Saturday, December 1, 2007

Arkansas loves its Special Olympians

I've never been to Arkansas in my life, and after hearing this story, I plan to keep it that way.

On Wednesday of this past week in the state, a Special Olympics athlete got caught in a case of mistaken identity by police.

And, naturally, he got tasered.

Police were looking for a 'Travis Henderson' who had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court on a reckless driving charge. However, the officers flagged down Travis Henderson - Special Olympics medal winner.

The police were, of course, totally on the ball, as they disregarded Henderson's ID (who has a different birthdate than the suspect) and also called for backup. They clearly have some mean streets in Arkansas.

Incredibly, the tasering was deemed justifiable. Police claim our Special Olympics hero resisted arrest.

"(Officer Ward) O.K., don't resist..."

"(Henderson) O.K."

"(Officer Ward)...'cause you're gonna get Tased."

"(Henderson) I'm not..."

BUZZZZZZZZ! (note: I added the buzz)
Wait a second, so agreeing with police is a taserable offense? You learn something new every day.

And to top it all off, police still charged Henderson with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest even after they realized he was the wrong guy. Hey, might as well kick a Special Olympian while he's down, right?

The charges were dropped on Friday - which is kind of surprising. I half-expected Henderson to get the chair.

-WCK

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly the guy was guilty of CWB. "Competing while black."

Brandon said...

It seems cops these days are much too quick to use the taser. It's as if they believe since a taser is less lethal than a gun, they can use it whenever they want.

Anonymous said...

They forgot to tell you this "Special Olympian" has a commercial drivers license, use to drive a school bus now operates heavy equipment for the state highway dept. Guess it could be easy to have a mistaken id when this so called wrong guy did some time a few mths earlier on some warrants of his own. Things just aren't always as they seem especially on the news are you sure he's a special olympian sounds like a fraud to me

Anonymous said...

nice photo of arrest. nice bars on the windows bet that's to keep those pesky mean taser tot'n cops out. NOT well now that you think about it maybe they're in front of a crack house.

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