Cop Fatally Tasered Grandmother In Nursing Home

An Australian police officer was found guilty of manslaughter Wednesday for fatally tasering a 95-year-old great-grandmother in a nursing home who was suffering from dementia, according to a report.

A jury found Kristian White, 34, guilty during a trial in Sydney of shocking Clare Nowland in the chest on May 17, 2023, in the Yallambee Lodge nursing home, causing her to fall backward and hit her head on the floor, the Australian reported.

She died a week later in the hospital.

White, who is free on bail, faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year.

White and another officer responded to a call of a "very aggressive resident" at the nursing home who was wielding two knives when they encountered Nowland.

The woman, who weighed about 100 pounds and used a walker, had entered the rooms of four residents before officers arrived and had thrown a knife at one of the staff, the Associated Press reported.

White's defense lawyer claimed that the officer "had to disarm" Nowland, a grandmother to 24 and great-grandmother to 30.

"It's not the case that the accused could have turned on his heels. ... It was his job to obtain a resolution," Troy Edwards said in his closing statement.

But the prosecutor argued that White's response was a "disproportionate response to the situation," pointing out Nowland's age, lack of mobility and dementia.

"This was such an utterly unnecessary and obviously excessive use of force on Mrs, Nowland that it warrants punishment for manslaughter," Brett Hatfield told the jury.

He also told the jury to consider White's remark, "bugger it" before he fired his service Taser, that he said indicated the officer was "fed up, impatient, not prepared to wait any longer."

Audible gasps were heard in the courtroom when the verdict was read, the Australian reported, and Nowland's family said it would take "some time to come to terms with the jury's confirmation that Clare's death at the hands of a serving NSW police officer was a criminal and unjustified act."

White did not speak as he left court and got into a waiting car.