Police admit biracial teen who was tased and locked up for ten days for visiting his girlfriend did nothing wrong
‘For some reason, you think you can do exactly what you want to do, and you can’t.’ says police officer in video footage of arrest
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Florida prosecutors will not go ahead with charges against a biracial 16-year-old boy who was tasered outside of his girlfriend’s house.
Last month, surveillance footage showed Jack Rodeman being tasered by a police officer from the Florida Highway Patrol as he stood outside his girlfriend’s Fort Myers house waiting t be let in on 16 June. He was also held in a juvenile detention facility for ten days.
Mr Rodeman had arranged to meet his girlfriend at the house, however, police officer George Smyrious believed he was a burglar as he had made a short cut through the property’s bushes.
According to reported from Wink, Mr Rodeman’s “booking charge was named in a notice to the Lee County Clerk of Courts as failure to obey police or fire department, a public order crime and second degree misdemeanor.”
It was dropped due to “ insufficient evidence to prove said charge beyond a reasonable doubt”.
In the video, after tasering the teenager twice, Mr Smyrious is heard saying, “For some reason, you think you can do exactly what you want to do, and you can’t.”
Following his run-in with the Florida State Trooper, Mr Rodeman suffered pain in his head and neck as the voltage of the taser caused him to smack his head against an outdoor oven. X-rays did not show any injury to his spine.
A lawyer for the boy, Derek Tyler, told the Washington Post that the response was out of proportion, regardless if he was innocent or guilty.
“The trooper’s actions were egregious, unjustified and cruel, and just absolutely outrageous. What he did was torture a child with no justification,” he said.
Until the video emerged, his mother Kristina Rodeman had no idea the altercation had happened, telling the Post, “I didn’t know my son fell down, let alone hit bricks”.
She also explained that she felt it was a racially motivated incident and she believed it would not happen to her daughter, who is not of a mixed ethnicity.
Sawyer Smith, another lawyer for Jack Rodeman, said they would launch a legal case against Mr Smyrious, the man who had tased him.
“There is no place in a free society for the government to inflict physical abuse upon a child. This is not Russia. This is America. We deserve better,” Ms Smith said, according to Raw Story. “We will prosecute a civil case against Florida Highway Patrol until the very end.”
Mr Smyrious wrote in the police report that he felt Jack was a “suspicious person” due to the teenager wearing all black.