A Michigan police officer has been suspended without pay for two weeks over an incident in which he deployed a Taser on a man who was already handcuffed and was offering no resistance.
Lansing Police Chief Mark Alley reported that the incident occured on August 16, when police were called to intervene in a dispute between 43-year-old Rocky Allred and a former girlfriend.
Lansing police allege that Allred head-butted Officer Ryan Smith when Smith attempted to handcuff him; causing two other officers to intervene. It was then, after Allred was handcuffed and subdued, that Smith chose to deploy his Taser.
Allred suffered facial injuries, which included a broken jaw, chipped tooth and a cut to his chin that required eight stitches to close. All charges against Allred were later dropped, and following an investigation by Michigan State Police, the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office determined that there was no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the Michigan State Police officer in question.
The punitive action against Officer Smith was because the Internal Affairs Unit determined that he had acted outside the department’s policies and procedures.
It would seem natural to question the legitimacy of the Michigan State Police investigation that found that Officer Smith had acted within the law in deploying a potentially deadly weapon against a man who was already handcuffed and subdued.
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