Police Georgia police defend tasing 87-year-old grandmother

[pipedreams]

Rather a sad story all the way around.

"A police department in Georgia is defending its decision to tase a 87-year-old grandmother who was cutting dandelion greens outside her house.

Martha Al-Bishara was tased outside her Chatsworth home when she was encountered by a local police officer as she was cutting leaves with a knife last week. After noticing the tool, the officer asked the woman to drop the knife and when she didn’t, he tased her."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/402405-georgia-police-defend-tasing-87-year-old-woman-who-spoke-poor

Edited August 18, 2018 by pipedreams

[Boogieman]

Might have been a bit excessive.  A better option might have been pepper spray and a flying body tackle.

[gwalchmai]

Sounds like Chatsworth has a big budget surplus.

[Andyd]

56 minutes ago, Boogieman said:

Might have been a bit excessive.  A better option might have been pepper spray and a flying body tackle.

I also find it excessive but apart from what we consider from the comfort of our homes, at the keyboard, it is a decision that an officer has to make to protect also himself and his fellow officers. My youngest son is a police officer and got both tasered and pepper sprayed. He found being pepper sprayed worse. Tasers lock the muscles into spasms and cause more pain, the more muscle mass there is, the worse it hurts and despite the fact that my son dead lifts 530 lbs, he found being maced much worse with also longer lasting side effects.  Also, when you consider the bone density of an 87 year old woman, a flying tackle might be worse than macing, or getting tasered.

 

I further think that the requirement for getting an immigrant visa should be that immigrants and recipients of work visas have to pass an English language proficiency test, it would eliminate the language barrier and raise the quality of life for immigrants, too. 

[PATCHMAN]

"If three police officers couldn't handle an 87-year-old woman, you might want to reconsider hanging up your badge," said Solomon Douhne, the woman's great-nephew. 

 

^^^ This is an often repeated stupidity.  He omitted to mention her knife.  And what is he proposing?  That it would be better if one of the LEO acted as a pin cushion... while the remaining 2 went hands on with her?    

Edited August 18, 2018 by PATCHMAN

[Silentpoet]

Pepper spray might also have more respiratory effects on an 87 year old woman.  I know it does with toddlers and infants.  Policy was we weren’t to deploy pepper spray in the vicinity of young children.  

 

If the woman was advancing with a blade, it might have been within policy and training to use the taser.  Maybe not within wiser officer’s discretion, but within the training the officer was given.

[M&P15T]

1 hour ago, Andyd said:

I further think that the requirement for getting an immigrant visa should be that immigrants and recipients of work visas have to pass an English language proficiency test, it would eliminate the language barrier and raise the quality of life for immigrants, too. 

This. We need to get English declared as the official language of this country, and require everyone that lives or aspires to live here, proficient in it.

[willie-pete]

I am sure the civil trial lawsuit will get it all sorted out.

 

I believe I see one coming down the road.

[Sigobsessed]

I think that the officer probably made the right decision , even an 87yr old lady can cutcha pretty good! We don’t know how big the knife was either coulda been a machete sized blade or a paring knife, either way it could do some damage!

[PATCHMAN]

24 minutes ago, willie-pete said:

I am sure the civil trial lawsuit will get it all sorted out.

 

I believe I see one coming down the road.

Lawsuit?  That goes without saying.  I'm sure even if the grandma hadn't been tazed, her family would have contemplated suing for her being stopped for cutting dandelion leaves.  

[Will Beararms]

Speak the language or get the bleep out of the country. 

Andrew Dice Clay

[TeaDub]

You don't need to know English when you have a gun and a taser pointed at you by the police.

[fortyofforty]

Anything else would have been ageist.  Everyone gets treated equally.

[willie-pete]

21 minutes ago, fortyofforty said:

Anything else would have been ageist.  Everyone gets treated equally.

