"Hula Hoop Lady" shot with stun gun

NORFOLK, Va. -  

Police have released video of a Norfolk officer shooting a disabled woman with his Taser gun.

Officer Nick Parks stunned Pamela Brown, known around town as the "Hula Hoop Lady", three times with his stun-gun. The camera mounted inside the gun captured the incident on video.

Police say on October 11th, the officer approached Brown after receiving a noise complaint about her.  She was playing a radio and hula hooping in the median of Granby Street near Wards Corner, just as she has done for many years.

The video clearly shows Brown, who is disabled with a brain injury and several bone injuries in her arms and legs, pleading with Officer Parks, trying to explain why she could not physically put her hands behind her back. Then it shows Officer Parks shoot Brown with his Taser gun, even though she had one hand cuffed already and she made no aggressive move toward the officer.

While Brown was on the ground, the officer continues to tell her to put her hands behind her back while she is being stunned with 50,000 volts of electricity.

The officer arrested Brown and took her to jail for the weekend on charges of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and excessive noise.

On Monday, Brown, a bit wobbly from medication, walked in to court  with her social worker and her attorney. In addition to her physical injuries, she also suffers short term memory loss from a brain injury she received in a car crash 30 years ago.

But her wit is still very sharp.   When the judge said, "Good morning Ms. Brown."   Brown quipped back, "If you say so."

The Hula Hoop Lady was not happy at all about being hauled in to court.

For many years now she has been exercising in the middle of the median along Granby Street near Wards Corner.  She plays soft rock on her radio and smiles at all the drivers who wave to her. 

She lives nearby in an apartment complex for the elderly and the disabled.  She says one of her only joys in life is hula-hooping and waving to all the passing motorists.

"I'm in the fresh air, seeing people. It's better than being locked up in the apartment, hula-hooping to four walls," said Brown moments after she walked out of court.

In the end the prosecutor and the judge agreed to nolle prosse, or set aside, the three charges against Brown. So she will soon be back out there hula hooping and waving to her fans.

Police tell WAVY.com Officer Nick Parks is on adminstrative duty right now while the department investigates the incident and determines if Officer Parks used excessive force on the Hula Hoop Lady.