'Clumsy' French cop tasers schoolkid

A "clumsy" French cop is facing discliplinary measures after accidentally tasering a 15-year-old schoolkid, TF1 News reports. The unnamed gendarme was demonstrating the electric enforcer to youngsters at a "career day" in Dole, Jura, on 28 January, when he zapped his victim's leg. The discharge earned the lad a night in …

[Anonymous Coward]

Was his rank

Inspector by any chance?

oh my god, how many comments are there going to be :D

[Emilio Desalvo]

Not Police...

That was not Police but Gendarmerie (i.e. Military Police, like the Carabinieri in Italy) so he had a military rank.

Probably good that it was a Taser and not a FAMAS.

[Andy 61]

Title required

Ne me taze pas frere !

[Alpha Tony]

Is it wrong of me...

.... To wish someone was videoing this?

[Quxy]

Swine taser!

There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but which time?

Quxy said: "There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them."

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it ...

... Inspector Clouseau ?

[Matt 21]

Yes quite funny but

... if the kid had a neuro-stimulator they'd now be dead or severely injured.

[Marky W]

Lighten up

and have one of those

<----

[Anonymous Coward]

Arguably that would depend on how close he keeps his leg

to his clavicle, non?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't disipline him!

Give him a medal and send him on his way to shock some sense into more schoolkids!!

I for one welcome our new tazer wielding french overlords!

[Mr Grumblefish]

Well you're the first

Have to admit though, I was a little surprised Lester didn't try to write at least some of the article in a rendition of a Peter Sellars French accent.

[Gianni Straniero]

These hands are deadly weapons

Dreyfus: The beggar was the lookout man for the gang.

Clouseau: That is impossible. How can a blind man be a lookout?

Dreyfus: How can an idiot be a police officer?

Clouseau: Well, all he has to do is enlist...

Dreyfus: Shut up!

[Shadowthrone]

is it wrong of me....

......that the first thing I did was laugh. The second thing was thing, finally discipline in schools.

[Maverick]

in the UK

. . . I believe the kid would have been charged with obstruction, should consider himself lucky a night in a French hospital bed has to be better than a DNA swab, a police caution and never been able to pass a CRB check again for the rest of his life

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly

he wouldn't be charged with obstruction, i believe it would be unlawfully stealling the police's electricity

[Spot the Cat]

Vengeance!

Maybe it was some little scrote who'd crossed his path before and it seemed like a chance too good to miss?

[Robert Ramsay]

At least he didn't do it on purpose

...which is what I was expecting from this story...

[davenewman]

Playmobil

reconstruction.

[Usko Kyykka]

Jura gendarmerie ?

My skill in the French language being based solely on listening to Edith Piaf (aka Enchantresse Sublime I, l'impératrice de la chanson) I have to wonder whether this has been named in honor of the epoch (Jurassic, obviously) it was founded ?

[Emilio Desalvo]

The other way around...

The Jurassic era got its name from the Jura Mountains...

[Anton Ivanov]

Neither

Geological periods are named after British regions. Jurassic after Jura island off the scottish coast. Devon is selfexplanatory and so on. Unless France has conquered Scotland this has to be another Jura.

In any case, what is all the fuss about. If the kid was really considering a career as a policeman he will now think twice before zapping someone. In fact, getting yourself zapped first before zapping people should be part of the mandatory Tazer training. After all. It is supposed to be non-letal, right?

[JP19]

re

You're all wrong.

[Dave Harris]

Or perhaps..

...the era was named after the most notable geological feature to arise during it, ie, the Jura mountain range

[Blubster]

The little...

bastard probably deserved it, if he didn't get tasered now, then he'd probably have copped a jolt some time in the future.

Having his future actions nipped in the bud by a good tasering has probably saved the French government from having to pay for his future prison sentence.

[Anonymous Coward]

But are tazers bad?

If the inspector hadn't been armed with a tazer, then quite possibly this story would have been about a french inspector who emptied their glock into a school child's leg.

[Paul 4]

How dose that make it better?

Tazers are not toys. Guns are not toys. Don't take them out unless you intend to use them, and realy don't show them to kids to show how hard you are. He shouldent have had either out. Thats like saying "sorry I ran you over in my car, but hay at least its not a lorry"

[Anonymous Coward]

Moronic cops

I guess the kid is lucky he wasn't being shown the cops gun.

