Police in Ohio face threats after maskless woman Tased

When a police officer noticed Alecia Kitts without a mask at a middle school football game in Logan, Ohio, last week, he told her she either needed to cover her face or leave. When Kitts, 34, repeatedly refused both requests, the officer pulled out a Taser, shocked her and dragged her away in handcuffs.

Now, as video of the confrontation has gone viral, it’s become the latest flash point in the battle over mask mandates. Hundreds of threats have flooded Logan, forcing the officer who Tasered Kitts off active duty for his safety and leading a school system into lockdown on Thursday, the Logan

Daily News reported.

Critics, including some GOP politicians in Ohio, have seized on the case to bolster their argument that the government has gone too far in issuing restrictions meant to slow the spread of a virus that has now killed at least 204,000 Americans.

“I live in a society where men tase women in the back for not wearing a mask. And other men sit by doing NOTHING!” wrote state Rep. Nino Vitale, R, on Facebook. “I am ashamed that we treat people, especially women this way.”

Kitts’s lawyers, meanwhile, insist she was not breaking any pandemic rules.

“Ms. Kitts was obviously alone with her children, outdoors, at a distance of much greater than 6 feet from anyone else,” attorney Maurice A. Thompson told WCMH.

“Thus, she broke no Ohio law, not even the governor’s own legally-dubious health directives upon which the school relied,” he said.

Authorities, though, say they were merely enforcing statewide restrictions in a state that has recorded more than 150,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 4,700 deaths to date.

The confrontation happened on Wednesday at Logan High School, police said, where a crowd had gathered to watch seventh- and eighthgrade football games.

School resource officer Chris Smith, who was working the game in part to ensure fans and players followed statewide pandemic guidelines, approached Kitts and asked her to mask up. Kitts, though, argued she didn’t have to because she has asthma.

Smith told her that if she didn’t wear a mask, she’d have to leave the football stadium, police said. When “several attempts to get her to leave” failed, Smith told Kittsshe was under arrest for trespassing and told her to put her hands behind her back, Logan police said. That’s when a bystander began filming the scene.

As Kitts repeatedly yelled, “Don’t touch me,” Smith tried to wrestle her hands behind her back. Eventually, he Tasered her, handcuffed her and dragged Kitts out of the stands. Kitts was charged with criminal trespassing and released at the scene, police said. She was also later charged with resisting arrest and obstructing official business, WCMH reported.