Police Not Guilty of assault of elderly care home resident

[Nanny0gg]

The police that tasered the 92 year-old amputee in the nursing home have been found not guilty of assault!

What on earth? What does constitute assault then?

I'm appalled by this judgement

I expect the staff had been doing that for many hours before calling the police.

Fucking disgraceful The poor man wasn't threatening them and he was holding a chunky handled butter knife, not a Zombie knife
Staff trained in Dementia care should've de escalated the situation and talked to him calmly not called the fucking police who were armed with Pepper spray and a baton
The 92 year old had a UTI, was an amputee sat in a wheelchair which apparently the police failed to notice!!!
Without a doubt, they were both guilty( it was filmed!) Both they and the carers should be sacked

This is the knife, everyone. It's a butter knife with a big plastic handle to make it easy to hold for people with poor dexterity. I am a fit healthy adult and I can barely manage to cut cooked meat on a plate with these, so how can a 92 year old in a wheelchair be a credible threat with one?

I will guess someone followed some training to the letter. I had to attend an external training session, in which the trainer said, "what would you do if one of your service users had a mental crisis and grabbed a knife and started threatening to harm staff or another service user?"

I said I'd de-escalate the situation, but if all else failed, I'd remove the knife. Trainers said, "what makes you so sure you could remove the knife safely?" I said, "working with these people day-in, day-out, assisting them with their personal care. There's not a single one of them whom I couldn't remove a knife from without injury to either of us". Another member of staff backed me up on this because it was true. Trainer said, "hmm, but you're supposed to say that you'd call the police."

I do have service users who could and might jab me with a butter knife tomorrow , but I wouldn't call 999 to manage that.

And was that an amputee in a wheel chair with a butter knife, in his room, on his own???

I think not. Apples/ oranges. Or rather bananas!

From Sky News “PC Comotto faces a further misconduct allegation relating to comments she made on social media after the incident”.

Does anyone know what the comments were?

Unbelievable

Can we protest? Doing that to such an elderly person is nothing short of brutal and inhumane.

I think the people working at the care home are more to blame than the police are. The police get there and all they can see is they have what looks like a deranged man wielding a knife. The care home workers would have a much better idea of who the man was, what is situation was and what he was capable of.

I guess there's a distinction between police failing miserably at their role and criminal assault. It isn't as though they intended or wanted to attack the man, rather they failed miserably at risk assessing and de-escalating.

So just keep out of reach. He wasn't going to leap up at them.

Can they grow a new leg all of a sudden?

Thanks. I was just trying to think this through - the police do have to be able to 'assault' people, so it's a more complicated question than if another civilian had done this to an old man.

I’m not sure what to make of this. You would think that experienced care staff and police would be able to de escalate the situation, but then I remember a friend of mine describing her father with dementia, and what was later found to be a UTI, as out of control and dangerous. She was very frightened.

The jury have heard and seen all of the evidence including footage and care home staff statements and they have come to the not guilty decision. It doesn’t seem like the police officers got off due to a lack of evidence so I think we have to trust they’ve made the right decision in terms of these charges having been presented with all of the evidence.

I can’t imagine that the officers won’t face some consequences from the gross misconduct hearing as how they behaved doesn’t seem to show they tried very hard or long to de escalate, which surely can’t be how they’re trained to deal with such situations. However, if they really didn’t know the extent of the man’s disabilities, maybe they weren’t communicated properly by the care home, and they may have deemed him as far more of a threat that what he was. Many police officers aren’t good people, even ones that are can make mistakes. I also think they’re probably under pressure to deal with incidents quickly which won’t have helped.

Its a very sad situation.

Or just shut the door, he'd have put it down at some point

Neither the care home staff or police could leave a distressed elderly man with a knife. They had a duty to keep him safe, not that it worked out that way, but that should have been the aim, as well as obviously keeping others safe too. It’s very sad.

Having lived for 8y with a grandad with advanced dementia that used to hit us aggressively with a zimmer frame, and a year as a Dr on dementia/stroke wards where often bite and kicked by patients (and 10y as an anaesthetist having to sedate drug induced violent patients smashing up a&e and abusing staff), I can assure you distraction works well in such patients and can easily just watch him from a distance and intervene in the unlikely instance managed to harm himself

If distraction works so well how come you got hit or bitten?

I’m sure the care staff were experienced and had dealt with many, many patients with dementia over the years without resorting to calling the police. I imagine something was different in this situation. Everyone is different so you can’t assure anyone of anything.

Well, the jury, who listened to all the evidence, decided that they weren't guilty.

Ok so if there was at 92 year old man in a wheelchair threatening you with a butter knife then you wouldn't be able to move away faster than he could chase you ? Really?

The staff had left the man in his room before the police arrived though. They then put went in and started shouting at him. Most people people would go into " fight or flight m" mode if that happened.

How violent could it have got with a butter knife and a missing leg?

They used excessive and unnecessary force according to the verdict and both face charges of gross misconduct. This isn't over yet.

Yes, I think they will face consequences and from what we’ve heard about this case, I think they should.