Too close in Tase of preg teen

A SERGEANT caught on video using a stun gun to subdue a pregnant 17-year-old girl in the Bronx was standing too close to her to use the device effectively, a police official told the Daily News.

The NYPD advises officers to fire the electronic weapons 7 to 15 feet from the target so the Taser darts are far enough from each other to create a charge that can incapacitate the subject, the official said. The Taser company manual recommends a distance of 7 to 10 feet.

The 47th Precinct sergeant was only 2 feet from Dailene Rosario when he used the stun gun on her during a chaotic confrontation Friday night in the hallway of her Wakefield building.

Rosario told The News she felt a searing electric shock for at least five seconds and suffered deep puncture wounds and burns. But she was not incapacitated — which is the intent of a Taser.

“It’s like your whole side is on fire and you’re being stabbed at the same time,” Rosario told The News on Tuesday. “The hook was embedded into my skin, so they had to cut it to take both the (electrodes) out.”

Rosario is 14 weeks pregnant. Doctors told her the baby wasn’t harmed.

“Why it was necessary to deploy the Taser?” wondered civil rights lawyer Debra Cohen. “A stun gun is not going to take the place of hands-on control or patience and good judgment.”

The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the incident. The Bronx district attorney’s office is also reviewing it, a law enforcement source said.

A source said that Rosario was swinging her arm after being partially handcuffed.

“Once you have one cuff on, you now present a bigger threat,” the source said.

The confrontation happened as cops’ use of stun guns has nearly tripled since 2011, NYPD figures show. Last year, cops used Tasers 503 times, compared with 178 times five years earlier.

The Taser usage figures correspond with the rise in the number of the devices in use across the NYPD. There were just 160 of the stun guns in 2006, compared with more than 1,700 by last June.

Cops came to Rosario’s building to check on an asthma patient, but stumbled across two men fighting in the fourth floor hallway with about 15 rowdy onlookers and called for backup. About 10 more officers came, including the sergeant.