Chicago police Taser 82-year-old woman

[bumpus]

By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer Tue Nov 6, 11:13 PM ET

CHICAGO - Chicago's Police Department is investigating an officer's use of a Taser last month on an 82-year-old woman who police say was swinging a hammer when they arrived.

Lillian Fletcher was rushed to the hospital after being jolted by the Taser last week but has been released, police said Tuesday.

Officials with the city's Department on Aging went to her home Oct. 29 to make a welfare check and called police when they saw Fletcher in a window swinging a hammer, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday.

Officers arrived and in an attempt to subdue Fletcher, one of them used a Taser, Bond said.
The department is trying to determine whether the officer .............

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071107/...XLd.Gy7HhH2ocA

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[DW]

Just another reason why I don't like the police...and I know there are good ones out there.

[HermitJohn]

Lucky she didnt have any raw milk in her possession, then they would have had to use deadly force.....

[krondor2]

since when is swinging a hammer a criminal offense?

[Sumer]

OMG ! Couldnt they just have out run her if she was so dangerous?

[YounGrey]

Thats just sick!

[Pink_Carnation]

If they just leave and she is ranting and raving and she hurts herself because she is out of it they get sued.

Fletcher at times sounded confused during the telephone interview. Her granddaughter Traci Taylor told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandmother has schizophrenia and dementia.

With schizophrenia and dementia there is no telling what she was trying to do with the hammer...just because she is 82 doesn't mean she isn't dangerous.

[Laura]

The men and women in this nation who work with the most difficult segments of this society, in prisons, mental hospitals, homes for the developmentally disabled and the emotionally disturbed, know how to disarm and contain an out of control person from hurting themselves or others. 99.9% of the time they do this without any weapons of any kind, no one gets hurt and the situation is controlled. It's called training.

Police departments need to focus more on training and less on gadgets. Every cop who carries a taser needs to have it used on them before they are allowed to carry one. There is absolutely no excuse for tasering a crazy old woman, even if she did have a hammer.

Acceptable word fail me to say what I think of cops like this.

[Quint]

She's lucky they didn't just shoot her. They're really good at executing people and calling it either an accident or justifying it.

Just another symptom of militarized, hooliganized, out of control, power mad "law enforcement". You're only going to see more of it and it will just get worse and worse. Make no mistake about it, they're no longer peace officers but a paramilitary force - a standing army quartered among the citizenry. Their job is to get their boot on the neck of the citizenry, break them and make them compliant to the state.

[SherryR]

you got that right, quint.
Not too long ago, a 27 year old female police officer tazered a 72 year old lady, who according to the p.o., was becoming 'excited and a threat'. The woman didn't have any weapons, just was 'advancing' on the 27 year old. (Pretty scary! Having worked in nursing homes in the past, I know how 'powerful' those senior citizens are!)
I know of some responsible, respectable police officers. I dont trust or like most of what I've seen.
Authority without maturity & respect makes for a bully.
Sherry

[DixyDoodle]

Wow, so many people who hate the police. I wonder who's the first person you will all want to call when you are in trouble? Sure, there are bad cops, but there are good ones too.

Every cop who carries a taser needs to have it used on them before they are allowed to carry one. There is absolutely no excuse for tasering a crazy old woman, even if she did have a hammer.

Here where I live, the cops DO have to be tasered and blasted with pepper spray to boot.

While I don't think tasering is always the answer, I personally would prefer to stay at arms length of anyone (particularly those that are mentally unstable) if they are waving a hammer at me. What does age have to do with it? Is it more acceptable to get your head bashed from an old lady than a younger person? Not everyone who is a senior is frail. I'm not sure if perhaps the cops did try to reason with her or attempt physical restraint (and then, of course, I suppose there would be a charge of physical assault for the cops' trouble ). Since we weren't there, perhaps there is more to this story than we know.

I feel sorry for the police. Like someone said, they have to deal with all the angry, crazed people in the world and get little thanks for it.

