Florida police fire beanbags at 81-year-old nursing home resident who brandished vase

Associated Press ^ | 8-29-02

[LibKill]

Excessive. Even if the guy had arms like Swarzenager, he could have been netted pretty easily in that wheelchair.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

If this was Houston they would have rounded up and arrested all of the residents of the nursing home.

[hoosierskypilot]

Dang straight! Shoot'em three times and then yell, "Halt. Halt. Halt."

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

Bump from another ex-psych worker. It was like clocking in for an eight hour shift in another dimension. Hard to believe "take downs" used to be as common as answering the phone.

[justanotherfreeper]

I worked my way through college being a nurses' aide in a nursing home, and have a mother in law with Alzheimers, and I'd have to know a whole lot more about this before I came down on the police.

81 with a pacemaker doesn't mean he's frail -- he could be a strapping 6'5" and if he was active his whole life still stronger than some 5'3" nurses' aide. dd, if two people are struggling to get a glass away, and one is punching and biting, that glass is gonna break and both will get cut! And being in a wheelchair doesn't mean you can't land a good kick, (depending on why you are in a wheelchair)! In the moderate stages of Alzheimers (and other dementia's as well) patients can get VERY violent - biting, punching, kicking - when they are confused and frightened. If the aide isn't trained well, to be reassuring and calm, the aide can make things worse by yelling back or being abrupt.

That being said, I never, in the five years I worked in various nursing homes, heard of the police needing to be called in! Why wasn't his daughter called first? Did they move the other patients away from him and then isolate him and let him calm down? Or did they continue to scream at him, escalting the situation? Was he threatening other patients? I think there is a whole lot more to this story, but at first blush I blame the nursing home before the police. Nursing homes are supposed to be trained to deal with these kinds of situations, cops aren't.

[xJones]

The Ledger of Lakeland reported. Hospital officials said Thursday they could not make any comment on Foster, because he was admitted under the Baker Act, which allows a person considered a danger to self or others to be held for up to 72 hours for psychological evaluation.

The man must have been put there by his family for a reason. Granted, an 81 year-old man in a wheelchair doesn't sound dangerous, but his admitting record sounds like he has serious problems. Let's not jump to judgement here.

[mhking]

"Oops, I made him drop the vase on his head - I'm sorry he died..."

[Wm Bach]

They would have been in serious trouble if he had taken his Viagra.

Yeah, but what good is Viagra after a vase-ectomy?

[Jonathon Spectre]

To protect and serve... and maybe shoot an old person.

[Grut]

Dang straight! Shoot'em three times and then yell, "Halt. Halt. Halt."

Unprofessional. The correct procedure is "HaltHaltHalt"Bang!

[thegreatbeast]

The police are so poorly trained nowadays. First, they have all bought this "thin blue line crap" when in fact police work is deadenly dull 85% of the time. If cops wanted to know danger, they'd take jobs in convenience stores or mines.
It is drummed into all of them too that they must be in control of every situation at every moment. I used to struggle for the same thing until it was painfully pointed out to me that it is IMPOSSIBLE! All the screaming and shouting of orders is antithetical to the peaceful resolution of a tense situation. You'd think they'd know this intuitively.
I have great admiration for good police performance but the amount of posing that goes on now makes it hard to find any.

[Spruce]

To prevent this from happening again all vases must be outlawed.
For the children.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Police said they shot an 81-year-old nursing home resident three times with bean bags and hit him with pepper spray when he became suicidal and brandished a small glass vase.

"We had to kill him in order to save him."

[Delbert]

thats pretty funny man, good job.

[headsonpikes]

You know, for a left-wing fart-sniffer, you do perty good. ;^)

I'm amazed they're giving you the run of this joint. I guess the theory is, 'Give 'im enough rope to hang himself'.

You have a more consistent style than most disruptors, and for an idiot, you don't drool much.

Have a nice day. ;^)

[tracer]

Was the vase half-full or half-empty?

[tracer]

This situation never would have gotten out of hand if someone had thought to call the Vase Squad.....

[monday]

"Good God! Why in the h*ll did'nt someone just walk over and take the vase away?"

Well ya see, they had these nifty new bean bag shooters and wanted to try em out! You how it is when a kid gets a new toy?