Lawyers are suing the New South Wales police for tasering a 95-year-old woman. Clare Nowland who is a great grandmother died in May after the incident. She was suffering from dementia. She passed a way a week after police shot her with an electronic stun gun at her nursing home in New South Wales.
The cause of death was due to critical injuries including a fracture to the skull. The incident had caused public outcry. At the time of the incident, NSW police commissioner Karen Webb had refused to release bodycam footage of the incident saying she would not view it herself until investigators had completed gathering evidence.
The Australian Family Sues
The family’s lawyer Sam Tierney said that they are filing a civil suit. Tierney said that the family has chosen not to issue any statement regarding the lawsuit.
A 33-year-old senior police constable has also been charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm on the Australian, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault over the incident.
The incident happened when officers were called to the Yallambee Lodge nursing home because they were told by the staff that a woman was “armed with a knife”.
In actual fact the woman was elderly and moved at a very slow pace and she was holding a serrated steak knife at the time.
Community advocate and local businessman Andrew Thaler said that Nowland was only 5 foot 2 and about 43 kg. She was not able to walk without assistance.
“The use of a taser when a kind word was all she needed, if she was confused – which is what happens with people who have dementia – she needed kind words and assistance and help. She didn’t need the force of the law as it were,” said Thaler.
A pre-trial for the civil suit will be held on August 24 at the Bega District Court.
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The photo above is from Wikipedia