[DixyDoodle]

Having worked in nursing homes in the past, I know how 'powerful' those senior citizens are

If you worked in nursing homes, then you know that many seniors ARE capable of causing harm---although by the time they make it to a nursing home, they are often too frail (this lady was living on her own and was a big woman to handle to boot).

My mother worked in a pyschiatric hopsital for decades, including the senior's ward, and the seniors were more than capable of hurting other people. Particularly when they were reacting to or off their meds or having an episode. Sometimes with mania comes an almost superhuman strength, and they are often not even aware that they are causing themselves pain.

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by Sumer

OMG ! Couldnt they just have out run her if she was so dangerous?

Many cops have a condition called TMD* that prevents them performing physical evasion even from the elderly.


*TMD=Too Many Donuts

[Oggie]

If she had a hammer,
I'd taze her in the morning.
I'd taze her in the evening,
with a hammer in her hand.
That hammer means danger.
I'd taze her a warning.
I'd taze me up some love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

[watcher]

Get rid of the tazers and go back to the old billy club. A couple of good hard strikes to an 82 y.o.'s knees or elbows should allow the cops to get the hammer from her. Of course it would most likely leave her crippled for the rest of her poor life but at least she'd never been tazered.

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

Tazer? Everything these days is so high tech. In the old days, the Chicago Police would have subdued her with a good old fashioned baton beating.

RF

[bumpus]

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A 6 year old can kill you with a knife.

An 82 year old woman can kill you with a hammer.

No all 82 year old women are not little old feeble wheel chair people.

bumpus
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[Laura]

I am nearly 50 years old, have spinal arthritis, chronically sprained neck and a torn shoulder muscle. I can STILL take down and render harmless, without harming him or myself, a 6'3" 235 pound 17 year old defensive tackle and wrestling captain who didn't think I could do it and didn't want me to do it. I can do this because I trained until it is normal body movements.

A long time ago, I worked with felonious youth, then I worked with mentally disabled teenagers. These are people you can't just bust their kneecaps and crack their skulls, but have tantrums to rival any two year old. My DH works in a max-med security prison. He handles the worst of the worst without any weapons. We practice together and the training includes disarming and taking down big bad guys with guns, knives and hammers. A little ol' lady with a hammer ain't nothing.

Again, it is training and the cops need this kind of training more than they need their bully toys. If correctional officers can do it, so can the street cops. I am sick of reading about and seeing videos of wussy cops tasering and shooting accident and burn victims in shock and little old ladies.

[Bret]

Originally Posted by Oggie

If she had a hammer,
I'd taze her in the morning.
I'd taze her in the evening,
with a hammer in her hand.
That hammer means danger.
I'd taze her a warning.
I'd taze me up some love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

I am afraid of both tasers and hammers. Are we sure that this was not shock therapy?

Oggie, I thought that there was a writer's strike.

[watcher]

Originally Posted by Laura

I am nearly 50 years old, have spinal arthritis, chronically sprained neck and a torn shoulder muscle. I can STILL take down and render harmless, without harming him or myself, a 6'3" 235 pound 17 year old defensive tackle and wrestling captain who didn't think I could do it and didn't want me to do it. I can do this because I trained until it is normal body movements.

A long time ago, I worked with felonious youth, then I worked with mentally disabled teenagers. These are people you can't just bust their kneecaps and crack their skulls, but have tantrums to rival any two year old. My DH works in a max-med security prison. He handles the worst of the worst without any weapons. We practice together and the training includes disarming and taking down big bad guys with guns, knives and hammers. A little ol' lady with a hammer ain't nothing.

Again, it is training and the cops need this kind of training more than they need their bully toys. If correctional officers can do it, so can the street cops. I am sick of reading about and seeing videos of wussy cops tasering and shooting accident and burn victims in shock and little old ladies.

Depts don't have time to train. They also have to lawerproof themselves. The less 'hands on' contact an officer has with someone the less chance a lawyer can call him an out of control bully with a badge.

Can you imagine the press if a couple of officers had bodily tackled the lady and had left her bruised or worse yet broken a bone in her sweet little hammer swinging body?

I can see it now:

82 Year Old Woman Hospitalized After Savage Attack by Police!!!!