Fifteen year-old Brett Elder of Bay City died last month after being shocked by taser wielding police. Now the Bay City Times is calling for a review on the local police department’s taser policy which it says “appears overly vague”.

“Just when should police use Tasers to electrically shock a suspect into submission?” the editorial board asks.

 

It reports that witnesses claim the 140 pound teenager was handcuffed at the time he was shocked.

The paper notes that there have been other cases where local police used taser guns against people who seem to pose no threat to officers:

In February, Bay City police officers used a Taser on a naked man who cursed at them and refused to cooperate outside of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Bay City. Surely, a naked man in freezing weather isn’t much of a threat to anyone but himself.