Florida Teen Tasered In Girlfriend's Backyard By Highway Patrol Officer

Florida is bad enough by itself but add a cop into the mix and nothing good can come of it…

Source: MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images / Getty

A 16-year-old in Fort Meyers, Florida was accosted by a Florida Highway Patrolman named George Smyrnios as he was going to see his girlfriend. Smyrnios somehow identified Jack Rodeman as a “burglar” as he walked into the backyard of his bae’s suburban home.

According to WINK, Smyrnios followed the boy because he seemed “suspicious”. This sounds like George Zimmerman’s wettest dream. Upon encountering Rodeman, the officer told him to put his hands up and held him at taser point despite the fact that he was under no threat whatsoever. As soon as the electricity began to course through the teen’s body, he collapses to the ground and hits his head on the brick fire pit. Sgt. Bacon Bits is lucky that this child didn’t die from head trauma. The entire incident was caught on a security camera.

Florida Highway Patrol is now investigating the use of force for proper protocol.

“The most egregious part to me is here’s a kid who was offering no active resistance but passive resistance by being on his phone and texting and because he failed to comply with your lawful order, you shot him with a Taser and he fell and hit his head on a brick,” said David J. Thomas, a professor of forensic studies at FGCU who is also a former police officer.

Let the cop tell it, Jack wasn’t complying with his verbal commands and that justifies shooting him with the taser. However, the actual Florida law that said cop swore to uphold disagrees.

It spells out, citing Florida Law: It “must involve a custodial situation when the subject is actively physically resisting.”

According to FHP policy officers are only allowed to deploy the use of CEW or conducted electrical weapons “in the case of a or when ‘active resistance’ or greater is offered by a subject who is about to be taken into custody for any reason.”

In the video, Jack appears to be calm and doesn’t seem to impose a threat on the trigger-happy patrolman.

F**k 12.