Sports

Phillies Fan Tasered Video: Phillies vs Cardinals Game

by Amy Judd | May 4, 2010 at 07:27 am

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A 17-Year-Old Was Tasered at a Philadelphia Phillies vs St Louis Cardinals Game on Monday May 3

The 17-year-old boy can be seen running around the field during play in the eighth inning at Citizens Bank Park and waving a while towel around his head. He was wearing a Phillies t-shirt and was being chased by a security guard and a few other people. As the crowd can be heard cheering in the background, the security guard takes out his taser, tasers the Phillies fan and he goes down face first.

Now there is going to be an investigation as to whether this was an appropriate use of force to remove the fan from the field.

As the game was not being shown instantly live on television, the viewers at home did not see the young fan, whose name has not been released, being taserd, but many Phillies players were filmed hiding their face or laughing in to their gloves, but it is not known if they were laughing at the incident or before the tasering occurred according to myfoxphilly.

But with 40,000 eyewitnesses and many of them with video cameras, it was put right on YouTube as soon as fans got home. And reporters covering the game got comments right away from the Phillies and police.

The Philadelphia police have stated they will open an investigation in to the case to see if it was 'proper use of equipment'. The Philadelphia Phillies spokeswoman has said that they will be asking the police to see if the use of a taser was appropriate.

The 17-year-old has been charged with criminal trespassing and a few other offenses.

Charles Ramsey, the Philadelphia police Commissioner made a statement defending the use of the taser in this instance:

It's not like it was an 8- or 9-year-old who was out there. This is a good-sized individual," Ramsey said. "He doesn't have the number 17 stamped on his forehead, you have no idea how old he is, but it's inappropriate for him to be out on the field. And unless I read something to the contrary, as far as I'm concerned, that officer acted appropriately, and I support him 100 percent.