Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Taser incident during huricane Ivan

A former Pinellas County sheriff's deputy was sentenced to a year in federal prison Monday after a jury said he used excessive force while responding to a 2004 hurricane in the Florida Panhandle.

Richard G. Farnham received the maximum sentence for his role in an altercation days after Hurricane Ivan hammered the small coastal town of Navarre.

Farnham, 35, kicked and Tasered a 56-year-old resident who thought Farnham was looting a nearby house, authorities said. Farnham also hit the man's wife, leaving her partially blind in one eye, the man said from his home Monday.

"It was an absolute nightmare," said the resident, Daniel Thompson, a former New York City corrections captain.

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