84-year old Woman Smashed Into the Ground By Cops

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


I can afford to be self righteous in this matter, as my hands and mind are clean. I do not condone what this police woman did, nor do i defend such actions.

I do not go around hurting or injuring people because i cannot control myself or my emotions.

I have never slammed anyone into the concrete, let alone an octogenarian woman.

If it was as you say, a twisting motion that resulted in the 84 year old, frail woman to 'fall over' (that's priceless btw, she fell over your honour!), then why didn't the second cop just grab her wrist from behind, bent her wrist gently 'against the grain', and she would have been physically incapable of holding the knife, or anything else for that matter...but no...

It was an obvious Judo throw...anyone with eyes can see that from the video. This was not a case of trying to twist the knife away, for that the twisting motion would be in the opposite direction, and would have required a LOT less force of motion to boot!

Ask any martial arts student...(and you say you have 30+ years martial arts experience?!! What in Origami?) any mental institute nurse...any...ok, MOST policemen and women, and they will tell you the same thing.

I understand and accept that we should support our police forces, for the most part they do a fine job of work, under tough conditions sometimes..but the flipside of that particular coin, is that we are under an obligation to highlight and make a loud noise when the police do not do such a fine job, and hopefully the bad apples are thrown out to stop the spread of rot. At the very least, training procedures could be reviewed and updated a a result.

I for one, support my local police. I do not tar all with the same brush because of the actions of one or a few. I prefer to tar the one or the few responsible.

To ignore this behavior in order to vindicate the whole police service is illogical and dangerous, and it's sends a bad message to the younger, perhaps more impressionable police coming up through the ranks that this is the way to deal with a situation such as this.

If you can't accept that, fine...but attacking my attitude doesn't change a thing.



[edit on 14/8/2009 by spikey]

Originally posted by defenestrator
reply to post by blueorder

 

And your post wasn't bluster?

I've disarmed more frightening foes than this, that's just funny, blueorder, really gave me a good chuckle. Good luck with your weird life. I'll just lurk on this board some more, it's pointless to comment, too many trolls.

I have never said I could disarm an 80 year old granny with absoloute certainty- it would be a bloody awkward one, do I let her ramble about until she stabs herself or someone else, do I tazer her and possibly give her a heart attack, do I approach her gently and my goodness the old dear has a fair bit of strength in her and has stabbed me in the eye- don't get me wrong, I think cops are becoming like the stasi, but it aint a defined outcome the one we have just watched

Originally posted by Ha`la`tha
Years ago in the city here in Perth, I remember a time when I was at the bus port and there was this old lady, screaming and crying because she didn't remember where she lived. She was completely out of it, lost, confused and scared. No one did anything to help her, and most walked away.

It took one bus driver to walk up to her, and treat her as he would have treated his own mum, and smile to her, asking her if he could help.

The difference was astounding. She calmed down, and explained to him she was lost, despite her having gotten to the city by herself.

Im not sure what happened after that, but I remember a scared old lady, who was frantic with fear, being consoled with the words of a stranger - and not thrown to the ground in order to keep her at bay and shut he up.

OUR GRANDMOTHERS ARE WORTH THAT EFFORT.

Dear god.... the taste in my mouth is not getting sweeter as I read how some people attempt to explain this as reasonable...

Are we as humans now incapable of the most basic compassion? To think that throwing an old lady to the ground, under any circumstance, is abhorrent to me.

I know the human species is doomed, but I had no idea we were that abhorrent as a whole so soon..

So why didn't YOU go talk to her, instead of stand around and WAIT for someone else to do it? SO you bash and badmouth yet just admit you did NOTHING when an opportunity presented itself....like most posters on ATS when it comes to judging cops...your a hypocrite...way to go!

Originally posted by SG-1-9er
A trained police officer should of been able to disarm the lady without hurting her no matter what her age or condition was. It really isn't that hard for 2 people to seize a single knife, unless it is being held by a professional knife fighter. I would assume she wasn't a professional knife fighter.

WOW...can you be anymore inexperianced with knife incidents? Soo in your very inexperianced mind, the only dangerous people with a knife are professional knife fighters...lol. Holy crap...you people on ATS really REALLY need to stop watching movies, stop taking BS martial arts classes, get out from behind your computers and see what REALITY is.

I have never heard more people talk smack on their computers then on ATS. Since UFC has gone mainstream all I keep hearing is, MMA this, MMA that, I'm Bruce Lee, I'm Jackie Chan, I'm Jet Li, soooo many hand to hand experts, so many bad asses it makes me wanna vomit. And to all, of you who keep stating you teach law enforcement personnel, please send me your credentials. I would love to have you come teach at my department, and see how TRULY knowledgable you are.

Bottom line most of you have never and will never deal with what cops deal with...EVER! Talking about it from your computer desk and actually being on scene are two different things.

reply to post by rcwj75

like most posters on ATS when it comes to judging cops...your a hypocrite.

