Mother Charged With Neglect, Abuse For Tasing Teen Daughter

ST. THOMAS — The mother of a 13-year-old girl is now facing several felony charges after repeatedly using a taster on her daughter during an argument, police say.

According to court documents, officers were dispatched to the Schneider Regional Medical Center last Wednesday evening to meet with a girl who was there with her grandmother. The teenager told them that earlier in the day, she was at her grandmother’s apartment, hanging out in the bedroom with her sister and some friends.

She said that she was texting on her phone when her mother came into the room, arguing about a fight that had taken place days earlier. The mother, whose name we are withholding to protect the identity of the teenager, reportedly mistook her daughter’s shrugs over the text messages for disrespect. She reportedly grabbed a small black taser from another room and returned to pin her daughter down on the bed, striking her about three times in her right shoulder with the weapon while everyone else ran out of the room in fear.

When the grandmother returned home about 6:00 p.m. that day, the teenager told her what had happened and asked to go to the hospital because she was in pain.