Chicago One-Time Uses Stun Gun On Pregnant Black Woman

http://bossip.com/595509/jesus-take-the-taser-chicago-one-time-uses-stun-gun-on-pregnant-black-woman/

What police knew and when they knew it may well be at the center of determining exactly what happened on the South Side Tuesday night where a woman who her family says is eight months pregnant endured a particularly stressful situation. Tiffany Rent’s distress was plain to see early Wednesday.

As the 30-year-old left a court hearing Wednesday morning, she says she was sitting in her car late last night at this Walgreen’s waiting for her boyfriend Joseph Hobbs. That’s when she said Chicago Police ticketed her for parking in a spot for people with disabilities. “When i came out they were writing her a ticket,” Hobbs said. “And she couldn’t understand why she was getting a ticket. She ripped the ticket and got back into the car.

“I got scared and I closed the door,” Rent said. “I didn’t hit him, I didn’t harm him. Anything. He tasered me through the window.” Rent says when Hobbs’ tried to intervene he was arrested and suffered a dislocated his elbow. Both were charged with misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and simple assault. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said it is sometimes hard to know if a woman is pregnant.

Wednesday afternoon, Rent underwent further medical checks at the UIC Medical Center. “This is excessive,” said Rent’s attorney Keenan J. Saulter. “There is never a situation where an officer should stick his arm into a vehicle someone is sitting there and taser a woman. She is no threat. There’s absolutely no cause for that, and a pregnant woman at that.”

“I ran to the other side of the car, with my hands up, ‘Stop, stop stop, she’s pregnant, don’t hurt her,’” John Muldoon said he is representing another pregnant woman who was stun-gunned by Chicago Police while in custody May 9. He says his client, Charday Wilkins, was three months pregnant and lost her baby.

“Maybe there should be some new policies on physical violence towards women,” Muldoon said. Walgreens says it has video of the incident which has been turned over to police. The investigation is being taken over by the independent police review agency because a firearm was used.