Stoughton, MA – Authorities are investigating an incident when police deployed a Taser on a violent 16-year-old girl at a homeless shelter in Stoughton (video below).
The incident began when police responded to Evelyn House, a homeless shelter, for a report of a staff member being threatened with violence, WBTS reported.
Police said that after the suspect learned the staff member had called 911 for help, she threatened the staff member again.
Stoughton police said in a written statement that the incident under review was the police department’s third response to a problem at Evelyn House within 24 hours, WBTS reported.
When officers arrived at the homeless shelter for this particular incident, the 16-year-old suspect became instantly combative.
In cell phone videos filmed by witnesses, the teenage girl can be seeing arguing with officers on the steps of Evelyn House, with a group of other young women and children surrounding them.
In the video, an officer repeatedly told the girl to put her hands behind her back.
Instead, when the officer reached for her, she shoved him and hit him, the video showed.
Then a second officer put his arms around her from behind as the first video clip ended.
It's unclear if the camera was stopped or if the video was edited to remove what happened.
The video picked up again after police had taken the 16-year-old girl to the ground, and were attempting to subdue and handcuff her as she fought them on her back.
The woman screamed as an officer stood above her and deployed a Taser, and then officers on their knees beside her flipped her over onto her stomach to put handcuffs on her.
The video showed that even after she was tased, the young woman continued screaming and resisting arrest.
Other girls off camera can be heard screaming at the officers, and the officer with the Taser briefly appeared to point it in the direction of some other people briefly, before he turned back to the struggling woman on the ground and deployed the electric charge yet again, the video showed.
The video showed another girl being held back by her friend, as police officers blocked them from interfering with the arrest. There was a stroller with a baby in it right next to the girl struggling to jump into the fray.
“Mommy!” a child can be heard screaming over and over again as the melee ensued.
“Why y’all doing that? Did it really take all that?” one girl yelled at the officers as the first young woman continued to resist arrest on the grass in the background of the video.
“I’m gonna call my lawya’!” another voice piped up on the video.
Then police stood up the girl and began to march her over to the police vehicle, the video showed.
“I don’t give a f--k, yo! All that s--t's on f--king camera, and I don’t give a f--k,” a woman yelled.
The video showed the teenage girl fought police all the way over to the police SUV.
So far, police officials have supported the officers who responded to that call at Evelyn House as they investigated the incident.
"When it comes to a violent altercation, we can not [sic] just call a time out to ask for identification to determine the offending parties [sic] age. As it relates to use of force, it is dictated by the offending party regardless of age or gender. Once you are told you are under arrest you can not resist or become assaultive," Stoughton Police Lieutenant John Bonney told WBTS in a written statement.
Neighbor Bob Sinclair lives next door to the homeless shelter and said he watched the entire scene play out in front of him.
"She wasn't cooperating," Sinclair told WBTS. "They had their stun guns out, and they told her to stop, she didn't stop, they stunned her."
Stoughton police said a police official and an officer were punched, slapped, and scratched during the altercation with the raging teenager.
The police official had to be taken to the hospital for medical treatment afterward, WBTS reported.
"If a police officer tells you to stop, you stop," Sinclair said. "If you don't, there's going to be a problem."
Phyillis Ellis of the Brockton area NAACP said that the video is "disturbing," according to Enterprise News.
You can watch the altercation unfold in the video below:
