NSW police tasered a 95-year-old woman with dementia. Source: Highway Patrol Images
95-year-old Clare Nowland is receiving end of life care in hospital after a police officer tasered her in her nursing home in Southern NSW.
Staff at Yallambee Lodge in Cooma, NSW, called emergency services at around 4:15am on Wednesday last week when Ms Nowland, who has dementia, was found holding a steak knife.
At a press conference the next day, Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Cotter stated that the officers “attempted to negotiate” with Ms Nowland “for a number of minutes.”
The distressed and confused woman then made her way very slowly to the door.
“She was approaching police, but, it is fair to say, at a slow pace. She had a walking frame. But she had a knife,” Cotter said.
One of the officers, a senior constable, then tasered Ms Nowland, causing her to fall to the ground. She fractured her skull and suffered bleeding in her brain.
Ms Nowland’s distressed family now maintains a bedside vigil in the hospital, as Ms Nowland sees out her final days.
A press release by NSW police on Wednesday afternoon stated that “an elderly woman sustained injuries during an interaction with police,” with no mention of the deadly tasering by the senior constable.
Police Commissioner Karen Webb has defended this lack of transparency, stating that that NSW police “didn’t want the family to hear on radio and TV what had happened to their mum.”
The officer responsible has been relieved of duty, and the attack on Ms Nowland, by a NSW police officer, is currently being investigated by NSW police.
The use of tasers by police on civilians is not uncommon. Back in March, an 11-year-old boy was tasered with a 50,000-volt stun gun by police in a Scottish holiday park. The boy was allegedly holding a butter knife.
Last year, British police were investigated for manslaughter after Donald Burgess, a 93-year-old man with one leg, who had dementia, died after being tasered by officers at his care home in Sussex.
