Arbitrator: No excessive use of force in CPD Taser case involving 11-year-old girl

CINCINNATI, Ohio (FOX19) - An independent arbitrator found no excessive use of force in the case of an Cincinnati police officer using a Taser on an 11-year-old last year, according to CPD Sgt. Dan Hils.

Hils said in a press conference Tuesday that Officer Kevin Brown was in accordance with CPD regulations — that a Taser can be used on someone between the ages of 7 and 70 — at the time of the incident, although he didn’t follow protocols to turn on his body camera or warn the child he would use his Taser if she didn’t comply.

The seven-day penalty without pay Brown received after the incident was reversed after it was found no excessive force was used, according to Hils.

All of this comes after an incident in August 2018 during which Brown used a Taser on a young theft suspect at a Spring Grove Kroger. It was revealed in February that there would be a federal probe into the incident, which Hils at the time described as “over the top.”

“The arbiter was shown multiple cases where people were Tased in a similar fashion, young people were tased in a similar fashion — all of those cases, like this one, was consistent with case law, was consistent with policy and procedure but for whatever reason this became a big push in which the media held a lot of the attention on it," Hils said. "And we saw the chief and council members come out before investigations were completed and started to condemn the officer’s actions.”

The department’s Taser policy has been altered since the incident. The wording has changed to say that officers cannot use Tasers on a child for minor offenses.