Student speaks after deputy convicted for convincing her to use Taser on herself

AVERY COUNTY, N.C. — Channel 9 has obtained video of a former school resource officer in Avery County trying to convince a student to shock herself with a Taser.

That student, who was part of an explorer program involving Avery County sheriff’s deputies, talked about the case to Channel 9′s Dave Faherty after a jury convicted the officer.

Alyssa Towler was 17 years old at the time and wanted to go into law enforcement. She joined the explorer program, led by the sheriff’s office and the school district, to get exposure to that line of work, but said it didn’t go as planned.

Towler and her father showed Faherty several of the video clips. They said you can see school resource officer Luis Sanchez encourage Alyssa to shock herself with a Taser.

“You said ‘OK I will stick my arm out?’” the deputy says.

“I said maybe,” Towler replies.

“You’re never going to do it,” the deputy says.

“I will -- ready?” she says.

Towler said in 2022, she rode along with the deputy as part of the program. She said at the time, she wanted to become a U.S. Marshal.

At one point in the video, you can hear Sanchez trigger the Taser.

“I stopped it and turned it on, see?” he says.

“Basically, I thought they were going to cut it out. Usually that’s what happened,” Towler told Faherty. “And then when they kept encouraging and the threats came in, I realized it’s real.”

“I was just appalled that the sheriff’s deputies would do something like this,” said her father, Bryon Towler. “The old administration, they weren’t held accountable.”

The Towlers didn’t show Faherty the video that actually shows Alyssa using the Taser, saying it is too graphic.

In September, a jury convicted Sanchez of contributing to the abuse of a juvenile and willfully failing to discharge his duties. The deputy accused of taking the video took a deal by agreeing to testify against the other deputy.

Neither deputy works at the Avery County Sheriff’s Office anymore.

Towler still wants to serve her community and is now studying to become a paramedic.

“I hope they’re sorry,” she said. “I know they don’t probably feel regret, but hopefully that will settle in at some point in their life.”

The family said the current sheriff, who was not in office at the time, has reached out to the family asking to meet with them and assure them nothing like this will ever happen again.

(WATCH BELOW: Tasers: What you need to know)

©2023 Cox Media Group