CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb has complained that her officers force are expected “to know everything”, as the backlash continues after one of her cops decided to taser a 95-year-old great-grandmother inside a nursing home last week.
This comes after a 95-year-old woman remains hospitalised incident with police at the Yallambee Lodge facility on Wednesday morning.
She was found allegedly holding a steak knife and standing with her walking frame by nursing staff who tried to persuade the 45 kilogram dementia patient to hand it back.
They then called emergency services, with paramedics responding first before police officers arrived as they tried to de-escalate the situation for several minutes – before de-holstering a fucking taser and firing it at the elderly woman – causing her to fall to the ground and strike her head on the floor.
But yes, Police Commissioner Karen Webb has suggested her police can’t be expected to know that maybe it isn’t necessary to use a high powered weapon – usually reserved for incapacitating iced up young men – on a 45-kilogram woman in her mid-90s.
This follows the news that another elderly woman, Rachel Grahame (81) was handcuffed by NSW cops while screaming in a state of distress after committing the heinous crime of taking a nursing staff’s identification and refusing to give it back.
In a nightmare week for the NSW police, which has seen an officer found guilty of leg-sweeping an Indigenous teenager and knocking him unconscious at the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, a finding that was only exacerbated by last night’s ABC Four Corners investigation which revealed that Sydney is the cocaine capital of the entire world.
The NSW Police are being skewered by the public for focusing their energy on roughing up elderly women and black kids rather than ending the city’s out-of-control drug war that is clocking up multiple gang assassinations each week.
However, the NSW Police claim elder-abuse is issue that requires reform or more training – they just need more effective tools to keep old women in their place.
“We need water cannons” said a NSW police spokesperson.
“and rubber bullets”
“Maybe even live bullets. These senior care citizens are pushing our force to breaking point”
