The Australian police officer who Tasered a 95-year-old woman in a care home has been taken off the job.
Clare Nowland was seriously hurt when cops arrived at her care home at 4 a.m. on Wednesday after hearing that she had a knife and was walking around with it.
Critics have said that the cops and care home staff didn’t do enough to help after the public complained.
As Ms. Nowland gets “end of life care” in the hospital, the investigation into what happened goes on.
New South Wales (NSW) Police said in a statement on Tuesday that the 33-year-old senior officer who Tasered Ms. Nowland has been fired with pay.
Police say that Ms. Nowland was “armed” with a steak knife at the care home in the town of Cooma, which is about 114 km (71 miles) south of Canberra. The officer fired his gun when she started coming towards him “slowly,” which is when he fired his gun.
“She walked with a cane. “But she had a knife,” Peter Cotter, Assistant Police Commissioner, told the reporters on Friday.
After falling and hitting her head during the event, Ms. Nowland is thought to have broken her skull and had a serious brain bleed.
Community groups, like the NSW Council for Civil Liberties and People with Disability Australia (PwD), have been very critical of the reaction and have asked for better de-escalation training.
Andrew Thaler, a family friend, told the BBC on Friday, “The family is shocked and confused, and the community is outraged.”
“How is this possible? How can this much force be explained? It’s crazy.”
In a statement released on Monday, Ms. Nowland’s family thanked people from all over the world for their support but asked for privacy during this “worrying and distressing time.”
The statement said, “Clare is the loving and gentle matriarch of the Nowland family. She is well-liked and respected in her community, and she gives back to it.”
The homicide squad is looking into how the cops and care home staff handled the situation.
Mr. Cotter said, “No officer, not even me, is above the law.”
“All of our actions will also be closely looked at from a criminal point of view.”