Why, because people see injustice and make a call on it, does that make them hypocrites? I think the cops in the Gates case were entirely justified, but the cop who wrote racist nonsense to the paper was not.
I think the cop in this case is totally wrong and either needs training, firing or prosecuting. There are good cops and bad cops, and when the bad cops are seen to be behaving like either animals or imbeciles they should be taken to task on it. I believe in the majority of cases the cops act with admirable restraint. But when you see a rotten apple it should be condemned. If some people are saying that nobody can criticise the police, then that is blindness and therefore you can't really make any judgement at all as you cannot see what is before you.

To those describing that lady in derogatory terms....you have no respect.
To those saying 'If you don't like the way the police are trained, go train them yourself'...don't be utterly ridiculous.
To those making up wild assertions about her slashing and waving the knife around and how dangerous she was...look at the video again.
To those saying she got off lightly as she wasn't shot....you seem to have lost your humanity.

There are several pressure points on the hands that could be effectively used to avoid so much as even a wrist lock. Or a trapezius pinch. Two fingers and a small amount of pressure that doesn't even leave a bruise was all that was required in the way of physical force.

No, I wasn't taught this in nursing school; I learned it myself just to be able to handle such situations as disarming confused elderly people. See, in nursing we're not allowed to body slam people that don't immediately obey us. We're not allowed to "show 'em who's boss, by god". We took an oath to those entrusted to our care. We're also held accountable for assault and battery.

I have worked in Alzheimers units, mental facilities of prisons (criminally insane), nursing homes and emergency departments. I've disarmed people who had homemade and/or store bought weapons (no guns, though). I've never had to slam (or "accidentally" trip) anyone.

If she had been an actual threat I could justify the cops use of some amount of force. She was not an obvious threat even with the knife.

I do agree that the family member who left her in the car is equally responsible for what happened to this woman. Negligence on the daughter's part and excessive force on the cops part= totally preventable tragedy and outrage.

reply to post by oneclickaway


I agree that there are BAD cops. When I see something that I don't agree with I WILL say so. This is not the case in this instance. I have no problems with people having their opinions about those of us in my profession, but stevie wonder can see MANY ATS members speak blindly about us. They have NO idea what it takes, NO idea how to handle stressful situations where your responsible for EVERYONE...you show up on scene and you have to take care of yourself, your fellow officers, the victim, innocent bystandards, and yes even the suspect. Not only do you have to do all this things, and sometimes in a split second, but you do them KNOWING some inexperianced jerkoff who has an opinion is going to armchair quarterback you from the comfort of his/her home being able to stop, rewind, and slow down the video????

Now I do have to say..when people come on here and spew thier nonsense about MMA, training, shoulda, woulda, coulda....they too are open for the simple remarks: Why don't they join the force? Why don't they train LEO's? Why don't they place ads in their local papers..call ME not the police, I am trained in handling the following situations and can do it better then cops? I mean when you bash, bash, bash and basically brag how your the man and could do better...then by all means DO IT better and stop talking about it.

reply to post by spikey


You need to understand how an LEO is trained to handle an armed suspect.

and yes a 84 year old woman is an armed suspect and has to be considered dangerous. No matter how feeble, how fragile, or how harmless someone may appear it is when all around them are unsuspecting that the most danger lies.

I HAVE NEVER ONCE SAID THAT THIS COP DID THE RIGHT THING. In fact I openly said and agreed with other members there were better ways to do it most of which involved getting people who weren't trained as police officers.

The officer didn't "lose" it because she wasn't being obeyed, she tackled an armed and uncooperative person.

I will say it one last time: There were better ways to handle this situation, but it got handled the way it did because of a myriad of factors at play. Regardless, without the officer trading the knife for a lollipop I doubt any of you wouldn't be screaming brutality. Police hatred runs deep here, and I understand why; but you have to remember not all people are evil.

And with that I'm finished here. I'm done having to repeat myself to people who refuse to understand a rather simple point. There is REAL police brutality and corruption out there; stop wasting your time on this case. It was excessive, but it wasn't brutal.

this is going against all recent training for dealing with low risk subject, im sure the new revishion of procedure is to mace or zap the crap out of them first with a taser, beat them sensless with a night stick, kick them when there kuffed and face down and then shoot them six times when they try to riggle away, she failed to do all this.

and they failed to beat the the man of ethnic minority in order to take custody of the video for evidence purpasis.

police training isnt what it used to be

reply to post by rcwj75



If the knife wielder would have been say a hostile adult male he would have had service revolver drawn on him. So at least there was that much consideration for the aged woman.

I have had to wrestle deadly weapons from people. A knife and a gun. Had to get some stitches over the knife. The gun went off once but no one was hit. Anyway after all that if confronted with this situation I still wouldn't have needed to slam granny to the ground. But had there been a wounded bystander or something on the ground then I may have acted more forcibly knowing that granny would bite. Maybe my night stick to the wrist with a slight pop at first maybe a little harder the second time if she didn't drop it.

Poor old lady though. I would have felt like a heal if I had broken her arm.

Originally posted by eNumbra

Originally posted by Laurauk
Completely ott, oks they could have managed to obtain the knife from her, without having to resort to slammingher on the ground like that.

What technique would you have used?

