LAPD TASER incident has chief seeking to fire 4

The officers reported the woman kicked one officer so hard he lost balance, prompting his reaction

U.P.I.

LOS ANGELES — Police Chief Charlie Beck is seeking the dismissal of four officers seen laughing on video after one of them used a Taser on a handcuffed woman.

The officers were suspended until August after the December 2010 incident, in which officer Jorge Santander can be seen on video using a Taser twice — without warning — against the torso of a restrained woman who resisted getting into his patrol car after arrest, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

The woman, whose name was not reported, had been arrested for public intoxication.

Santander and the other three officers — Steven Bauman, Jose Lepe and Georgeta Buruiana — initially reported that Santander used the Taser because the woman kicked him so hard he lost balance, the Times reported.

An outline of events written by a prosecutor in the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Bauman recorded the incident with a personal video camera, proving the officers' initial report false.

The video showed Santander revealing a Superman T-shirt below his uniform at one point during in the incident while the other three laughed.

Beck has elected to send the officers to a Board of Rights hearing, the only panel allowed to fire officers, the Times reported.

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