Originally published at: "Bugger it": Australian cop tases and kills 95-year-old woman with dementia in her care home | Boing Boing
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Yeah I struggled trying to figure this out as well. The judge is sounding like the family members of the victim should have been allowed to see/confront the officer in person. That squares with the story about corporal punishment of a 7 year old. The judge is beyond old school, and wants part of the punishment of the officer to be public humiliation. But this is in opposition to the pro-authoritarian stance of the judge, so … cognitive dissonance probably explains a lot.
Horrible story all around. I assumed Australian police were better than US police, but ACAB applies worldwide I guess.
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It didn’t involve the discharge of 16 rounds from the officer’s service pistol so I guess that’s one small difference.
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Jesus Christ, a 95 year old woman in a walker WITH A STEAK KNIFE, is not a threat. Period. You don’t need to call the cops. No one is going to get chased down by a lady in a walker. Just keep your distance and get her to talk until she gives it up.
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I’d be far more worried about her hurting herself before hurting anyone else.
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Heck, if they just walked away a bit faster than she could maneuver she would get tired and sit down soon enough.
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Schrödinger’s Cop. The cop is both guilty of excessive force and also cannot be guilty by virtue of being part of the apparatus of authority.
Whichever is true, it’s actually the kids these days who are at fault. And 95 year olds, apparently.
Also:
Whaaat? As a parent of two boys who have to be dragged across the line every school year, WTF is he talking about?
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Absolutely, thoroughly fucking appalling and
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Me too, though you would have to try really hard to kill yourself with a steak knife. But I wouldn’t want her to hurt herself either, which is why I might have someone distract her and come up behind, grab her wrist, and take it away. Distract her with cake and ice cream. I dunno - anything other than call the cops and have them tase her.
When you bring in a hammer, they are going to look at everything like a nail…
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Yeah - the cop’s reaction was inhuman, but why was a care home which has people with dementia not able to deal with a 95-year-old with a walking frame, to the point they decided to call the cops, FFS?
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If they’re anything like the elder care facilities in America, it’s because they’re essentially places for families to drop off their older relatives with dementia to hasten their deaths without having to be there to watch. The entire industry is corrupt, callous and dehumanizing to its victims, and in my personal experience, wildly incompetent as well, especially after the staffing shortages left in the wake of COVID. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the person who called the cops was hired off of Clipboard (essentially Uber but for nurses rather than drivers), had never met the victim before or gotten to know anything about her, and knew they were only at the facility for that day and there was no possible way they could be fired or held accountable for anything.
Side note, people with Alzheimer’s sometimes develop peripheral neuropathy that makes it difficult to control their fingers. Even if the old woman understood what was being asked of her, she may not have been physically capable of letting go of the knife without assistance.
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Guess who owns the source you used:
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I would agree at 95 probably not. However, when my grandfather was about 90 his dementia was taking hold pretty well. He’d slip into some altered mid 20’s version of himself. At one point (in a care facility) he got in a altercation with my father (his son who would have been around 65). My dad said he was surprisingly strong for an “old man”. My mom, who is a retired nurse, commented that in an altered state the mind is pushing the body just as hard as it believes he really is 25 years old. Sure he doesn’t physically have that strength or speed, but he’s certainly faster and stronger than your regular 90 year old. He didn’t have mobility issues at that point, so he could have been fairly dangerous with a weapon in hand.
wouldn’t justifying killing him or anyone else. This woman was NOT your grandfather and is now dead. There is NO justification for that, even if she had been stronger and more able to inflict damage.
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Police allege the mother-of-eight was using her walking frame to slowly approach the officers with the knife in her hand, despite repeated requests for her to drop it.
Distance. Cover. Time. Basic cop training. There wasn’t any call for force.
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There is a Beau of 5th Column video in which he opines that you should never call the cops unless you are ready for them to use lethal force. 
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Anyone applying to become police officers (or any civil service office) should be disqualified if they do it for job security. That would thin the ranks of righteous good 'ol boys looking for invulnerability.
Her weight matched her age, she wasn’t a threat to anyone other than maybe herself.
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Yep… and even if she had been, she did not deserve this.
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