Posted on 11/07/2007 9:28:13 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
Chicago's Police Department is investigating an officer's use of a Taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who was swinging a hammer when police arrived. Officials with the city's Department on Aging went to Lillian Fletcher's home Oct. 29 to make a welfare check, and called police when they saw Fletcher in a window swinging a hammer back and forth, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday.
Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Fletcher one of them used their Taser, Bond said. The department is trying to determine if the officer violated department policy regarding the use of stun guns.
Fletcher's granddaughter, Traci Taylor, told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandmother suffers from schizophrenia and dementia.
"My grandmother is easily confused," Taylor told the newspaper, adding that the elderly woman can be belligerent but is about 5 feet 1 and no more than 160 pounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
‘Don’t tase me sonny-boy!’
I swing a hammer from time to time. Guess I better watch out.
What is it about cops not being able to handle senile old ladies?
How do you handle yours? The ones with the hammers, I mean.
How big and how old is this stellar example of Chicago’s “finest”?
It’s always hard to draw a bright line on when a weapon shoud be used.
All that said, there was a case where an NYPD ESU officer shot a woman named Eleanor Bumpers, who was an elderly EDP who was threatening people in her apartment with a knife. The police tried to use basically a giant fork to restrain her. It’s didn’t work (I guess never bring a fork to a knife fight, and another officer shot her twice with a shotgun. The first shot disabled her, the second killed her. There was a trial, centering around whether the detective fired a quick pair of shots as he was trained, or whether he fired the disabling shot, paused, and then “executed” bumpers. The officer was cleared. It is a great study in the use of force against people with mental illness.
Completely apart from the issue of the police officers’ decision here, we should be asking stern questions about why an 82 year old woman who “suffers from schizophrenia and dementia . . . is easily confused . . . can be belligerent” is living alone with “officials with the city’s Department on Aging” dropping by to make periodic “welfare checks”. She obviously hasn’t been well for a long time, and if her relatives can’t or won’t take her in, the state should have put her in a supervised living institution a long time ago. Somebody whose mental condition is well known to render them unable to be held legally responsible for their actions shouldn’t be left to live unsupervised.
My m-i-l doesn’t live with us.....
I don’t get it....was she swinging it menacingly? Just “swinging a hammer” isn’t very descriptive.
Right, you would think an 82yo lady swinging a hammer, would get tired pretty quickly, and probably wouldn’t be swinging it menacingly for very long.
5’ 1” is not huge. 160 lbs at that height, along with her age, and probably arthritis and a host of other health issues, could slow her down considerably.
I guess I could see how they were outmatched......
I wonder what would have happened if they had just left her alone.
She’d have gotten tired and taken a nap. They could have tased her then.
These taser threads interest me.
Did you post this to Gen. Chat? Or did a Moderator.
In any event, see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922404/posts
Yeah, Sounds like a case of premature E-STUN-U-LATION!
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