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Teen Tasered In Neck Talks For First Time

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Nov 4, 2009 7:02 pm US/Central

Teen Tasered In Neck Talks For First Time

Reporting
Caroline Lowe
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― The video of him being tasered by a Minneapolis police officer has garnered an FBI investigation and national media attention. Eighteen-year-old Rolando Ruiz spoke publicly for the first time about the incident last April on Wednesday.

Ruiz was arrested after he allegedly broke a window of an officer's personal car parked in the lot by the 2nd Precinct station in Minneapolis.

In an interview, reporter Caroline Lowe asked Ruiz what he was doing in the moments just before Officer Todd Lappegaard tasered him.

"You were never resisting?," Lowe asked.

"Never. I didn't even move," Ruiz said, adding, "I didn't get a chance to say anything. He tased me in the back of my neck. I was falling. He kept it pinned against my back and pinned himself down against me with his knee on my back and hand against the car, almost like he was punishing me."

Ruiz described the pain of being jolted with a Taser.

"I have a little scar but I am more emotionally scarred because I have been tasered," he said. "It is the worst pain I have ever felt. I wouldn't wish that on nobody. It is kind of extreme because I wasn't doing anything at the time."

Six months after that night, Ruiz's attorney is preparing to sue the Minneapolis Police Department. He won't allow Ruiz to discuss his pending damage to property charges. Ruiz is scheduled to appear in court on the charges Thursday in Minneapolis.

But both men said they welcome the FBI probe. Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan also has asked the city attorney's office to review the case for possible criminal charges.

"I don't want this to happen to anyone else. I have been through a lot of pain. It hurt. I don't think they should use their Taser gun as freely as they did," Ruiz said.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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