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Woman Claims She Was Shocked 15 Times With Taser Gun

Suit Filed After Alleged Incident In North Florida

POSTED: Wednesday, April 20, 2005
UPDATED: 10:01 am EDT April 21, 2005

Wednesday, Local 10 talked to a woman who claims she was shocked more than a dozen times with a Taser gun during her arrest last month.

Patricia Skelly says she was shocked with a Taser gun 15 times after her arrest last month in North Florida on Easter Sunday.

She and her attorney Ellis Rubin say pictures show the scars from the Taser burns that cover her back and legs.

Skelly was staying at a motel in Valparaiso and police were called when she was 20 minutes late checking out.

Skelly, who is a 47-year-old mother of two who was staying alone at the motel, says she was taken to the Okaloosa County correctional facility where either the police officers or the corrections staff, she can't remember which, shocked her with a Taser again and again.

"I just don't want this happening to anybody else. I lived through 15 Tasers and it was the most horrendous experience," Skelly said.

"At one point I just pretended like I was dead because I thought if I pretended like I was dead then they would stop," she said.

Skelly says she has no criminal record and only a minor past issue with drugs.

She says she was trying to move back to Florida, after raising two boys in Vermont.

Valparaiso police charged her with trespassing and resisting arrest with violence.

A department spokesperson said no Valparaiso officer used a Taser gun on Skelly, but added she could not speak for corrections staff at the jail.

Attorney Ellis Rubin said, "Handcuffed and weighing 110 pounds and she resisted arrest? I feel they wrote that to justify the Tasering."

Rubin will represent Skelly at her arraignment next month and he says he will try to identify the officers that he says had no need or right to use a Taser gun on Skelly so many times, if at all.

"It's just not right what happened to me and how I lived through this, I don't know," Skelly said.

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