There are a lot of questions I'd like answered before getting all up in the Houston Women's Hospital's grill about the tasering and arrest for attempted kidnapping of a new father as he was leaving the hospital the maternity ward with his two-day-old daughter [the charges were later downgraded to child endangerment.]
First off, newborn abduction prevention systems are a no-brainer, as is controlled access to a labor&delivery ward. As long as they work. If a dad is somehow not identifiable by that system, or is for some reason not brought up to speed on the hospital's security procedures, that sounds like a breakdown.
If this incident hadn't taken place at 1:30 in the morning, I'd say the hospital will be backing down on the unequivocally indignant, "uh-uh, brother!" tone of its statement pretty quick and/or soon, and will be cutting the Davises an undisclosedly large settlement.
But even so, and even if the new dad was being a dick to the security guard because, hey, it's his kid, dammit, I just can't see how tasering a guy holding a newborn baby can be standard operating procedure. And then to read that the Houston cop--who was moonlighting as a security guard at the hospital--has a history of tasering, well, Houston, you got some 'splainin' to do.
My favorite line from the article, though, is this convenient and/or ass-covering estimate of a safe-sounding and/or liability-dodging height from which to drop a baby: "[HPD office D.M.] Boling estimated in his report that the baby fell from the father's arms about two feet before landing on the floor."
Taser used on dad leaving Houston hospital with baby [chron.com via dt reader sara]
Okay, with the baby abduction from a hospital last month or so, I can see how the hospital might be on a higher status. But some people take their job a little too seriously. From what I have seen of secuity guards (off duty police officer or not) are kinda odd.
Peace out.
No one holds a baby at 2 feet from the ground, unless you are a child or a midget.
There ought to be hospital videotape - maybe no audio to confirm whether the dad made any verbal threats. But even if, TASERING COMPLETELY INCAPACITATES EVERY MUSCLE IN THE BODY - paralyzing you for the length a cop decides you need delivery of 50,000 volts directly (not grounded/across the body) into the central nervous system - the father hadn't left the hospital YET...there was still time to try conflict resolution - alert the mom to talk to him/confirm identity, etc.
SHAME!!!!