By Amy Sherrill
Times Record

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas State Police has been asked to investigate the actions of an Ozark police officer who used a stun gun on a 10-year-old girl, Ozark’s mayor said Wednesday.

Officer Dustin Bradshaw has been suspended for seven days without pay not for using the stun gun, but for violating departmental policy, said Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel.

Ozark Police Chief Jim Noggle suspended Bradshaw because he failed to use a video camera when he deployed his stun gun. The recording device is part of the weapon.

Bradshaw used a stun gun to subdue a girl, whose mother had called police in response to her daughter misbehaving at the woman’s residence, according to an Ozark police report.

Late Wednesday afternoon, McDaniel said he sent a written request to Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons for Arkansas State Police to investigate the matter. Gibbons required the letter before he would contact the State Police, according to McDaniel.

“Not that we necessarily need a criminal investigation, but it would be better if an outside agency was looking into it because no matter what we found there would talk of partiality,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel admitted Wednesday that he was shocked when he first heard about the incident, but after reviewing the matter, it appears the officer followed written department policy.

“Did he use good judgment? I’m not going to answer that,” McDaniel said.

When Bradshaw arrived on scene, he found the girl “in the floor crying and screaming,” according to a police report.

“I made several attempts to speak with her and she continued to behave in this manner,” according to Bradshaw’s report.

Bradshaw said the child’s mother attempted to place the girl in the shower to get her ready for bed.

“I witnessed (the child) screaming, kicking and resisting every time her mother tried to touch her,” Bradshaw stated. “Her mother told me to Tase her if I needed to.”

The girl’s mother works for a law enforcement agency — not Ozark Police Department — in Franklin County, McDaniel said.

Bradshaw said he and the mother carried the child to the shower, but the child refused to cooperate. Bradshaw said after realizing there would not be a “peaceful resolution,” he moved the child to the living room and told her he was going to place her under arrest, according to the report.

“She was jerking her arms away from me violently while I was trying to cuff her and thrashing about wildly,” Bradshaw stated. “While she was violently kicking and verbally combative, (she) struck me with her legs and feet in the groin.”

Bradshaw said because he had difficulty placing handcuffs on the girl, he administered a brief drive stun to the child’s back with his stun gun, the report states.

“She immediately stopped resisting and was placed into handcuffs,” according to the report. “She would not walk on her own and I had to carry her to my police car.”

The child was taken to the Cecil Youth Shelter.