Police officers who pepper-sprayed and tasered 92-year-old amputee in care home cleared of assault
https://news.sky.com/story/police-officers-who-pepper-sprayed-and-tasered-92-year-old-amputee-in-care-home-cleared-of-assault-13376045
Posted by MachineHot3089
38 Comments
I’ve seen rocks with more mobility than that 92 year old had in the video. The fact that the two officers were so fearful of him that they had to resort to pepper spray and a taser, indicates that they should probably pursue a career elsewhere and not in the police force.
90 seconds of actual work followed by 3 minutes of unnecessary violence, he was immobile and out of his mind, he wasn’t a perpetrator, he was a victim…
The issue is that in order for the situation to have been dealt with in a common sense manner, i.e. the police saying this is clearly not worth our time and leaving the staff to do their fucking jobs, the officers would have had to ignore their training. They did things by the book. The book is the problem.
I encourage people to watch the video of the incident and come to thier own conclusion. If this is how the police in this country are trained to deal with a situation like this, then God help us all. What a shockingly brute response to a delicate and sensitive situation. That’s my conclusion.
[92-year-old care home resident pepper-sprayed and Tasered](https://www.channel4.com/news/92-year-old-care-home-resident-pepper-sprayed-and-tasered)
Nah sorry don’t agree with this at all.
They spent no time trying to de-escalate the situation. It’s clear the man was in a state of confusion, rather than trying to calm him down the officers treated him more like an annoyance that they needed to deal with quickly so they could get back to doing other things.
Also it was clear he wasn’t going to lunge out the chair with one leg and stab someone. If calming him down didn’t work, surely whacking his hand with their baton would have eventually caused him to let go of the knife. That’s a hell of a lot safer than tasering and pepper spraying someone of his age.
Ok… so I understand that a jury cleared the officers. They will have had more insight into this case than I ever will…
But seeing as I can literally watch what happened I’m free to say WTF is wrong with those officers.
Maybe some use of force was inevitable, maybe the exact amount of force they used was inevitable but… they talk for 90 seconds!
This doesn’t seem right.
A case of lawful, but fucking awful.
Hopefully, the police still get rid of them through internal misconduct procedures.
If you can’t handle a man over 90, with one leg, armed with a fucking adapted butter knife without resorting to force(not even 2 minutes into the conversation) then you shouldn’t be trusted to have power over the general public.
The care home staff are to blame for this aswell, no need to call the police in this instance.
Urinary Tract Infection, dehydration causes delirium. Any rookie whose worked around old people know this. The perpetrators will most likely be doxed, even found non guilty. Disgust doesn’t come close to how sick this makes me.
Absolute piss take that people in this country are locked up for defending themselves. But two police officers can pepperspray and taser a 92 year old wheelchair bound man with a butter knife.
I wonder if they took a softer approach, it would have been a different outcome.
The ol fella was clearly confused, and the two officers came in like billy big balls, I don’t even think they really explained to him what was going on…
I’m not the fittest of guys. But I truly believe i could take a knife from a 92 year amputee without using too much force or a taser
They might have got off legally but this is fucking embarrassing for them.
Just pointing out, the whole problem of police not chasing criminals on scooters, not arresting shoplifters and basically not policing in general began/begins with all the bleeding heart liberals here vilifying the police for doing their job effectively.
Criminality and/or dangerous behavious should not be excused due to age or mental/physical capacity.
“Smith previously told jurors he did not see that the pensioner was disabled and using a wheelchair until after the incident as he was focused on the knife.
In his evidence, Smith also denied hitting Mr Burgess with a baton, claiming he flicked it towards the pensioner’s wrist to “knock the knife out” of his hand.
Meanwhile, Comotto said she believed using the Taser was the safest way to “protect” Mr Burgess as she feared her colleague using the baton again would cause more harm”
So, he didnt see the wheelchair, a large and conspicuously noticeable aid..
He ‘flicked’ the baton. What a way to play it down
If he truly didn’t see the wheelchair, that raises questions about, his situational awareness, you know a key skill for police. Was his focus was so tunneled that he couldn’t properly assess the scene?
Hes contradicted himself. He describe the level of control and precision he suggests with the baton flick, hes aware enough to aim precisely at a wrist, he should’ve been aware enough to notice a wheelchair, no?
Hes a lying pos
I’m not surprised they were cleared but in my opinon the only thing that was in danger that day was the threat of toast being buttered.
My mother lives with me, she is 92 years old too, and has dementia, and she has some major tantrums where she threatens me. She also has the advantage of having two legs and gets around with a walker.
If she threatened me with a butter knife, I would feel about as threatened as if a toddler had done it. She can barely hold it, let alone muster the strength or speed to be any threat at all, unless I tripped and fell onto the blade.
