A police officer who fatally tased a 95-year-old woman suffering from dementia was found guilty of manslaughter in an Australian court, CNN reported. Clare Nowland, a great-grandmother who used a walker, was holding a steak knife but did not pose an “imminent threat” when she was killed at a nursing home in the region of New South Wales, the jury concluded. The staff at Yallambee Lodge had called the police after Nowland refused to return to her room in the middle of the night. She was holding two knives and threw one of them at a caretaker. After police and paramedics arrived, they cornered Nowland in an office, where she sat in her pajamas holding a steak knife. Senior Constable Kristian White asked her repeatedly to put the knife down, but instead she stood up, putting one hand on her walker, while White pulled out his Taser stun gun. After warning her several times she was “gonna get tased,” he finally said, “Nah, bugger it,” and deployed the Taser, causing her to fall and fracture her skull. White told the court he believed a “violent confrontation was imminent,” but the jury agreed with the prosecution that the Taser was an unnecessary use of force against a frail old woman. White, who has been on leave since the incident, will be sentenced at a later date.
