El Dorado Resource Officer deploys taser at a 16-year-old female during a fight

EL DORADO, Ark. (KTVE/KARD) — On September 20th, a fight between four female students broke out at El Dorado High School. According to the police report, the school resource officer deployed a taser to break up the incident, but it never struck the student and no injuries were reported. Brittany Harris, who is the mother to the 16-year-old whom the taser was deployed at, spoke with KTVE/KARD about how she felt to find out her about the situation.

Made me feel very terrified at the time. I mean, you know, for a student to reach out to me about it and it scared me at the part because she hasn’t been tased and I know she wouldn’t do no wrong to get tased in that situation. No, I never got notified from anyone, even when I made it there.

Brittany Harris

Brittany also spoke about how her daughter is now scared to go to school.

She feeling still scared, you know, about it. And she always asking me like, Momma, what did I do wrong? You didn’t do nothing wrong. You didn’t do nothing to deserve what you got. Yeah, she asked can she move to another school.

Brittany Harris

El Dorado Police Chief Kenny Hickman released a statement about the incident.

As a habit, we review all use of force incidents regarding the one in question. The actions of our school resource officer were justified and squarely within the boundaries of law policy and training. The use of force was necessitated solely by the actions of students. It is quite apparent lesser measures were ineffective in the extremely chaotic event. While it is true the taser was not effective as its deployment was interrupted by clothing layers, its use was justified and unfortunately needful under the circumstances.

Kenny Hickman

The students were suspended for nine days after the incident.