Taser News

Teen tells story of being Tased after mouthing off to deputies

Josh Welch is no teen angel.

A high school dropout with a few petty crimes under his belt at 16, he smokes cigarettes and talks tough. But his biggest problem on Dec. 9 was that his father had just tried to kill himself. Blood streamed from gashes on his dad's wrists. He needed help.

Josh's mother called 911, and several Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies arrived. They knew the Welches, who have lived in the same house in Wellington for 22 years. Josh's father, 38-year-old Leslie Welch, suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He hadn't taken his medication. It wasn't his first suicide attempt.

They handcuffed him and sat him down in the driveway to talk. Leslie Welch seemed to be in a daze, his son says, and his blood was dripping onto the driveway.

But there was no ambulance, no paramedics.

"They were just talking to him. The ambulance wasn't here. So I called 911 again," he said. "I asked for cops who could do their job."

In a sheriff's report, the deputy wrote that Josh "came at me with a lit cigarette in a threatening manner."

Josh, who is working toward his GED, admits he mouthed off at deputies. He said he did walk onto his front porch with a cigarette but didn't threaten anyone.

From just a few feet away, a deputy fired two Taser probes into his chest, "right over his heart, no less," his father says. Josh remembers the pain and how his body "just wobbled around and stuff" on his front patio.

Josh said the deputies arrested him for resisting arrest and possession of paraphernalia, though neither appears on his state criminal record. Josh said he had drug paraphernalia in his pocket that he picked up from the driveway.

The probes left two small scars about an inch apart.

"I have chest pains from it," he says.

And the use of a Taser on a teenager still makes his father mad.

"They don't like me, and they don't like my family, period," said Leslie Welch, who recovered after getting stitches in his wrists that night.

"I've actually given them reason and they've never shot me. But he's just standing there, and they shoot a 16-year-old."

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