Omg...Grandmas watch out...cops out to get us!

[DammitJanet]

72 year old great grandmother tasered.

This is utterly bizarre!

Yes, he probably acted within the books technically but please...if that cop couldnt find any other way of subduing and getting the cuffs on that woman other than tazing, shooting or hitting that 72 year old woman then he needs a new job. My son could have de-escalated that episode with no problem. It really didnt have to become a problem at all. The officer made it into a full on confrontation. Yeah the woman was fiesty but you have to have some people skills!

 

[Hound dog]

And odds are she had hearing issues and wasn't understanding alot of what he was saying either.

Cops are getting way too taser happy.

 

[DammitJanet]

Well, watching the dashcam video on CNN...over and over lol...it does appear she got rather feisty in the beginning. She probably felt he was being a brat and if she told him to take her to jail he would let her go. Once she was out of the car she decided she had enough and would just sign the darned ticket. That is when the cop should have backed down because of her age and knowing he was dealing with someone who may have some problems. Just let her sign the darn ticket and be done with it. Its not like he needed to arrest her. He needed to assuage his ego at this point. No little old lady was gonna get over on him!

 

[muttmeister]

OK, I'm going to weigh in on the other side here. I'm only 10 years (and a few months) from being 72 myself. My mother is 95. Seventy-two is not old. She had no right to refuse to sign the ticket; it says right on the ticket that signing is not an admission of guilt. She was a nasty old woman who deserved what she got. If she was so decrepit at 72 that the laws do not apply to her then she shouldn't be driving. I have no sympathy for her whatsoever and as far as I'm concerned they should give the cop a medal for not shooting her.

 

[mom_to_3]

OMG, Mutt!!!! I had to lol at what you wrote. Actually, I agree with you. It wasn't nice, it wasn't pretty what happened to that woman, but it isn't nice or pretty when it happens to anyone at any age, is it? Follow the rules and don't smart off and I'd like to believe you won't get tazed. It's stirring up a lot of people around the nation.

 

[MaryB]

I'm in Austin and this is all that's talked about here recently. My honest opinion is that the woman didn't follow the officer's instruction. She was verbally abusive. We've had a couple of "old" people recently that open fired and killed people. What was the officer to think? Is she one of these nut jobs? At the same time, I think the officer got way too frustrated dealing with this older difficult child (yea, I really think she is a difficult child). It's a tricky situation. I see both sides but I think the woman was in the wrong. If she had just complied to begin with, none of this would have happened. This piece of road is not mentioned in the news about how dangerous it is and how many people have been killed. Going 60 on a 45?? With construction to fix the problems?! With the deaths and accidents that have happened?? What was she thinking??!!

I'm with the officer on the first taser (she still wouldn't comply) but not on the second--that was way too overboard. I still think the blame lays on the woman--not following the officer's instructions.

MaryB

 

[donna723]

I think he went waaaaay overboard! All kinds of people get feisty and refuse to sign tickets. Tasers are only supposed to be used when there is no other way of subduing the person, when they pose a physical threat to others or to themselves, not just because they refuse to sign a ticket! Yeah, she got hateful with him, but she certainly posed no physical threat to him! I saw this on the news this morning and he said he did it to keep her from walking out into the road ... it looked to me like she was just trying to get to the drivers side door of her car to leave and he certainly could have kept her from doing that without subjecting her to strong electric shocks!

At the prison where I work we have almost 1,500 convicted felons, some of the worst of them. We also have tasers. They are kept locked up and can only be used with the approval of the shift commander. And I think it says a lot that with a population of 1,500 convicted murders, rapists and gang members, they have not found it necessary to use the tasers in years! I don't even remember the last time they had to use a taser! And this guy thinks he needs to use one on a 72 year old grandma because she won't sign a traffic ticket? Awwww, come on!

 

[DammitJanet]

Thats my theory Donna. Good grief. So what if she wont sign it. Take the ticket and toss it in her car! Its on dashcam that she got it!

In SC there was a trooper who got over zealous with a AA woman who didnt pull over quickly enough for this trooper in the middle of the night on a really dark lonely strip of interstate. He was ticked. He dragged this poor woman out of her car and assaulted her. Nothing else you could call what he did to her and it was caught on dashcam. Of course, they tried to say he was in the right at first but in the end he was fired and she filed a huge lawsuit...as well she should.

 

[Marguerite]

It's a tricky one.

They showed it on Aussie news last night. From what we saw (dash cam) the woman kept trying to use her age as justification for her really bad behaviour. A sort of "I'm 72, I'm going to keep telling you I'm 72 and it completely justifies me ignoring all your instructions."

