By james art BATON ROUGE – The father of a Baton Rouge middle school student is questioning why a school resource officer is still on the job after he accidentally fired his stun gun and hit his daughter in the face.
It happened Tuesday at the school bus transfer site on Sherwood Forest Boulevard. According to the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, Deputy Nicholas Davis was trying to break up a potential fight between two girls and intended to use his stun gun’s alarm, but instead accidentally pressed the wrong button.
The victim’s father, Randall Johnson, spoke to the coroner’s office Thursday. He says pulling the taser was a mistake to begin with.
“If you’re working around kids… We’re talking about eighth graders. What kind of threat are they? Why would you ever draw a weapon?” said the victim’s father, Randall Johnson.
The stun gun made contact with the 13-year-old girl’s lips and chest, causing her to fall to the ground.
“The girl he was going to fight then said, ‘I feel bad now because she got punched in the face,'” Johnson said. “All the kids who saw that said, ‘Wow.’ And all parents should be afraid.”
Her father says she’s still in pain, but thankful she was able to walk away with only minor injuries.
“He could have put her eye out. I have cousins with pacemakers who could be dead. She could be dead if it was her.’
After the incident, Davis was placed on administrative leave from the school system and will not be allowed to work additional work or carry a stun gun until he is retrained and recertified. The sheriff’s office says Davis has been with them for four years. He was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail, but was working extra that day at the school transfer station.
Johnson says he forgives the deputy for his mistake, but doesn’t believe he should be allowed to work around children anymore.
“If I had accidentally punched a kid in the face, I would have been hunted down immediately.”
The CCTV footage of Davis is due to be released to the family on Monday.