God dammit, WTF is wrong with people!? This is an outrage; what does it take to stop the madness of police brutality and abuse of the 50K volt Taser — now used as a compliance device instead of social skills and training? This case involved only a complaint of  excessive noise that brought the police to a home. Again, the police violence  occurred in a private residence in front of a yard full of  children.

 A Latino family in Manassas, Virginia, is celebrating the  baptism of their two young boys, at a party held in their grandfather’s  backyard. The police arrive in response to a noise complaint, and ask to see the  grandfather’s ID. The family’s account says that he provided it, but the police  report say that he refused; both accounts agree that the grandfather was then  Tasered three times in rapid succession, on his own property, and then charged  with ‘public intoxication.’ The pregnant mother of the two boys ran to help him  as he lay on the ground — and was also Tasered, then charged with assaulting a  police officer.

I’ll say it again — all parties agree that county police officers arrived at  a children’s baptism party being held at a private residence, then Tasered a  55-year-old Bible study teacher three times and Tasered a pregnant woman once,  in front of a yard full of kids, including her kids, and family members. Then  they read rights. To the grandfather and the pregnant woman. For ‘public  intoxication’ and ‘assaulting a police officer,’ respectively. As they lay  temporarily paralyzed on the ground.

Can you imagine being one of those two boys, and watching as your own mother,  pregnant with your sibling-to-be, is electrocuted by police officers and  arrested, for rushing to the side of your grandfather as lay paralyzed on the  ground? How would that make you feel about your relationship to the police, as a  young Latino man about to grow up in the astonishingly xenophobic state of  Virginia?