 

If you can taze an 8 YO girl you can certainly light up an 87 YO grandmother.  Of course, they got sued also.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/09/us/south-dakota-taser-lawsuit/index.html

Edited August 18, 2018 by willie-pete

[pipedreams]

Like I said, sad story all the way around.  Collecting dandelion greens wouldn't require much of a knife.  Don't want to 2nd guess anyone but I see police training going along the same line as school teachers.  Anything that looks like a weapon even if it is a toy key chain pistol, zero tolerance.  Strict guidelines and you get wrote up if you use discretion.

 

[Boogieman]

5 hours ago, Andyd said:

Also, when you consider the bone density of an 87 year old woman, a flying tackle might be worse than macing, or getting tasered.

While typing did you hear a loud WHOOOOSH overhead?  ?

[Glocks4Freedom]

7 hours ago, pipedreams said:

Rather a sad story all the way around.

"A police department in Georgia is defending its decision to tase a 87-year-old grandmother who was cutting dandelion greens outside her house.

Martha Al-Bishara was tased outside her Chatsworth home when she was encountered by a local police officer as she was cutting leaves with a knife last week. After noticing the tool, the officer asked the woman to drop the knife and when she didn’t, he tased her."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/402405-georgia-police-defend-tasing-87-year-old-woman-who-spoke-poor

 

 

[PATCHMAN]

3 hours ago, pipedreams said:

Like I said, sad story all the way around.  Collecting dandelion greens wouldn't require much of a knife.  Don't want to 2nd guess anyone but I see police training going along the same line as school teachers.  Anything that looks like a weapon even if it is a toy key chain pistol, zero tolerance.  Strict guidelines and you get wrote up if you use discretion.

 

Not sure how much of a knife is considered "too much."  But why should a LEO even have to get pricked by a pin, a needle or small knife?  IDK.  

If school teachers and LEOs are expected to wear bullseye targets, be pin cushions or punching bags before they can react, then OK, train them to wear bullseye targets, pin cushions and punching bags before they're allowed to react.     

Edited August 18, 2018 by PATCHMAN

[Andyd]

1 hour ago, Boogieman said:

While typing did you hear a loud WHOOOOSH overhead?  ?

I did not get shot at in a long time and am grateful for  it. So, I did not hear the bullet .

Edited August 18, 2018 by Andyd

[Boogieman]

27 minutes ago, Andyd said:

I did not get shot at in a long time and am grateful for  it. So, I did not hear the bullet .

While typing did you hear a second loud WHOOOOSH overhead? 

[DWARREN123]

Some grannies can be badass. Big knife and language barrier may have been a problem.

[Huaco Kid]

8 hours ago, Sigobsessed said:

We don’t know how big the knife was either coulda been a machete sized blade or a paring knife,

They're gonna need a bigger taser...

[PATCHMAN]

But whose's problem?  Local LE's problem because their LEOs don't speak all the languages of the community?  Or the community's residents' problem because they don't (intentionally or not) tell their elderly relatives "when someone in uniform stops to talk to you, don't walk away."

 

Off the top of my head, this is the second such incident where an elderly person had 9-1-1 called on them and got hurt because they tried   to walk away.  The first was the grandfather from India.   Maybe it's a cultural thing.  Or an old person thing.  IDK.  

[Lagamor]

I don’t care if she’s holding Excalibur you don’t tase an 87 year old woman. 

She probably said something nasty about the officer’s pink mesh tank top and had it coming though. 

[fortyofforty]

There was a time when police officers were all big, burly guys who liked to fight.  If somebody acted up or refused to comply, he'd get an ass-whipping (and knew it beforehand).  People got bruised.  People got roughed-up.  People got hurt.  Bones were broken.  Today, any use of physical force that requires actually touching a suspect can lead to lawsuits and claims of excessive force.  Tasers were introduced to replace pepper spray and mace, that replaced collapsible batons, that replaced side-handle batons, that replaced Maglites, that replaced saps and slaps and blackjacks.  At each step, efforts were being made to decrease the risk of permanent injury to suspects, while increasing the ability of smaller officers to project power.  I don't expect an officer to stand around for an hour negotiating with someone to drop a knife, nor risk being stabbed by a person who might be unstable.  Without more information, I hesitate to jump on the media bandwagon and second-guess what the officer involved did.

Edited August 19, 2018 by fortyofforty