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A police officer in Australia who shocked a 95-year-old nursing home resident with a Taser was found guilty of her manslaughter on Wednesday.
A jury found Sen Const Kristian James Samuel White guilty in the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney after 20 hours of deliberation. Clare Nowland, a great-grandmother who had dementia and used a walker, was refusing to put down the steak knife she was holding when White discharged his Taser at her in May 2023.
Nowland, a resident of Yallambee Lodge, a nursing home in the town of Cooma , fell backwards after White shocked her. She hit her head and died a week later in hospital.
The extraordinary case prompted a high-level internal investigation by state police in New South Wales. It also provoked debate about how officers in the state use Tasers, a device that incapacitates using electricity.
Police said at the time of her death that Nowland received her fatal injuries from striking her head on the floor, rather than directly from the device's debilitating electric shock.
In video footage played during the Supreme Court trial, 34-year-old White was heard saying “nah, bugger it” before discharging his weapon, after the officers told Nowland 21 times to put the knife down. White told the jury he had been taught that any person wielding a knife was dangerous, the Guardian reported.
But after an eight-day trial, the jury rejected arguments by White's lawyers that his use of the Taser was a proportionate response to the threat posed by Nowland.
The prosecutor argued that White's use of the Taser was was “utterly unnecessary and obviously excessive," local news outlets said.
The charge of manslaughter carries a possible prison term of up to 25 years in jail in New South Wales. White is on bail.
Nowland was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren, the Australia's ABC reported.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
7 Comments
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The_Beagle
Absolutely. Good to see the jury was clear-headed and rational.
finally rich
what an underpaid profession
dutch
a grown man scared of a 95 year-old with a kitchen knife
Utterly pathetic.
John-San
I watch a parts of a video released. The very old lady was hiding down a hallway when the copper walk pass pass this hallway. Then this frail old lady appear using her walker preceded in the opposite way of the cop at 3 minute per 10 meters, just shuffling along at sail pace. When the hand holding the knife slipped of the walker she was very unsteady and it was very hard to keep her balance. The lady was Aboriginal elder and for corrective. servicer to house this prisoner it will have very limited options.
Daniel Neagari
Some body needs to teach some people the difference between Protect the public and Kill innocent people are two different things
Michael Corleone
does a white australian police officer really need diversity training to understand why some people just don't want to even listen to what he's saying?
serving the community means serving the whole community, even the ones that don't like you...
because it's not their fault!!
Fighto!
Correct decision.
If you cannot disarm an incapacitated 95-year-old woman using a walker without tasering her, you are clearly in the wrong job.
The old woman was not Aboriginal.