COLUMBIA, S.C. – One small-town South Carolina police officer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, and a second to a year and a day for unnecessarily shocking a mentally disabled woman with a Taser at least eight times.
Franklin Brown received the longer sentence Monday because he shocked 40-year-old Melissa Davis after she had been handcuffed in April 2013. The other Marion police officer, Eric Walters, stopped Davis early one morning to see if she had broken into a home. Neither Walters nor other officers have explained how the incident escalated so quickly.
Davis was in court but began sobbing as Walters apologized, and was ushered out by her family.
Federal judge Bryan Carwell said the two officers through one bad action ruined the good work of thousands of honest officers.
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