Teen Tased By Trooper On Girlfriend's Porch

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A mother is angry and distraught after what she believes was racial profiling of her son when he was tased before being arrested by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper.

The Trooper George Smyrnios was caught on surveillance video tasing 16-year-old Jack Rodeman more than once on the back deck of the teen’s girlfriend’s home, where he had permission to be.

The surveillance video shows Jack outside of his girlfriend’s Three Oaks community home waiting for her to answer the door after texting her.

According to the report Trooper Smyrnios tased him after “he failed to comply”.

“My girlfriend that lives here is going to come outside. I didn’t do nothing,” Jack said, in the surveillance video.

He told his girlfriend via text, “Great, a state trooper just turned around and followed me,” and she replied “It’s OK. You’re not doing anything wrong,” according to Jack’s mother Kristina Rodeman who read the text messages to us.

But the Smyrnios didn’t see it that way. He asked Jack to put his hands behind his back.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Rodeman reiterated. The taser fired and Jack screamed as the trooper continued to shock him with the taser.

“I mean my son was just standing there on his phone. He wasn’t reaching in his pockets. The officer? There was no threat to that officer,” Kristina said.

“I just don’t understand. I just don’t understand, and then for him to keep zapping my son after he hit like that. I just think something needs to be done.”

WINK News showed her the official Florida Highway Patrol report. Trooper Smyrnios wrote that:

the defendant described as a ‘suspicious person’ dressed in black pants, a black sweater/hoodie and black tennis shoes looked up and saw the trooper in his patrol car and immediately ‘darted’ and hid in thick shubbery.

“What?” Kristina said, shaking her head.

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