THE THIN BLUE LINE
A 95-year-old woman is in critical condition after police in Australia shocked her with a stun gun as she approached them with a walking frame and a steak knife at her nursing home.
Clare Nowland, who has dementia, was taken down by a senior constable, Peter Cotter, the assistant commissioner of New South Wales Police told a news conference Friday.
At the time, “she was approaching police, but it is fair to say at a slow pace,” he said. “She had a walking frame, but she had a knife.”
Although the police tried to negotiate with Ms. Nowland “for a number of minutes,” he said, “for whatever reason, Clare did not drop the knife.”
Family friend Andrew Thaler claimed Ms Nowland was struck twice – in the chest and the back – before she fell, suffering a fractured skull and a serious brain bleed.
