Guard Tasers Father Holding a Child and Injures Newborn

Jenny Albano

Contributor

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A hospital security guard used a taser gun on a father who was trying to remove his newborn daughter from the hospital and sent them both crashing to the ground. The father is claiming that the newborn has incurred head trauma because of being dropped.

The confrontation was caught on surveillance cameras, but in the video you cannot see the baby falling on her head, like the father, Williams Lewis, claims. He said his daughter has was acting differently after the fall.

"She shakes a lot and cries a lot," Lewis said, noting doctors have performed several MRIs on the child, Karla. "She's not real responsive. Something is definitely wrong with my daughter."

The incident began in April when the mother and father complained that the hospital was mistreating them. The father then tried to remove his daughter but hospital personnel would not allow it. Lewis tried to use the elevators, but they would not work because doctors put wristbands on newborns to prevent them being taken from the hospital without permission. Then a guard appears, and after about a minute the guard tasers Lewis while he is still holding the newborn.

"My wife said we want to leave and then he just Tasered me," Lewis said. "He caused me to drop the child."

Some 11,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies use Tasers, which have been officially listed as a contributing factor in about 12 deaths nationwide. Some experts contend the weapon can be deadly, particularly when used on suspects who use drugs or suffer from heart problems.

For more information on this subject matter, please refer to our section on Head and Brain Injury.