Dayton police tasered, pepper-sprayed and beat a mentally handicapped teen and then charged him with assault. What did the disabled boy do to deserve this onslaught? The police officer "mistook" his speech impediment for a sign of "disrespect". 17-year-old mentally handicapped teen Jesse Kersey found this out to his cost while riding his bicycle near his Dayton home recently, after Officer Willie Hooper attempted to stop and talk to the boy. Failing to understand what Hooper was telling him, the boy attempted to ride home and fetch his mother to be able to communicate with the officer. Despite the fact that Hooper knew the boy was mentally disabled, he began yelling at Kersey and then threatened a neighbor who tried to inform him of the boy's handicap, telling the resident he would be arrested if he didn't go back indoors. As Kersey's mother Ford opened her front door, Hooper and co-defendant Officer John Howard, "fired their Tasers, striking Jesse in the back with both probes," according to testimony heard at Montgomery County Court. "Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying 'Please quit, please quit.' "On numerous occasions, Ford and a family friend, Christopher Peyton, informed Officer Hooper that Jesse was mentally challenged/handicapped, and that Jesse did not understand what was happening," the complaint states. But the mom says the <b>...</b>
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