Eight months pregnant woman gets tasered by cops after she calls them for assistance in car park fender bender incident



An eight month pregnant woman was wrestled to the ground and tasered by police in a Best Buy parking lot in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday.



Lucinda White, 29, had actually called the police to intervene in a fender bender disagreement that she and boyfriend Frederic Thomas, 31, were having with another man.



White accused the man of hitting her car, which he denied, and she called Springfield police to resolve the situation.



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Lucinda White, right, in her mugshot and, left, lying on the ground as a police officer is about to taser her



Police say the couple's behavior warranted the force used. They claim White and Thomas were ‘actively fighting’ with an officer when reinforcements arrived.



According to the police report, officers told Thomas multiple times to stop yelling and cursing, then to stop resisting when the officer tried to arrest him.



Thomas and the cop wrestled for several minutes while White, pulled on the officer.

The incident was also captured on the smartphone of another driver in the car park. It begins with White appearing to separate her boyfriend and the police officer.



Another officer then approaches the scene, he first tasers Thomas, before attempting to wrestle White to the ground.



She can be heard screaming that she is pregnant, while he commands her to get on the ground. Then he tasers her.

White's boyfriend and a police officer wrestle, left, before another officer arrives and pulls the pregnant woman aside, his yellow taser can clearly be seen in his right hand



Eight months pregnant Lucinda White sits on the ground in Best Buy's car park after being tasered and then cuffed by the officer standing over her

White denies touching the police officer. ‘I'm pulling on my daughter's father. I did not touch a police officer. I know not to touch a police officer,’ she told KSDK .



One witness to the incident was Paul Newton, an employee at ABC NewsChannel 20.



‘They told her get down on the ground face down, and she's trying to plead with them “I can't get on the ground, I'm pregnant. I can't do that,” and they told her once again. And she, she's just trying to plead with them and then right away they hit her with the taser,’ he said.



A spokesperson for Springfield Police Department told KSDK that they would try to avoid using a taser on a pregnant women more due to concerns about how might fall and hurt herself or the baby rather than due to concerns about the impact of the taser shock.

Although a leading obstetrician told HLN that blunt trauma could hurt the fetus and it ‘can't be a good idea’ to expose an expectant mother to electrical shock.

Both White and Thomas were ‘drive stunned’ which means the pain would have been localized to where the taser touched their body.



On the pregnant woman, that place they say was her thigh.



Both Thomas and White were released from the Sangamon County Jail on Sunday evening.



Preliminary charges against Thomas, right, and White, left, are aggravated battery and resisting arrest



Preliminary charges according to the police report are aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting arrest for both White and Thomas.

A bond of $350 was set for Thomas, while none was set for White. They are both due in court in May.



Springfield Mayor Mike Houston admitted there's always the possibility of a lawsuit against the city; but echoed officers did nothing wrong.



'It does not appear to be violations of department policy. The problem was caused by the fact that a police officer was attacked,' Houston said after Tuesday's city council meeting.





