The Australian police reported this Wednesday the death of a 95-year-old woman with senile dementia who was reduced last week with a taser gun by a police officer when she was carrying a knife inside a nursing home.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm the death of Clare Nowland, aged 95, tonight. Mrs Nowland died peacefully in hospital,” the New South Wales police said on their Facebook page.
The police highlighted the imprint left by the woman in her community and specified that the family has asked for privacy in these “difficult times.”
The agent who reduced her with the taser gun after going for an emergency call to the nursing home in the town of Cooma, about 430 kilometers southwest of Sydney, was suspended from employment.
The event occurred on Wednesday of last week when the agent, with 12 years of experience and who has not been identified, and a partner went to the Yallambee nursing home after a call was received because the woman was “armed” with a knife. .
When the elderly woman refused to drop the knife and “slowly” approached the agents in her walker, the officer shot her with his Taser pistol in the chest and back, causing the grandmother, who weighs about 43 kilograms and 1, 57 centimeters tall, fell and hit his head.
After the incident, which shocked the country, the elderly woman was admitted to the hospital and the authorities opened an investigation.
This case has once again highlighted the controversial use of tasers by the Australian police, questioned by organizations that guarantee rights such as Amnesty International.
In 2012, the Brazilian student Roberto Curti lost his life in Sydney after receiving 14 electric shocks from the Police, in an incident in which a court in the country found four officers guilty in 2014 for the excessive use of force that led to the death of Curti, who suffered a psychotic episode after ingesting a psychotropic substance.
