Cops Use Taser on 911 Caller

Published July 13, 2010 at 8:35 a.m.
RICHLAND, Ga. (AP) Two police are off the force and a rural Georgia teacher is threatening to sue after she says she called police to her home and ended up getting zapped repeatedly with a stun gun.

Ryan Smith, of the Lumpkin Police Department, has resigned and Tim Murphy, of Richland Police Department, was fired for using pepper spray on Janice Wells in the incident captured on a police dashboard camera on April 26.

The video shows officers standing over Wells, 57, who is obscured by an open police cruiser door, but who can be heard screaming ``Don't do that! Don't do that!'' as officers shout

``Get in the car. Get in the car. You're going to get it again!'' A stun gun can be heard zapping repeatedly during the roughly two-minute recording.

Wells' attorney, Gary Parker, said he believes his client may have been zapped as many as 12 times and police said Smith shocked himself at one point.

Parker said no decision has been made on filing a lawsuit but he is talking with local officials about a resolution.

Wells said she feared a prowler was outside her clapboard house in Richland when she called authorities.

A friend named John Robinson said she then called him to wait with her until the police arrived. Robinson said the third-grade teacher's husband was in McRae, almost 90 miles away.

According to Robinson, Wells and the police reports, Robinson left after police arrived.

Police said after Robinson left the officer asked Wells for his full name, but she wouldn't tell him. Murphy threatened her with arrest, grabbed her arm and put a handcuff on it, according to the report, but she ran away.

Eventually, she said fell to the ground and was zapped.

Stewart County Sheriff Larry Jones, who came to the house seconds after the last electric shock was administered, later bonded Wells out of jail and drove her to an area hospital to be examined. Jones, who has known Wells for years, can also be heard on the video softly reassuring Wells.

Lumpkin Police Chief Steven Ogle, was shocked when he saw the video. ``I couldn't believe it,'' Ogle said. ``You don't use it (a stun gun) for punitive reasons, to prod someone.''

Smith, who quit eight days after the incident, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he was not remorseful.

``I did what I had to do to take control of the situation,'' Smith said.

Smith now works for the Chattahoochee County Sheriff's office.

A phone listing for Murphy could not be found by The Associated Press.

``All of it's just unreal to me. I was scared to death,'' Wells said in an interview with the newspaper. ``He kept tasing me and tasing me. My fingernails are still burned. My leg, back and my butt had a long scar on it for days.''

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


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