Ozark is a lot like my hometown, and actually it's only about an hour to an hour and a half north of here on the other side of Mt. Magazine.
They're a small city with few financial resources. A lot of these officers are part-time officers that also work regular M-F jobs, or they may also work for the Fire-Dept part-time. It's not a high paying job but you still get the same stressors and shits that you would find in a bigger police dept such as LRPD or even Pine Bluff PD (both towns are rough places for Arkansas).
Some of the officers may not even be certified to handle certain situations or even properly trained in such cases. Most people that go through the police academy in Camden are trying to go to work for bigger PDs, or even for the State Police so it's unlikely that some of the Ozark officers may not have even been to the police academy. They just don't have the resources or funds to send prospects to the academy for further training.
Now as for tasing the child - that was a no no. The way a former police chief from a neighboring city explained it to me is - an officer can tase a child ONLY if the child is armed and threat to themselves and others.
The child and mother should have worked as a team to hogtie the child and throw her in the back of the police car. But seems to me like the mother was standing by and directing the officer to 'tase her' when the officer really need an extra set of hands to restrain the child.
