A Florida police officer was offended when a woman called him, “Honey”, so he tased and then arrested her. The woman is now 20-thousand dollars richer.
A Stuart, Florida police officer visited Aranda Wendell at her home after she was involved in a fender-bender accident. Wendell’s car was hit from behind at a stop light, so she was not at fault. However, she drove away as if nothing had happened, and without exchanging information with the driver of the other car.
The officer was wearing a bodycam that captured the conversation he had with Ms. Wendell at her front door. This is where it all went downhill.
The officer tells her, “Most people when they are involved in a crash they usually stop.”
She replies, “I didn’t consider it being involved in a crash, Honey.”
“Please don’t call me honey,” the officer says.
Ms. Wendell replies, “Then don’t talk to me; how’s that?”
The unnamed officer then tells Wendell to put her hands behind her back because he is arresting her. She refuses, telling him to stop. He warns her, “You are going to get tased. You are under arrest.” At this point, the body-cam goes dark and the last thing you hear is Wendell screaming.
Wendell filed a lawsuit claiming that police officers “violently slammed her into a corner, forced her onto the floor and tased her, and said it was unprovoked and untaunted.”
The Stuart Police Department maintains that the officer did nothing wrong. The city decided to settle Wendell’s lawsuit for $20-thousand to save taxpayers the cost of a trial.
What do you think? Does the city settling the lawsuit imply that they are at fault to some degree?
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