I was a psychiatric technician for 11 years, I worked in two state hospitals. I worked on a maximum security unit. There are many ways to disarm someone without resorting to what the cop did. I have been trained multiple times in self-defense and non-violent crisis intervention. The core of the problem here is that cop believes she must "win" the situation NOW, no matter what. It's her ego on the line. She could have waited for enough back up, and 2 or 3 officers could have taken control of her without much violence at all. There is no excuse for that level of violence to be used against a low level threat such as an old lady, knife or not. WAKE UP! We live in a police state. She obviously was in " Contempt of Cop", and that's all it takes, folks...absolutely shameful....

[edit on 14-8-2009 by moonzoo7]

[edit on 14-8-2009 by moonzoo7]

Originally posted by spikey

I can afford to be self righteous in this matter, as my hands and mind are clean. I do not condone what this police woman did, nor do i defend such actions.

I do not go around hurting or injuring people because i cannot control myself or my emotions.
...............

This has nothing to do about "not being able to control myself or my emotions"... Again, you and several other people are reacting out of emotion and being an armchair general claiming "i could have done better"...

It is easy to claim so, but when you are in a situation like that things change...

I feel sorry for the old woman, but at the same time i can understand the police officer had to react as fast and as clean as possible...

People like you would be bashing at the cop nomatter what she did.

BTW, yes i do have a bit over 30 years experience in Martial Arts, although many of those years was training solo, or training with friends in the miltiary.

I have enough experience to know that when in such situations the results are not always what you expect them to be.

If the police officer had been kicking the woman on the ground then I would have agreed that was wrong, but you are being nothing more than armchair selfrighteous generals making claims that "you could have done better and saved the day"...

Originally posted by blueorder
bet you if that mad ould bird had stabbed a kid you lot would be screamin blue murder at the cops

If she had been at home making her meth then it would have been all ok..

Wait, oops, I countered your strawman with mine..

Sorry.. I know, I know....

Well, I've just seen arsenic and old lace - and let me tell you those cops didnt do a good enough job. My god, these old ladies are rampant with their evil deeds.

We must set up a posse and hunt them down wherever possible... Knitting needles must be outlawed - THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!1


[edit on 14/8/2009 by Ha`la`tha]

You are all missing a brighter point, if the Obamacare was in full force this lady could have been made into soylent green long ago!

LOL

LOL

LOL

LOL

But seriously people SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by rcwj75
So why didn't YOU go talk to her, instead of stand around and WAIT for someone else to do it? SO you bash and badmouth yet just admit you did NOTHING when an opportunity presented itself....like most posters on ATS when it comes to judging cops...your a hypocrite...way to go!

As with the other folk, I was not involved. I was NOT stating it was public duty to attend to the damn situation, incase you did not notice, I was stating that it was not the proper way to deal with it by smashing her into the bloody ground. SHE WAS NO DIFFERENT TO THIS OLD LADY. SHE DIDNT GET BASHED TO SHUT HER UP.

Are you and your ilk so frigging incapable of comprehension that you take smacking old people around as proper?

jesus..

this thread has not developed anything close to reason when the unreasonable are still so obnoxious.

DONT WORRY GUYS!!! Shes isnt gonna remeber it anyway. Stop crying.

If my 83 yrld grandmother wants to pick up a knife and walk around a public place then by all means gun her down. Just because people are crazy does not give them and exucse to weild a weapon.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
DONT WORRY GUYS!!! Shes isnt gonna remeber it anyway. Stop crying.

If my 83 yrld grandmother wants to pick up a knife and walk around a public place then by all means gun her down. Just because people are crazy does not give them and exucse to weild a weapon.

Unless they have a uniform!!

Originally posted by billybobh3
What the hell has happened to you people?! JHC, it doesn't matter if she's old, disabled, is having an 'episode' or what-not. She is a DANGER TO SOCIETY. The situation needs to be handled, at the discretion of the officer, to ensure that no harm comes to anyone, INCLUDING the officer.
YOU try to make a better decision in the circumstances given, with NO TIME for wieghing if-then options.

You know what, sometimes things happen unexpectedly, and people don't have the luxury of being able to sit back and think about if-then consequences.

DAMN IT! I AGREE that our society is going to hell, and that we have A LOT to bitch about, but JHC, there are those times when you just can't complain about what is done in a specific circumstance. I feel that this is one of those instances.

And don't give me that CRAP about 'What if it was you're grandma?'. Because I would STILL side with the actions of the officer!

Man, you are sooo . .brainwashed.

We ARE society, and if the majority doesn't like these actions . . the
majority of society . . then maybe YOU"RE out of touch.

And your poor grandmother ! JHC, . . . JHC.

reply to post by Wertdagf



Please tell me, if she's crazy, do you think she knows she's crazy ?

What is this "shoot and ask questions later" mentality all about ?

reply to post by Wertdagf

DONT WORRY GUYS!!! Shes isnt gonna remeber it anyway. Stop crying.

If my 83 yrld grandmother wants to pick up a knife and walk around a public place then by all means gun her down. Just because people are crazy does not give them and exucse to weild a weapon.

Yes well, those that have limited understanding of mental disorder would be unlikely to recognise it in themselves.