TYBEE, GEORGIA – An 18-year-old autistic Georgia youth with a heart condition says police turned a Taser on him, according to The Associated Press. Officers arrested Clifford Grevemberg Friday night, says the AP and told his brother, Dario Mariani, that the teen was drunk and disorderly. But Mariani said Grevemberg is a special-needs teen who’s never consumed alcohol.
The 170-pound teenager, who’s from Tybee Island, said the police used a Taser on him twice and threw him to the ground, breaking a front tooth.
“I just wanted to go to sleep,” the teenager told the Savannah Morning News, as reported by the Examiner.com. “I sat down on the curb and put my head in my arms, and they stopped me.”
Mariani said he had gone into a restaurant briefly and when he stepped back out, his handcuffed brother was bleeding and two Taser barbs dangled from his back.
When he told the police about his brother’s health, “Their eyeballs got about that big when I told them he has a heart condition,” Mariani said. The autistic teen’s heart must be monitored regularly, according to his family.
After being taken to the Tybee police station, Grevemberg was released. Yesterday a police dispatcher said that no one was available to comment, according to The Associated Press.
