Police officer who shocked woman

A police officer who fatally shocked a 95-year-old woman with a Taser in an Australian nursing home has been found guilty of manslaughter after the jury found that the great-grandmother, who was holding a knife, did not pose an “imminent” threat. Senior Constable Kristian White was one of two police officers called in May last year to Yallambee Lodge, a nursing home in regional New South Wales, when staff asked for help with a resident who was holding two knives as she pushed a mobility walker around the facility. Clare Nowland – who had dementia – had refused her carers’ requests to return to her room and threw a knife at a staff member that fell on the floor before they dialed emergency services, according to court documents. The court heard she had been cornered in an office by police and paramedics and had refused to put down a steak knife when White deployed his Taser. The jury deliberated for just over three days before returning a verdict of guilty to one charge of manslaughter against White for breaching his duty of care to Nowland and engaging in an unlawful and dangerous act. White had told the court he believed that a “violent confrontation was imminent” – the condition for firing a Taser under standard operating procedures in New South Wales. The rules state that a Taser may only be used against elderly people in “exceptional circumstances.”