A San Diego Police officer was aiming to take down a suspected parole violator when a barb from his taser hit a toddler instead.
Imperial Beach Patch reports that police were chasing the alleged parole violator, whose name has not been released, through the Southland Plaza Shopping Center in Nestor, Calif. on Friday afternoon.
An officer shot his taser to try to bring the fleeing suspect down, striking the alleged parole violator with one of the barbs and hitting the 3-year-old girl with the other, SDPD public-affairs Lt. Andra Brown said.
The San Diego Union Tribune reports that neither the suspect or the child received a shock and the girl was treated at the scene by paramedics for a puncture wound.
“They put a Band-Aid on it,” Brown told the paper. “The parents understood.”
Brown told KMFB it's not uncommon for police to miss their target when a suspect is on the move.
"It really isn't quite that unusual for one barb to hit a target and the other to miss," Brown said. "But it is unusual for there to be a family sitting there just beyond. On the fortunate side, it was a very minor injury and she's doing just fine."
The incident could raise issues of civil liberties abuse.
The American Civil Liberties Union has previously argued that tasers should only be used as an alternative to lethal force, not as a way to deal with a suspect who is not complying with police orders.
The alleged parole violator was taken into custody.
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