, because the law was not clearly established at the time of both incidents, the police officers were entitled to qualified immunity.


Mattos v. Agarano, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 20957 (9th Cir. Haw. Oct. 17, 2011)

Tasering a 7 month pregnant women? Huh?