Her resposes to the cop seemed to me to indicate she heard him; he would give her an instruction such as "Get out of the car" and she would reply with, "I'm 72, I don't want to get out." (working from memory here). I'm used to mother in law who really doesn't hear well these days (doesn't like wearing her hearing aid) and I can tell the difference between someone who really can't hear but pretends they can, and someone who CAN hear but is playing dumb.

I get really narky with people who use excuses to justify non-compliance or rude behaviour. People who play the disability card, the race card or the age card INAPPROPRIATELY really get up my nose. easy child had a problem in elementary school, she had called a classmate a b**** and suddenly found herself a target for tis girl and her cousins, they kept harassing her and accusing her of being racist. easy child hadn't realised she'd insulted an Aboriginal girl. In easy child's mind, she insulted a girl, who was being mean. But rather than accept that the girl had been mean and earned the label, they played the race card and turned it onto easy child.
We resolved it (in an unusual way) and later the girl apologised to easy child. "I WAS being a b****."

The trouble is, when people inappropriately claim thta because of their age, because they are disabled or because they are whatever colour/height/gender, that they shouldn't have the rules apply to them - I get cranky. It makes it so much harder for those of us who GENUINELY need to ask for consideration.

But did she need to be tasered?
That depends on what the regulations are. Tasers are just coming in, in Australia. We have very strict rules on their use. But we also have very strict laws on gun use, if it had been in Australia the cop would have been almost 100% certain the woman WASN'T carrying a gun. But maybe it's a misconception from a non-US person here, was it possible tat the cop had to assume thta regardless of the person's age or gender, a member of the public getting abusive, feisty and aggressive COULD be carrying a gun also?

He gave her plenty of warnings that if she didn't comply, he would have to use the taser. She kept screaming, "I'm 72, you can't do that to me."

One point in the woman's favour - at 72, she might not be capable of thinking quite so fast on her feet, may not be good about backing down or changing her attitude in a hurry. I can just picture her in a bank robbery - would she be the one laying into the bank robber with her umbrella, for failing to show proper respect to an old woman? Even with the bank robber pointing a gun at her?

Maybe the cop should have found another way to resolve this. But what if she had been carrying a gun? At least the cop only used a taser...

However, I do wonder if there could also have been a sense of satisfaction in using the taser. "I'll show you, you horrible old woman. NOW see what you have to say. We make no exceptions for anybody, if you don't follow directions."

It would be hard to call this one, but I doubt this cop will be in much trouble. He gave plenty of warnings and the woman was being difficult from the very beginning, from the first time the cop spoke to her. She knew she had just earned a ticket and was trying to bluff her way out of it. She ended up talking herself into a whole lot more trouble. Even if the ticket gets dropped, she now has her image and the tasering plastered all over the world. That's a lot of come-down.

Marg

 

[muttmeister]

I can just picture her in a bank robbery - would she be the one laying into the bank robber with her umbrella, for failing to show proper respect to an old woman? Even with the bank robber pointing a gun at her?

From what I saw I think she'd probably be the one robbing the bank.

 

[DammitJanet]

Oh please...lol. Im normally the most pro-cop person on this board and I think this is awful. And when I heard some mouthpiece say that there had never been any deaths caused by a taser I almost gagged. Yes there have been.

We get upset on here when it happens to a child and this woman wasnt much bigger than some of the kids we get upset over.

 

[Marguerite]

We're still at the "let's try tasers out" stage here in Australia. They've been presented to us as an alternative to cops using guns. We've had a few cases of mentally ill people brandishing knives, who got shot & killed by cops who didn't have any other way of stopping them (like, why not shoot them in the legs, guys?)

When a taser gets used in Australia, it's news here. But I can see this happening here too.

I think it's too difficult to judge, there is more to this story.

A child being tasered - children (depending on their age) are less capable of self-control than an adult. A child behaving like this woman did - I would be uncomforable with the tasering, because the child would need a bit more leeway in my mind, in order to realise what was about to happen and be given a chance to comply.

I suspect there is more to this story than meets the eye. Why was the woman pulled over? Was it for going a smidgin over the speed limit, or a huge amount? Was she driving erratically or dangerously? Did she sideswipe anyone? Or was she, in her mind, donig absolutely nothing wrong? Was the cop having a bad day? Or was he having a typical day?

The debrief would have been interesting...

I don't know enough about your laws around this sort of thing to fully understand what the options were. Our cops don't react like this, we usually aren't asked to get out of the car. A ticket is usually mailed to us. We are legally required to comply with reasonable instructions given to us by police. So for us if the police ask us to get out of the car, we are supposed to do so without arguing about it. That alone could incur another charge in Australia. Although the cops don't usually take advantage of this unless they're really feeling narky.

