What is it with cops and tasers? Why do so many of them seem compelled to use them in highly inappropriate ways? "Highly inappropriate" is about the only way to describe what happened to Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her kid to school one day in 2004 when a routine traffic stop went terribly wrong.

The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20. 

 

Ms. Brooks said she would accept a ticket but drew the line at signing it, which state law required at the time. Ms. Brooks thought, wrongly, that signing was an acknowledgment of guilt.

 

Refusing to sign was a crime, and the two officers on the scene summoned a sergeant, who instructed them to arrest Ms. Brooks. She would not get out of her car.

 

The situation plainly called for bold action, and Officer Juan M. Ornelas met the challenge by brandishing a Taser and asking Ms. Brooks if she knew what it was.

 

She did not, but she told Officer Ornelas what she did know. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. “I am pregnant. I’m less than 60 days from having my baby.”

The three men assessed the situation and conferred. “Well, don’t do it in her stomach,” one said. “Do it in her thigh."