Grandma’s shocking story

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“She’s old, and she should have been treated with respect and kindness.”

The public outcry continues about the 72-year-old Texas woman, a great-grandmother, who recently got tasered (zapped by some kind of low-voltage electric gun) by a policeman following a traffic stop. The incident actually happened about two months ago, May 11, but the video wasn’t released until a couple of weeks ago.

Probably 95 percent of the responses I’ve read on the incident have been in favor of the great grandmother. The policeman was way out of line; the majority of responses agreed.

I’m not with the majority on this one. I don’t know that Grandma necessarily needed to be tasered, but she sure could have stopped it by just cooperating with the police officer.

The lady was driving 60 miles per hour in a 45 mile per hour construction zone. She got pulled over. The policeman wrote her a ticket and asked her to sign it. She refused. Things continued going downhill, with Grandma arguing with the officer, getting shoved out of the way of traffic, and then getting a couple warnings, before getting tasered.

It wasn’t a fine day for the officer and certainly not a fine day for Grandma.

In my opinion, Grandma just wasn’t thinking clearly.

It’s not that I don’t like feisty people — I do. I appreciate people who have a little edginess and spunk to their personalities. My own personality could probably use a bit more feisty.

But I don’t understand or like rudeness. It’s something that hurts my soul when I see it.

Rudeness is especially hard for me to stomach when it’s toward people whose position should demand respect, like police officers.

I know. I know. I’ve heard a million times (slight exaggeration) that there are plenty of bad policemen out there. Well, that may be true, but there are a whole lot more good ones than bad ones. In the Texas case, Grandma didn’t seem to wait to see if her officer was a good one or a bad one.

Now, I don’t think the officer should have tasered Grandma, and I was also uncomfortable with his shove of Grandma toward the shoulder of the road. But I just don’t know why Grandma was so argumentative.

Grandma could have stopped the problem long before the taser gun even became an issue. Whatever happened to just signing your ticket and appearing in court to fight the charge?

The thing that bothers me the most about the situation is the folk-hero image the lady has received in some of the media coverage and the responses posted on the Internet.

I don’t know how we got to the place where we find rudeness acceptable, even entertaining. I’d like to blame our lower standards on television or Hollywood, but I’m not so sure that’s a fair statement. No one makes us become better people; no one makes us become more difficult people.

I’ve thought quite a bit about this Grandma and the legacy she’s leaving behind. I’m sure she’s no doubt a wonderful and loving grandmother, but I have to wonder how her grandkids would respond if they were pulled over by a police officer.

I do realize I shouldn’t be too hard on Grandma. Everyone makes mistakes. Who knows what had happened in her life that day? I guess the issue isn’t what kind of legacy Grandma is leaving, but what kind of legacy I’m leaving.

Donna Barker is the senior staff writer at the Bureau County Republican. She can be reached at dbarker@bcrnews.com.