It is easy to side with Palin with the brother-in-law with these facts (odd as they are) but I am less than thrilled with an executive who uses their power to be judge, jury and executioner in a case where they were personally involved. I agree the GOP will scream Wooten was a child abuser and no-one will consider all of the implications.

Why not get a law passed saying that State Police using a taser in anything other than a professional police capacity - doing police business - will result in firing full stop?

on april 27, 2005, trooper sgt. ron wall began the internal investigation, interviewing and re-interviewing more than 15 people over a period of months

...

one day -- maybe a year or two before the investigation -- wooten showed his stepson his taser. he had just been to taser instructor school. wooten told sgt. wall that the boy was fascinated and pleaded to be tased.

"so we went in our living room and i had him get down on his knees so he wouldn't fall. and i taped the probes to him and turned the taser on for like a second, turned it off. he thought that was the greatest thing in the world, wanted to do it again," wooten told the investigator. the boy flinched but nothing more, he said. the boy was about 11 at the time.

in his interview with troopers, the stepson said it hurt for about a second, according to wall's report. the boy said he wanted to be tased to show his cousin, palin's daughter bristol, that he wasn't a mama's boy. the probe left a welt on his arm, he said. his mother was upstairs yelling at them not to do it, the boy said.

as bristol remembered it, the jolt knocked the boy backward, the trooper report says. she said she was afraid.

the probes are attached by thin wires to the taser cartridge. in the field, an officer fires the probes into a suspect's skin or clothing and the suspect receives a jolt of electricity for five seconds, said steve tuttle, a spokesman for taser international, which makes the devices. they are only incapacitated during that time. in demos, the probes might be taped to a person so that they don't accidentally strike an eye or injure the volunteer, he said. if the taser is fired for just a second, it would feel like your funny bone was hit but the quick jolt wouldn't knock you over, tuttle said.

the kid wanted to experience it, his step-dad, a cop, used the lowest setting for a second to accomodate the kid.

not good judgement to be sure, but not child abuse worthy of firing after the man was already officially disciplined for it.