[Eddy Ito]

Typical

We'd all be better off if we simply didn't allow police to have weapons. Clearly they can't be trusted with them. That said, he didn't shoot himself although I think it would have been a more effective "learning moment" for officer in question. Oh, the title? see here.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/13/cop_tasers_self/

[Henry Wertz 1]

Well this has it beat...

This has it beat pretty easily...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_91jcFTbLE8

Summary for the "Youtube impaired": DEA guy is giving a school presentation about gun safety. ..."I'm the only one in this room that I know of that is professional enough to carry a Glock 40" *slip* *shoots himself in the foot*.

[TeeCee]

Glock 40?

No such animal (according to Glock anyway).

Do you mean the Glock 22? i.e. the one that takes S&W .40 rounds to satisfy the calibre fixated types across the pond.

[Johan Bastiaansen]

didn't happen

If it's not on youtube, it didn't happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Je n'ai pas besoin d'un titre

In the US the cop or the kid would have been shot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-Qdx6vky0

[Sven]

Police only tasers, French army ...

... shoot with live rounds into crowd:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4240396.ece

[Anonymous Coward]

A title

It must have been a crowd of Sarko voters that Sergeant fired at, hence why he got his collar felt.

But at the end of the day, it's still better to end up firing lives when it should have been blanks than the other way around :-/

[Allan George Dyer]

That rather depends...

on whether you are the innocent protester, or the stupid gunman.

[Anonymous Coward]

Police And Weapons

Recently a German Policegirl managed to shoot through the window when she demonstrated her Pistol to schoolkids. She forgot the bullet in the barrel.... Nobody hurt, though.

A couple of years ago another Policer shot himself into the foot with his own pistol.

For good reason British police is normally unarmed. It's for their own protection...

What would they do with handgrenades ?

[Wilfie]

A policeman, not a gendarme

Why is it considered in the least bit drôle to confuse policemen with gendarmes?

[Oz]

Gendarme

Most likely because the term military police would be equally misleading. Although the Gendarme are under military control, the function they perform is more like our policeman than the military cops.

[blackworx]

Police worldwide grit teeth, roll eyes...

No you stupid Frenchies - it's NOT a weapon, it's a non-lethal neromuscular incapacitation device.

[Emilio Desalvo]

Does it...

...have any effect on Paris?

[Ascylto]

Tazered while Rome burned

So it gets Roman Emperors, then.

[Daniel Wilkie]

to be fair

We treat it as a weapon too...

Hell even your PAVA spray is a weapon for crying out loud :p

[JP19]

re

You stupid, Emilio, Taser IS a weapon ! A weapon is not necessarily lethal.

[Anonymous Coward]

what I don't understand

is how a cheese eating surrender monkey managed to figure out where the trigger was..

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe...

Maybe the kid wanted to enlist and needed to be reminded of his nationality....

[Anonymous Coward]

Should be done to all kids!

Maybe if all kids were tasered as part of their schooling, it may stop them turning into hooligans and thugs and a life of crime. I know of many kids that would benefit from this.

Shame the French had to think of it first.

Magaphone to let them know it's gonna hurt.

[peter 45]

Night in hospital?

We are told that these tazers are safe.......so why did the child need to go to hospital, let alone stay overnight? Total overeaction or not as safe as we think? Or more likely, unsafe if innocent is tazered, perfectly safe if guilty b******d is tazered.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Emptied their glock into..."

Was I the only one who wasn't thinking of guns ?

Sounds like something from a Fat Slags strip.

[Alan Douglas]

Re: Anton Ivanov

The Jurassic era takes its name from the Jura Mountains, between France & Swizterland.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quel con !

That only shows our quota militia doesn't have a clue on how to operate weapons, be them lethal or not.

This bloke is a senior officer in militia (sorry, gendarmerie), which is even worse.

Not sure the story is true, though, as I would have heard of it in the french news, even if they're now largely overwhelmed with even more serious militia blunders (like retaining a 14 years old girl in pyjama, for no serious reason).

Anon, for obvious reasons

By the way, El Reg, we need a militia icon !

[elderlybloke]

Quel con ! - Pt2

Dear AC,

The Gendarmerie actually have a Grenade as their "Icon".

[Svantevid]

Sexual harassment

Well, the cop used his thingie to penetrate a 15-year-old kind and discharge into it.