A court date for the 11-year-old girl who was tased by an Orange County sheriff’s deputy has been set for Sept. 17. The girl was arrested on March 27 after a scuffle at Moss Park Elementary School, where she attended the fourth grade. She was charged with battery against a lawenforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence and resisting arrest without violence. If found guilty, the girl could face sanctions such as a boot camp-type program or juvenile detention up to the age of 21.
The East Orlando Sun does not publish the names of juveniles. Orange County Sheriff’s Office reported that school resource officer Deputy Donna Hudepohl, who used her Taser after the girl hit her in the nose, followed agency policy and did everything possible to avoid using the weapon. “Even after she was punched she tried to secure the student but could not,” said OCSO spokeswoman Susan Soto.
“A lot of people questioned tasing an 11-year-old, but when you have someone stand up in front of you, your size or bigger, you no longer see age. [Hudepohl] is on patrol, she is doing her job. She did nothing wrong according to policy.” But the student’s attorney, Mark Lippman, said the girl is mentally disabled (with a lower-than-average IQ) and accidentally hit the officer. Since the incident the girl has not attended Moss Park and has experienced lasting trauma from the incident, he said, including not being able to sleep in her bedroom alone.
“This is a sad situation,” Lippman said. “We are expecting that the case will be dropped before trial or we will get a not guilty.” According to the police report, on the morning of the incident the girl pushed another student into oncoming traffic before school started. The girl ignored several orders to report to the principal’s office and reportedly spat on one teacher three times and threw her things out of her desk. The teacher called Hudepohl, the school’s resource officer, who also asked the girl to come with her to the principal’s office.
The report stated that the girl hit Hudepohl in the nose, after which the deputy tried to secure the victim into handcuffs. According to OCSO, Hudepohl had one hand secured but the girl was “wailing” her other hand at the deputy, who finally had to subdue her with a Taser gun. A Taser is an electroshock weapon that causes a subject to be incapacitated. Hudepohl and the girl were taken to the hospital. Hudepohl was treated for a bloody nose, but the police report classified her injury as minor.
The girl spent 24 hours in the Orange County Department of Juvenile Justice before her preliminary hearing, where she was given a 6 p.m. curfew and ordered to receive counseling. Lippman said all of this could have been avoided if the school had followed a plan-of-action contained within the girl’s file.
“Her parents are shocked it went this far. The school has a plan in place for the girl and her mother does not understand why appropriate measures were not taken and why they had to use a Taser,” Lippman said. “Tasers are not widely used in schools, especially not in elementary schools.” When the event happened some members of the community were outraged that such a young person was tased, while others defended the deputy.
Soto said the girl is actually bigger than Hudepohl, weighing about 160 pounds and measuring 5’6” compared to the deputy’s 140-pound, 5’5” stature. “After [the] Columbine [High School shootings] we were trained not to see kids as just kids anymore. Kids can kill just as easy as an adult. Just because we are dealing with students does not mean they cannot come armed,” Soto said. “Officers have to be taken out of that frame of mind and the community needs to understand that.”
Every OCSO officer is equipped with a gun and a Taser no matter where they work. Soto explained that school resource officers are also the people who protect the children so they need to be prepared to respond to anything. “A lot of people do not realize that school resource officers still have to protect that school against a gunman or respond to something on the road if need be. It would not be realistic for them to not have a gun or a Taser.”
Nick Kirmani, child psychiatrist with Children’s Home Society of Central Florida, said tasing a child is inhumane, regardless of the circumstances. “It is outrageous. I cannot believe that living in an industrialized society we would allow that; it is like we are living in the Dark Ages,” he said.
Kirmani has not studied the effects of Tasers on humans but maintained that they should not be used on children or adults based on the fact that doctors do not know enough about its lasting effects. “They use these things on cattle and now they are becoming too commonly used on humans. I do not think we know enough about the long-term effects of Tasers.”
Lippman has requested Hudepohl’s personnel file and is looking for “other abuses of force” on her record. “We are not expecting our client to face any sanctions,” Lippman said. “She is the victim in this.”
