92 year old tasered, hit and pepper sprayed

[whompingwillo]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8dv60dygro.amp

Because of a piece of cutlery? The mind boggles and it made me feel really sad. People in care homes become confused all the time due to multiple reasons. Seems highly unlikely anyone was in danger enough to warrant this force. He subsequently died 3 weeks later

I thought about it just fine thank you.

Consequences of actions. See how they like being on the receiving end of a bully.

I think the care home were wrong to call the police in the first place here. He'd been at the home for several years so they must have been familiar with ways to relate to him. From the video it doesn't look like he posed a particular danger to other residents or staff in that moment and he doesn't look fully aware of his surroundings.

We expect the police to handle this sort of thing sensibly and sensitively, but they are blunt instruments, trained to respond with force against someone with a weapon. (Obviously it goes without saying that pepper spray, batons and tasers was a massive overreaction)

So, when faced with an obviously confused 90-odd year old man in a wheelchair brandishing nothing more than a butter knife, your idea of a proportionate response would be to empty a full can of pepper spray in his face, batter him with a baton and give him a bloody good tasering?

Have you considered a career in the police force? If so, please stop.

This is one of the most stupid comments I've ever read on here and I've been around several years now

Sorry, but there is no getting on board with this. Celebrating the prospect of some prisoners beating up 2 fellow inmates is sad, vengeful and nothing to do consequences.

@LilacFlowerBed watch the video , he wasn’t threatening anyone , just confused . Until you see the video you can’t understand how excessive the force used was. He was at the far side of the room , in his wheelchair , the knife was in his hand by his side, it looked like he didn’t even understand it was there. The two police officers were standing at the door , aggressively shouting from the beginning .

Yes. Calling the police suggests this was beyond normal confusion which they deal with daily.

I do worry we've created this ludicrous situation with rules about restraint. If you try to restrain him and break a bone then you'd be on a disciplinary charge.

I'm not saying that makes a taser a good idea but in protocol terms (which is what you are judged against) it is perhaps the expected course of action.

It is absolutely consequences if it happens. And it does happen we all know it.

Net result of their own bad behaviour. And yes it is vengeful and entirely deserved. And these days I am all for people getting what they actually deserve.

There are people out there that enjoy bulling and unfortunately some of them join the police. These look to be two of them.

However what is most likely is they will happen is a slap on the wrist. Proper justice.

Exactly. And care staff trained to cope with dementia patients, who can sometimes be violent unfortunately, should have been able to handle that themselves. And police officers should know about de-escalation techniques. They were impatient and totally devoid of compassion.

Never in my years of using this forum have I read something so utterly ridiculous. I am absolutely gobsmacked by your lack of common decency and compassion. Yes, the word is poked. Not sure why you’ve chosen to use inverted commas to insinuate it was anything more. Force was needed to ensure everyone’s safety?! Get a grip. Of course it wasn’t necessary or needed. He was an elderly, immobile amputee who was very unwell and is now dead because of these disgraceful officers. They could have easily disarmed him without the use of a taser, a baton and almost an entire can of pepper spray - they just didn’t want to. If such force was necessary they wouldn’t have been arrested would they. Doesn’t take a genius. 🙄

If you can’t seem to comprehend that this could have been sorted without the need for such brutal force and should have taken the police much longer than a meagre two minutes then I honestly don’t know what to say to you because you clearly have no brain cells in your head. You should be ashamed, but of course anyone who comes out with such a statement is clearly without any shame at all.

Ofgs police violence against a amputee just sitting in a chair

what the hell is wrong with these police officers

he just needed a bit of time not 2 minutes.

they must feel so proud to have hurt a confused person in a chair

Don’t be daft! The escalation was off the wall and incompetent.
They should have just left him where he was and he would have soon forgot about it,

should they have waited around for potentially ages

Well… yes.

Yes I would generally think that just waiting was a better course of action than assaulting him.

The footage looks horrendous and there is no excuse for pepper spraying and tasering him but the part we don't see is what had happened when he was in the communal area prior to the care home managers moving him back to his room.

The staff must have been very concerned about their own safety as well as other residents to have phoned the police in the first place.

Yes it was 'only' a butter knife but if he had stabbed an elderly person who couldn't defend themselves in the eye or knocked them flying that could kill someone.

Elderly people have died from being attacked by fellow residents and perhaps the care home had previous experience of this man's agressive nature?

This is an abuse of power. He was not a threat to those police officers.

There was a very similar case in Australia a few years ago. A police officer tasered an 95 year old woman holding a knife. She fell and hit her head and died 4 days later. Absolutely disgusting and unnecessary behaviour by the police. The police officer was found guilty of manslaughter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj92mw9yzz0o.amp

So you remove him from the situation and leave him
by himself till he gets bored
surely ?

Christ, Lilac - i have read some bullshit on here, in my time.
But you might have just gone into first place, with that twaddle.

It's distressing to see the elderly gentleman being peppersprayed. I believe I could hear him wheezing in the footage and saying that he couldn't breath. Despite wearing glasses, it seemed to go right in his eyes too, which he winced shut.

It seems obvious to me that the gentleman was immobile and I would argue that there was no imminent threat to life, which is the only time in which a taser should be used. I have great concerns about taser usage and the effect it can have on people, especially those with heart defects. A taser should be considered by police as a lethal weapon, only to be used in a limited number of circumstances.

My opinion is that taser usage is often treated as a punishment by police officers wanting to act as judge and jury. I've seen videos of officers in Lincoln aiming their taser at football fans in the street, seemingly to hurry them along. It's preposterous. The female in the video should not have fired the taser, especially when the male officer was already trying to retrieve the knife from the elderly man's hand. I don't believe that the policeman would have gone so close to the elderly man if he'd have genuinely believed there was a threat to his life or that serious harm would have been caused.

I am not defending the elderly man's actions, but I am criticising the police's actions.

I do wonder if the nursing home staff would have called the police had it been their own relative or if they'd have tried other methods of calming the situation - given the man's handicap.

There’s a big chunk of the story missing

at some point the staff must off thought he was a risk with the knife to feel the need to involve the police
obviously all reasonable attempts from staff and police had failed
to be 100% clear the only risk was to himself no one else
but there a bit damned if they do and damned if they don’t if the would if just left him and he injured himself then they’d be slated. Even with a butter knife
I can’t see the purpose of pepper spray but the batten was an attempt to knock it out of his hand and the taser was to immobilise him completely (as in upper body before anyone points out he’s in a wheelchair )

No, that is not acceptable in case he injured himself. Care Home staff would be deemed negligent if they had left him alone with a knife.

I don't know the details of the case but e.g if he had a UTI and was super confused, he could potentially stand up forgetting he only has one leg and tumble to the floor and end up with a head injury.

What about the risk of him harming himself if you just left him

I remember this. Absolutely bloody awful. Police are trained to de-escalate situations. If they can’t get a butter knife off a disabled 92yo without resorting to pepper spray and Tasers, they should be sacked.

they caused his death.

absolute pathetic bullies.

So being pepper sprayed , hit with a baton and tasered was to save him from himself
really !

Utter bollocks. They tried, by shouting at a confused disabled old man. For less than 90 seconds. He clearly didn’t understand what they were shouting at him for or what was going on.

Can I refer you back to my original comment which details my opinion regarding the action taken by The Police?