Circuit Court: Fine for Cops toTaser Pregnant Woman Three Times over Speeding Ticket

Court sees nothing amiss in having  a pregnant Malaika Brooks tasered repeatedly and then hit  in the thigh, shoulder and neck, hauled from her car and laid face-down in the street by three of Seattle's finest, all for driving at 32 MPH in a school zone, while dropping her son off at school.

Jonathan Turley reports

The United States Court of Appeals has ruled that three Seattle police officers were justified when they tasered a pregnant mother three times when she refused to sign a traffic ticket. Malaika Brooks was driving her son to Seattle's African American Academy in 2004 when she was stopped for doing 32 mph in a school zone. When she refused to get out of her car to be arrested, one officer tasered her repeatedly despite (she claims) knowing that she was pregnant.

The officers - Sgt. Steven Daman, Officer Juan Ornelas and Officer Donald Jones - hit her in the thigh, shoulder and neck and then hauled her out of the car and laid her face-down in the street.

While the baby was born two months later without injury, the mother has permanent scars from the taserings.

Judges Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain ruled that the officers were justified in making an arrest because Brooks was obstructing them and resisting arrest. The judges insisted that, while surrounded by police and the car turned off, she still was a danger: "It seems clear that Brooks was not going to be able to harm anyone with her car at a moment's notice. Nonetheless, some threat she might retrieve the keys and drive off erratically remained, particularly given her refusal to leave the car and her state of agitation."