http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...way/?mobile=nc

After a taxi driver spotted an autistic 11-year-old walking naked on the
highway early Saturday morning, Oregon State police used a taser to
apprehend her. Although police said the move was necessary to stop her
from danger, a witness at the scene, Adam Bednar, disputed this account,
saying she wasn’t walking toward the road. The local Newswatch 12 reports:

Bednar says he drove alongside her while he called police. He says
the trooper who arrived called for her to stop, and when she didn’t
respond threatened twice to taze her. After giving no response, two
little red dots appeared on her back, then metal barbs.

“She seized up and she fell face first on the ground,” said Bednar.

Police claim they warned the girl twice before tasing her. But Bednar
was walking around confused and unresponsive, and her father says his
daughter has a severe form of autism and doesn’t respond verbally at
all. Other state troopers have received calls before about the girl
running away from home.

The officers involved have not been suspended and the department says it
is investigating the incident. But misuse of excessive force on the
mentally ill is a common police problem. A Department of Justice
investigation of Portland, Oregon police last year found a “pattern of
abuse” and excessive force, including tasing, on the mentally ill. And a
study in Maine found that half of those shot by police were mentally ill.