A woman that was tased by police while restrained in a chair in the jail has received a settlement of $400,000.

The incident took place on November 25th, 2017 in Boulder where Lauren Gotthelf was arrested for allegedly walking her service dog without a leash and smoking a cigarette on Pearl Street, an area of Boulder where smoking is prohibited.

Gotthelf's attorney, Mari Newman described what happened next:

While Lauren was in a holding cell, Boulder jail personnel claimed she made a suicidal statement. But instead of treating her with any sort of compassion or humanity, they demanded that she strip naked — and when she balked at that, they went into her cell, forcibly extracted her and shoved her into a restraint chair.

 

They inflicted multiple types of force on her, including a hypoglossal hold around her throat and jaw and multiple different kinds of pain compliance techniques. Even while she was restrained, they tased her in the upper thigh. It was absolutely inhumane, as well as unconstitutional. They then left her sitting in a cell strapped in the restraint chair with a spit hood over her head for hours.

While the Boulder County Sheriff's Office initially denied any wrongdoing, they now say that they plan to revamp the way they handle situations such as this and have awarded Gotthelf a sizeable settlement of $400,000 as of September 21st, close to 11 months after the lawsuit was initially filed in November of 2019.

The video below shows the incident that Gotthelf is being awarded the money for but be warned, it is graphic and contains language that is not safe for work.

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