An Arkansas cop has been suspended after tasering a ten-year-old girl who repeatedly "screamed, kicked and resisted" when her mother attempted to get her to have a shower before bed.

Officer Dustin Bradshaw was called to a "domestic disturbance" in Ozark on 11 November, where he found the girl "curled up on the floor, screaming", according to his report.

Bradshaw wrote that the girl was "violently kicking and verbally combative", and noted: "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to."

When Bradshaw attempted to arrest the child, she kicked him in the groin, so he gave her "a very brief drive stun to her back" of "less than a second", as police chief Jim Noggle put it. Bradshaw was then able to handcuff the subdued perp and she was taken into custody.

Noggle clarified: "We didn't use the Taser to punish the child - just to bring the child under control so she wouldn't hurt herself or somebody else."

The girl's mother, Kelly King, backed Bradshaw's action, telling local 4029tv.com: "I want to make this clear, I'm not calling them [the police] over here to handle my problem. I'm having them come over here to protect my daughter from hurting herself or hurting someone else."