Police use stun grenades to subdue mother who refused to hand over her five-month-old child to Swedish social services
- Swedish police used stun grenade on woman taking baby into care
- She had locked herself in a room, armed with a knife, with her five-month-old
- The baby boy is the third child to be taken from the 30-year-old Swede
- Stun grenades go off at 180 decibels and temporarily paralyse the target
Gross negligence: A police officer has been
jailed for blowing up a suspect's testicles with a stun grenade like
this one when the victim refused to leave his car
The
30-year-old woman had armed herself with a knife when police entered
her flat in Helsingborg, southern Sweden to aid social services with
taking the child into care.
She
locked herself in a room with the baby boy and, after several hours of
negotiation police judged her a threat to the child and called for
backup.The incident took place earlier this month when social services in Helsingborg requested police presence when removing the child from the woman’s care.
The five-month-old boy is the third child to be taken from the woman, who has been in and out of employment for several years.
When social services ruled that her baby should also be taken into care she made serious threats to staff and refused to cooperate, and as a result, police were called in to help remove the child from her.
The initial police force had kicked a hole through the door to communicate with the distressed mother, but she refused to let go of her son.
When a squad team arrived at the scene, they decided to use stun grenades to subdue the woman.
The grenades, also known as flash grenades, go off at up to 180 decibels temporarily paralysing the person they are fired at.
The child was hospitalised and the woman was taken to a psychiatric clinic.
Her legal representative claims police used unnecessary force.
'It is very strange that police use stun grenades on a petite woman who just tried to defend her child.
'She judged the actions of the police to be unfair and feels she was facing an impossible power,’ lawyer Charlotte Lagersten told Dagens Nyheter.
When her two older children were taken from her, a psychiatrist noted that they both ‘seemed safe and well cared for’ and had a ‘warm and caring relationship’ with their mother.
Unnecessary violence: Police were called to help
social services take the five-month-old baby boy from the woman and
used the stun grenade after it was deemed she was a threat to her own
child (stock image)
When it was ruled that her new-born should also be removed from her care, a psychologist who met with them wrote that the boy showed ‘an attachment to his mother which is rare to see today.’
‘I am extremely critical to how the woman and her children have been treated,’ Ms Lagersten adds.
‘Social Services have chosen not to divulge any of the investigation or papers which have proven the woman’s ability to care for her children.
‘They have also completely disregarded the fact that the children at the time of going into care were physicially and mentally well.
‘In short, there are no legal grounds for taking them into care.’
The woman, who left psychiatric care on Thursda, has previously applied to have her other two children returned from foster care, but she has not been allowed to see them for 18 months.
