Jury finds police officer who tasered 95yo woman guilty of manslaughter
www.abc.net.au
A NSW Supreme Court jury has returned its verdict over the death of a great-grandmother who had a fatal confrontation with police in an aged care home.
    • Kalkaline @leminal.space
      11·
      8 hours ago

      Reading the article, I get the impression that he was just flustered and impatient. Not even threatened, just annoyed that gam-gam wouldn’t listen and he was going to take control of the situation. His training didn’t seem to prepare him for a fragile elderly woman who doesn’t have the capacity to understand his orders.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
    351·
    12 hours ago

    Mr Hatfield said White’s use of the taser in his role as a police officer was unnecessary and excessive, given Mrs Nowland’s advanced age, her reliance on a walker, her demented state, her fall risk, and that the officers present were able to move away from her.

    Ya think?

    An exchange lasted for about three minutes where officers attempted to get Mrs Nowland to drop the knife and stop moving, before White said “bugger it” and deployed his taser.

    They devoted three minutes of thought to getting the knife away from this woman before tazing a 95 year old with a walker. Same shit in so many US cases. It’s not that there was no safe way to stop the threat, it’s that the cops don’t seem capable of going “Maybe we can call for backup” or “maybe we can just wait for the 95 year old woman to get tired.” Nope, you are making them feel impatient/stupid/disrespected or you’ve had the audacity to make them run. Time for brutality or death.

    • Balthazar@lemmy.world
      18·
      13 hours ago

      I believe his comment immediately before pulling the trigger was, “bugger it”. Essentially, he said her life was not worth his trouble to preserve.