95-year-old woman tasered at nursing home

[watt price tully]

Tasers were brought in for this exact scenario given everyone got outraged when the cops shot dead a kid who charged them with a knife.

It’s pretty basic not to use Tasers on a 95 year old. The Washington Post are reporting she was also using a walker. Someone needs to lose their job.

What did the staff handover to the Police needs to be asked?
How many staff were on?
What was their level of training?

This should be relatively routine to deal with for an Aged Care Facility.

[David]

I would have offered a swap for the knife with a glass of brandy. She would have loved to have the brandy, the staff would have got the knife and as a bonus, she would have gone back and slept really well after the “night cap”. Problem solved.

Underrated post.

If there were two cops, couldn’t one have distracted her while the other one ran around behind her?

[David]

Tasers were brought in for this exact scenario given everyone got outraged when the cops shot dead a kid who charged them with a knife.

You think they would have shot her if they didn’t have tasers available!?

[watt price tully]

Nah, they tasered her because they ran out of brandy.

[eddiesmith]

Tasers were brought in for this exact scenario given everyone got outraged when the cops shot dead a kid who charged them with a knife.

It’s pretty basic not to use Tasers on a 95 year old. The Washington Post are reporting she was also using a walker. Someone needs to lose their job.

What did the staff handover to the Police needs to be asked?
How many staff were on?
What was their level of training?

This should be relatively routine to deal with for an Aged Care Facility.

It might be simple for someone who has dealt with a lot of crazy elderly patients, maybe the Victorian government hasn’t factored in proper funding and training for Victoria Police to deal with these situations. It’s much easier to say hey we’ve spent millions on this awesome equipment to stop our police having to kill someone to protect their own lives. But we didn’t factor in training them on how to use them…

[think positive]

True however I would have thought the nursing home would have someone trained to handle it. I know the ones my parents were at did, they have special dementia wards because a lot of patients can be aggressive at times, not surprisingly, the frustration is horrible.

[David]

[watt price tully]

Tasers were brought in for this exact scenario given everyone got outraged when the cops shot dead a kid who charged them with a knife.

It’s pretty basic not to use Tasers on a 95 year old. The Washington Post are reporting she was also using a walker. Someone needs to lose their job.

What did the staff handover to the Police needs to be asked?
How many staff were on?
What was their level of training?

This should be relatively routine to deal with for an Aged Care Facility.

It might be simple for someone who has dealt with a lot of crazy elderly patients, maybe the Victorian government hasn’t factored in proper funding and training for Victoria Police to deal with these situations. It’s much easier to say hey we’ve spent millions on this awesome equipment to stop our police having to kill someone to protect their own lives. But we didn’t factor in training them on how to use them…

The incident happened in NSW.

I know police here do get training but this is sooo bizarre. Police do get training in weapon use and how to deal with challenging situations. A lot of their work involves unpredictable situations such as alcohol and drugs, psychosis or older people.
Why the facility felt the need to call the police seems unusual.
As Lazza noted distraction can work pretty well although depending on her form of dementia then distraction might not work. Kindness usually works most of the time with most people.

[watt price tully]

[David]

No doubt, but I wonder if they're sufficiently strict when it comes to this particular weapon. Given what we've seen before, it would appear not.

[What'sinaname]

The incident happened in NSW.

I know police here do get training but this is sooo bizarre. Police do get training in weapon use and how to deal with challenging situations. A lot of their work involves unpredictable situations such as alcohol and drugs, psychosis or older people.
Why the facility felt the need to call the police seems unusual.
As Lazza noted distraction can work pretty well although depending on her form of dementia then distraction might not work. Kindness usually works most of the time with most people.

But as you said, the need to call the police tells us that there is more to the story.

[stui magpie]

^

The incident happened at 4am.

There would have been no specialist staff there at that time, just a skeleton crew of likely barely trained low level staff to keep an eye on sleeping old people.

The old woman had dementia and a knife, staff called the cops. The cop clearly had a reason to use the Taser, he didn't do it for fun. His chest camera was on, Police investigators have the footage, it will be up to them to determine whether he had other options that should have been used or if there was an imminent risk of someone getting stabbed.

[think positive]

[think positive]

^

The incident happened at 4am.

There would have been no specialist staff there at that time, just a skeleton crew of likely barely trained low level staff to keep an eye on sleeping old people.

The old woman had dementia and a knife, staff called the cops. The cop clearly had a reason to use the Taser, he didn't do it for fun. His chest camera was on, Police investigators have the footage, it will be up to them to determine whether he had other options that should have been used or if there was an imminent risk of someone getting stabbed.

yeah the head cop seemed to dither a bit. at least she didnt blindly defend them, but before i judge to harshly id like to see the footage! i mean she could have been attempting self harm, carrying on something chronic, and they thought they were helping her. dont know how big the knife was either.

odd that she was up at 4am.

[David]