The 8-year-old was reportedly threatening to kill herself with a knife

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Parents of an 8-year-old girl who was Tasered by South Dakota police are demanding the officer be disciplined for excessive use of force.

Three police officers in Pierre, S.D., responded to a report last week of a suicidal 8-year-old who had stabbed herself in the leg and was threatening to plunge a 4 ½ inch knife into her chest. An officer fired a Taser gun at the girl to subdue her, the Argus Leader reports.

The Pierre police chief is reviewing the incident but said the Taser was the least forceful way for the officer, whose name was not released, to subdue the child for her own protection.

“He quite possibly saved the juvenile’s life that night,” Chief Bob Grandpre told the newspaper

“Tasers are for grown adults, no 8-year-old girls,” said the girl’s father, Bobby Jones. “They say it was for her own safety but there is no justification for that.”

The girl was hospitalized but not seriously injured in the incident. No stab wounds were found on her leg.

[Argus Leader]