WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A retired police sergeant in a New York suburb has been sentenced to six months in prison and six months of home confinement for repeatedly firing a Taser gun at a man suffering a health crisis. U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas told the retired Mount Vernon police sergeant, Mario Stewart, that it was necessary “to send a clear message” to law enforcement that although policing is a “really hard,” there are rules and “where the line is clear, you cannot cross it.” "The people of Mount Vernon have to know that they will not be themselves victims of their law enforcement officers,” Karas said. Stewart, 46, of Brooklyn was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in January to depriving an individual of his civil rights by using excessive force against a 20-year-old civilian in 2019.