Cops pull over a Noblesville, Indiana woman for allegedly running a red light. She’s on her way to get some flu medication, so they confront her in the parking lot of a Village Pantry.

They give her a series of roadside sobriety tests, which she passes. They then ask her to take several breath tests, which prove inconclusive. At this point, the cop tells her she must either submit to a blood test on the spot, or go to jail. She says she’d like to call her lawyer first. Cops tell her she isn’t allowed, and order her to put down her cell phone phone. She says again she wants to call her lawyer, and continues to try. At this point, the cop — who had just gotten his taser and had yet to use it — says “Okay, taser time!” The two cops then hold the woman down, and taser her several times.

Here’s the story, with video.

The police department says the officer did nothing wrong, other than uttering “taser time,” which they concede was in poor taste. Judge for yourself. The video made my blood boil.

I don’t know the law in Indiana. But there’s something terribly wrong with it if you aren’t allowed to phone your attorney while cops are threatening you with jail time. Particularly if they’re about to forcibly take blood from you.

It’s also at least a little ironic that the officer in question is now under investigation for a separate incident in which someone died in his home from alcohol poisoning.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 9:31 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.