Taser protest scheduled today on Plaza

A Sonoma woman is organizing a protest at 4 p.m. today (Thursday) on Sonoma’s Plaza calling for a “Taser-free Sonoma” because an officer used the electric stun-gun to zap her 15-year-old son on Dec. 20.
“We have a trigger-happy police force with dangerous weapons that are being used incorrectly coupled with a local medical community that is
uninformed and unequipped to deal with Taser-related injuries. This spells big problems no matter how you look at it,” wrote Julie Maffei in an e-mail appeal asking people to participate in the protest.
“My 15-year-old son Antonio was Tasered… in our own front yard, after a 39-year-old big man (friend of a neighbor) almost ran Antonio down in the street with his truck, and then came onto our property, pushed Antonio on the ground, got down on top of him, and started hitting him. We think he was angry because Antonio flipped him off after he almost was hit by the truck,” she wrote in the e-mail. Her 17-year-old son and one of his friends ran out of the house to pull the 39-year-old man off the 15-year-old, she wrote.
According to Maffei, police arrived “waving Tasers around” and a female officer, Tasered Antonio. She wrote that one probe hit the 125-pound teen in the chest and the other went into his neck, where it lodged.
“Antonio had to be taken to the emergency room, where nobody seemed to know how to remove a Taser,” Maffei wrote.
Sonoma Police fill out a form every time they deploy a Taser.
Regarding the Maffei incident, Sgt. Brett Sackett said, “According to the report, the use of the Taser was appropriate under the conditions and consistent with policy.”
Sackett said that he wished that Maffei had spoken to him or police chief Paul Day.
“She’s never talked to the police department. She’s never called and talked to me or the chief or anybody else. But we certainly encourage her to exercise her right to free speech in lawful assembly.”