I suspect in Oz, she wouldn't have got taserd for this (although technically could have) but instead would have been buried under an avalanche of more traffic tickets, endung up withy a "show cause" as to why she should be allowed to continue driving on an unrestricted licence. mother in law has just voluntarily chosen a restricted licence (driving permitted close to home only) because she had reached the age of mandatory annual testing and she really isn't a safe enough driver any more.

Whether you get the taser or some other more subtle retaliation, one important rule from this - never annoy the cops!

But she isn't a child. Her size isn't the issue here, so much as her attitude. If as you say there were oter methods he could have used instead - then I agree, he should have. As I said, I don't know how your system works. But from what I heard, she was asking for trouble of some sort.

Marg

 

[witzend]

72 year old great grandmother tasered

This is utterly bizarre!

Yes, he probably acted within the books technically but please...if that cop couldnt find any other way of subduing and getting the cuffs on that woman

I get what you are saying. in my humble opinion, she was out of control, and he did need to subdue her in some way. If it had been me, I would have been worried that if I grabbed her that she would have flopped herself on the road (instead of falling in a heap) and broken a hip or run and landed in traffic.

What he did was ugly, but whatever he had done to control her would have been ugly. If that woman thinks that she was not out of control, she needs a full work-up from her doctor. She seemed to have some sort of altered mental status.

 

[FlipFlops]

I am pretty pro cop as well. If this had to be a black and white, choose one side or the other thing, I would have to go with the cop.

This kind of reminds me of all the therapists telling me all the time about follow through. If you make the threat of a consequence, you have to follow through. Lady if you don't chill out I am going to taze you...He had to follow through. Like someone else said, if she had just been cooperative in the first place, this never would have happened.

Don't forget, cops deal with people who shoot at them. They don't know who is who until it is too late. They pretty much have to assume we are all bad guys for their own safety.

 

[DammitJanet]

See...here is where I have the biggest problem. I think he was having a bad day. Cops are trained to de-escalate situations.

I know she was out of line. I dont for one minute condone her behavior. If she acted like a rational person none of this would have happened. She should have just done what people are told to do which is put your hands on the wheel and stay still and say yes sir and no sir.

Problem is this cop could have talked her down if he had tried. She wasnt a threat to society. If he had started having a friendly conversation with her about her grandkids or something I am sure things would have turned out much different.

I havent been pulled often...never with me driving but Tony gets stopped often because he works at night or in some iffy places and drives a construction van. He is very good at getting pulled. It never fails that when the cop notices his sheriff dept hat or his marine shirt, they actually look him in the face and the atmosphere seems to lighten up.

 

[witzend]

Yes, he may have started out on the wrong foot. We didn't see that, but it's possible. It's also possible that she was altered, and anything he said could have made her go off. Maybe he did ask about her grandkids, and she got paranoid because her grandkids had talked to her that day about not driving anymore due to her age, or about selling her home and moving to an assisted living center. None of us can know for certain that she wasn't a threat to society. Not all old people are fine upstanding citizens. Some are dirty rotten crooks.

My grandmother had Alzheimer's and by the time she was 43 she was already having psychotic episodes seeing people that weren't there. You might think at that age that it was something else, but it definitely followed the regular progress of Alzheimer's. Her baby sister had the same thing, but it started in her mid-50's. They were totally paranoid about their freedoms, but neither of them drove, thank goodness. It wasn't a time when women needed to drive. If they had ever been stopped by an officer, it would have been awful. My grandma was 5' 10" but her sister was only 5' 2". Either of them might have gotten paranoid enough to carry a gun. My grandpa had to get rid of the weapons for her protection.

 

[KTMom91]

Without seeing anymore than the clip on the news...I have to agree with Witz. All Grandma had to do was follow instructions. While I'm not a big Taser fan, I think his other options were pretty limited. Grab her arm and, if she has osteoporosis, it could break. Or she could fall, he falls on her, and she breaks a hip. It looked to me like she was trying to push him out of the way, and her mouth just kept going.

 

[witzend]

See...here is where I have the biggest problem. I think he was having a bad day.

Maybe he was, but we don't have the full story. If she had been younger or especially a younger man, we wouldn't even begin to feel that way.

And, as Mary B pointed out that in that particular area there have been several shootings involving little old ladies. If she had shot him we would have been befuddled and horrified. But, you and I are each entitled to have different opinions on it.

 

[DammitJanet]

Well, the shootings by little old ladies does add some differences to this story that werent told. He didnt appear worried about that on the video though when he approached her car to have her sign the ticket because he wasnt armed then.

Like I said...he was probably technically correct completely. I agree she was out of control. She did it all wrong.

 

[DDD]

I think those things are just 'too easy" access for law enforcement. I have family members working in three different levels of law enforcement and not one of them think it should be used except in extreme cases. As Donna said.......keep them locked up and then use them with major problems. DDD