Some 92 year-olds are quite fit for their age. However, I think the ‘tell’ is the wheelchair and the fact he only had one leg.
He was sitting in a chair, if the police officer cannot deal with him without violence then they should not be cops.
Utterly disgusting. Those two Police officers need to go.
I’m not defending the police but my wife works with elderly dementia patients as a nurse. She regularly comes home with bad bruising and pinch injuries and has on one occasion been pushed over by patients in their 80s and 90s. People with dementia are often confused and don’t know their own strength.
As a cop, I’m amazed based on the video I’ve seen that they haven’t been convicted. I was formally taser trained and have lots of experience in using force, and being able to justify it.
This, absent of other information, appears manifestly excessive. To my understanding this was a case where they could simply have left him in the room as nobody else was in it, and there has been no suggestion he was looking to harm himself.
One of the things you are taught in taser training is the BUGEE principles
Be prepared to back off, Use of effective cover, Give space and time if possible, Early negotiation, Evacuate immediate area. Whilst in some cases it’s not possible to back off or do these things, they were absolutely available to these officers. Either by backing off to the door meaning they could easily close it if he did get up, or just by taking some time to speak to him, calm him down.
I normally don’t like judging things off one short clip, but with the context given in the article I find this almost impossible to defend.
I’ll be amazed if they survive a misconduct hearing.
I have a friend whose sister is in a mental asylum, I feel like in those places you should be allowed to be a bit crazy – she is up for assaulting a care worker. She is not in her right mind so I don’t get it.
Should have been both done for murder or at the very least manslaughter.
It’s not just these two that have mucked up, every police force in the world carrying any forms of weapons/gears needs to be reformed. The current protocol is: protecting themselves is top priority, everything else is secondary. From the moment one is required to carry gears/weapons for their profession, one needs to acknowledge they will be at risk while protecting the citizens. There’s none of that today. What’s worst is none of them are able to even use their own good judgements. Sad reality, all blind coward fools.
Lawful but awful.
A misconduct hearing will follow; I wouldn’t be surprised if they both get binned off.
I cannot see any justification for using a batten , pepper spray and taser on a man who didn’t even attempt to get out of the chair in the video.
Unfortunately things like this should be highlighted more and just give a bit of context to how people can abuse their role as a police officer.
The problem is I’m not surprised.
If we can’t convict plod of assault in a case as completely straightforward as this… words fail me.
this is where a “by the book with no deviation” attitude ends up, a couple of plod who know so long as they follow the rules to the absurd letter they are bomb proof.
never mind what happens to the poor sod concerned, especially in a situation where everyone keeping back and just waiting was probably called for but would have taken too long
couple of former coppers in the family, both utterly disgusted by this
They’ll act tough against a disabled elderly man but act against the scum that roam the streets? Suddenly too craven to do anything. Europe is lost lest we do something drastic.
They tried to escalate and he swung at them repeatedly with a knife. Your age and being an amputee doesn’t free you from your responsibilities. They had every right to sedate him
Can they not do this to stoners with Bullies? Fucking sick of them and roll on the shit weather as they won’t be out smoking that shit and preventing decent people from opening their windows. Arses.
Tbh I’m surprised this made the news, I cared for patients with dementia and they were treated like violent criminals by a lot of Drs, community alarm and police. As a care assistant I saw them escalate situations that were easy to deescalate, it made me wonder if they were just taking out their bad day on patients.
How is this ok?
Their actions resulted in him dying.
Apparently they were only at the care home a couple of minutes before they confronted him. So no time to get this vulnerable person’s background.
There seems to be more cases these days that the justice system is in conflict with a sizable amount of the population.
Cleared by a jury, but you know better?
Exactly how? Talk me through how you know better.
Police can get away with anything in this country. Not one member of the police has ever seen the inside of a jail cell for their role in the Hillsborough disaster. Not one member of the police has ever seen the inside of a jail cell for murdering Jean Charles Dr Menezes because they thought he looked like a terrorist suspect. Why does anyone think there would be consequences for murdering (yes he died because of their actions) a 92 year old disabled man.
Fucks sake.
That video was horrific, the old boy could have been dealt with by throwing a towel over his head.
Only seen the knife and not the wheel chair 😱 think some retraining is needed for those two officers
I can’t believe an actual jury found them not guilty. Was the jury full of police officers? I’ve not seen anyone support the amount of force these 2 used so far.
Okay so you definitely don’t work in healthcare lol
A toddler could have disarmed the man quicker and with less force than the two drips in cosplay outfits who pretty much highlight the incompetence and snowflakery of British police these days when they feel threatened by a 92yr old man with one leg in a wheel chair…