Pregnant Woman Tasered By Chicago Police In Parking Dispute

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Jun 6, 2012 4:20PM

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Chicago police ticketed a woman who is eight months pregnant for parking in a handicapped space Tuesday evening. She tore up the ticket, threw it at the officer and tried to take off, but the officer responded by using a Taser on her.

Tiffany Rent, 30, was treated and released, and it appears the baby was unharmed. A police source says the officer may not have known she was pregnant, but a female officer noticed and suggested Rent be taken to the hospital.

Her boyfriend and father of the baby, Joseph Hobbs, also was arrested in the parking lot of a Walgreens in the Roseland neighborhood when he tried to intervene. He suffered a dislocated elbow in the struggle with police. Rent's sister Shareeta says Tiffany was Tasered while sitting in the SUV, then officers pulled her from the car. The Tribune writes:

“She said she felt very dizzy and she remembered being on the ground and all of these officers standing around her cracking jokes,” Shareeta Rent said.

She added that the arrests were witnessed by Rent's 9-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, who Shareeta Rent said were left unattended in the car along with their mother's purse and other personal items.

"How could you do that to a pregnant woman?" Rent said. "My niece and nephew are in the back seat of the car crying. They did that in front of her kids."

The Supreme Court recently refused to hear the appeal of a Seattle area woman who was pregnant when she was Tasered three times by cops. Malaika Brooks, seven months pregnant at the time, had refused to sign a ticket for speeding 32 mph (12 mph over the 20 mph limit) while taking her 11-year-old son to school. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals felt that while the police action was unconstitutional, "the law was not established clearly enough at the time of both incidents to give police fair warning that their actions were unreasonable and unconstitutional." In other words, pregnancy just means there's more to Tase.

Shareeta Rent says the family plans to file complaints and support the two in court today. Tiffany Rent was charged with misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and simple assault, and was cited for parking in a handicapped spot. Hobbs was charged with misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and simple assault.